FRPP Handling Pack Suspension

[Todd15Fastback]

See, that's really good info and I am glad to hear it, because if you look at bar sizes, the Steeda front is 10% larger than the PP while the rear is a whopping 28% thicker, which on its face would suggest Steeda is designing a drift car! Yet I hear you saying it's a little LESS prone to oversteer than stock. So either bar stiffness is not proportional to bar thickness, or the spring rate balance is different than Ford's, or both.

Just reinforcing the point that you need to know what the parts are going to do, don't just read the numbers. And most of all, don't grab Eibach springs, Steeda sway bars and off-the-shelf Koni dampers and expect it all to play nice together. That SELDOM happens. Someone needs to design an entire suspension to work together. Not saying the components can't come from a variety of sources, just that doing that takes a lot of study and testing to get right. Steeda is really good at the integration. Other firms are, too. But the Summit Catalog (not to pick on Summit) is not an integrator and you can certainly pick badly-matched components that will all bolt on really nicely. Be careful out there!

Yep, valid statements for sure.

I am not a racer at all. Just a guy that loves a very firm and planted suspension on my Mustangs. I don't have a lot of expertise to be able to talk to sway bar thickness, strut and shock valving, etc. So take my comments with a grain of salt

I went all in with Steeda and love my decision. I have been around Mustang's since 1991 and Steeda has always been a player in the game since that time.

I have my front bars on setting 3 and my rear bars on setting 2. This means I have 1 more setting (going firmer) for the front and rear. I will do this when I get ready to track the car. Who knows when that will be.

I plan on waiting for the struts and shocks as well to match them with their existing parts. Everything works in harmony to me while driving on the streets on street tires.

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[Rv-Junke]

Great point...didn't even think of that!

The front to rear delta is what I'd look at...

PP = 0.393
FRP = 0.457
Steeda = 0.25

Assuming material is the same, it looks like the FRP is setup to have more oversteer out of the box.

My guess is that Steeda is trying to reduce a lot of roll and keep it fairly neutral to understeer.

 

[Poppacapp]

Just wanted to update on my buddies car. He finished getting the items on his car. Still needs to have it aligned, and then he will give some driving impressions. He had a before picture, and took a now picture to compare.

According to him, by his measurements, it looks like the front lowered 1.25", and the rear 9/16"

Here are a couple pics to compare:

 

[RyanS550GT]

Just wanted to update on my buddies car. He finished getting the items on his car. Still needs to have it aligned, and then he will give some driving impressions.

Definitely looking forward to his driving impressions.

 

[Rv-Junke]

Thanks...can't wait to hear about the driving feel...also did he get new bolts from Ford? Is that still their recommendation?

Just wanted to update on my buddies car. He finished getting the items on his car. Still needs to have it aligned, and then he will give some driving impressions. He had a before picture, and took a now picture to compare.

According to him, by his measurements, it looks like the front lowered 1.25", and the rear 9/16"

Here are a couple pics to compare:

 

[Rv-Junke]

Old 5 Oh...Really excellent posts...THANK YOU. the last post regarding mixing parts has been my heartburn with this whole thing. Adding lowering springs for a look and sacrificing ride quality potentially is NOT why I am looking at this. I am trying to mitigate an issue and make the car perform better. To your point the problem is not enough data regarding actual numbers, and I am no engineer, but I would ASSUME FRPP engineered the solution for something, as did Steeda, and from what I read and see, Steeda and FRPP run neck and neck with quality and engineering...if Steeda had Struts and Shocks with the springs, this would have been a no brainer for me...my pause is adding the springs to the PP Shocks and Struts. Now with that said, based on LOTS of reviews it seems Steeda did a great job matching the spring rates to the OEM gear...so I have less pause than I did 3 weeks ago.

Again, THANK YOU!

Just keep in mind that tube diameter is but one parameter of many that affects roll stiffness. Tubing wall thickness, type of material, length of lever arm all affect stiffness as well. And then you have adjustable lever arms on the Steeda!

In short, we have no idea which of these packages is doing what to handling balance, except the manufacturers are all saying they are making it better, or "optimizing" or something. And "optimum" varies depending upon the car, what you want to do with it, how you drive, the tires (square or staggered) and a bunch of other stuff.

We would be well served by more complete stats including roll rates and percentage increase/decrease over stock. Then if you think your car is pushing, you can get a stiffer rear bar. And if you think it's too tail-happy, you can get a stiffer front bar or a little looser rear bar. Tuning! It's all about tuning, not about hype.

See, that's really good info and I am glad to hear it, because if you look at bar sizes, the Steeda front is 10% larger than the PP while the rear is a whopping 28% thicker, which on its face would suggest Steeda is designing a drift car! Yet I hear you saying it's a little LESS prone to oversteer than stock. So either bar stiffness is not proportional to bar thickness, or the spring rate balance is different than Ford's, or both.

Just reinforcing the point that you need to know what the parts are going to do, don't just read the numbers. And most of all, don't grab Eibach springs, Steeda sway bars and off-the-shelf Koni dampers and expect it all to play nice together. That SELDOM happens. Someone needs to design an entire suspension to work together. Not saying the components can't come from a variety of sources, just that doing that takes a lot of study and testing to get right. Steeda is really good at the integration. Other firms are, too. But the Summit Catalog (not to pick on Summit) is not an integrator and you can certainly pick badly-matched components that will all bolt on really nicely. Be careful out there!

 

[Poppacapp]

Thanks...can't wait to hear about the driving feel...also did he get new bolts from Ford? Is that still their recommendation?

No, they said he could reuse the bolts. So no issues there. He hasn't had a chance to really test it out. Just couple comments so far, he mentioned that the car feels better at speed, but slow speed turn in it still pushes. I think this may be due to the difference in front/back tires on the PP. 255 front and 275 rear. I have a square 275/35 setup on my car with 9.5" rims. The next weekend we have a chance, we will swap them over and test it out real good. Won't be this weekend.. he is heading to beach. Maybe the next.

He did say it feels like it rides smoother, and is not as bouncy feeling as the PP.

 

[Rv-Junke]

No, they said he could reuse the bolts. So no issues there. He hasn't had a chance to really test it out. Just couple comments so far, he mentioned that the car feels better at speed, but slow speed turn in it still pushes. I think this may be due to the difference in front/back tires on the PP. 255 front and 275 rear. I have a square 275/35 setup on my car with 9.5" rims. The next weekend we have a chance, we will swap them over and test it out real good. Won't be this weekend.. he is heading to beach. Maybe the next.

He did say it feels like it rides smoother, and is not as bouncy feeling as the PP.

Awesome thanks.

 

[Toothless]

See my thread here: http://www.mustang6g.com/forums/showthread.php?t=25045

 

[Rv-Junke]

AWESOME write up!

See my thread here: http://www.mustang6g.com/forums/showthread.php?t=25045

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