Horrible understeer

[Scootsmcgreggor]

I take that shit seriously, Fuckwit.

You’re so unnecessarily aggressive. Time and again. It’s just an Internet forum don’t take yourself too seriously.

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[Firsttexan]

The more I read threads like this, the more I steer away from modifying my PP1.

EVERY action has a reaction. Many aren't aware of how changes can affect things negatively. If I want a better handling street car?

I will have to look towards a Porsche or a Corvette for that. LT6 may influence that.

Unless you are heading to the track, factory setups are hard to beat for overall balance and performance.
I had a customer in my shop with my identical option list. He did the Steeda lowering springs etc.. Drove like crap on the street compared to my stock PP1. I let him drive mine too. He agreed. Says he wishes he didn't bother. I would have to agree in that case.

Ford put some serious engineering time finding a proper combo that works well on the street. It's going to be hard to beat without trade offs.

I will say, it's stance looked better than mine. Looks aren't everything.

 

[WildHorse]

I take that shit seriously, Fuckwit.

I wish you weren’t so fuckin’ awkward, bud.

 

[AvalancheSVT]

The more I read threads like this, the more I steer away from modifying my PP1.

EVERY action has a reaction. Many aren't aware of how changes can affect things negatively. If I want a better handling street car?

I will have to look towards a Porsche or a Corvette for that. LT6 may influence that.

Unless you are heading to the track, factory setups are hard to beat for overall balance and performance.
I had a customer in my shop with my identical option list. He did the Steeda lowering springs etc.. Drove like crap on the street compared to my stock PP1. I let him drive mine too. He agreed. Says he wishes he didn't bother. I would have to agree in that case.

Ford put some serious engineering time finding a proper combo that works well on the street. It's going to be hard to beat without trade offs.

I will say, it's stance looked better than mine. Looks aren't everything.

sure, that's a fine way to do it. out of the box the car is pretty great.
this is really more of a case study in understanding fundamentals before throwing parts expecting a certain result. people are really bad at being skeptical of what they want.

there was one guy bragging about being a stangnet founding member but didn't understand swaybar basics. he got all offended and some other cats jumped in to hold his hand through the whole process.

these discussions are much better because people get to learn the principles at play rather than getting tunnel vision for one particular issue.

that's the difference between consumers and car guys.

 

[K4fxd]

@shogun32 called it. I am bottoming on the struts. The rear shocks still have about 1/4 inch of travel so the rear is OK.

I have ordered the spring rubbers hopefully this will give me enough spring rate and I can simply remove them for street.

Are the adjustable sways necessary? I suppose I should try the rubbers then decide.

 

[shogun32]

Are the adjustable sways necessary?

no, but if you want to play 'what if' you'll need them obviously

Swaybar	Diameter			Front Rate	Rear Rate		Front Wheel Rate	Rear Wheel Rate
GT PP	32​	23​		295	123		289	75
GT PP2 (x, 24s)		24​			205		0	125
EB HPP+HP	34​	24​
GT350				350	130		343	79
GT350R				350	230		343	140
FP Track (M-5490-G)	37.1​	25.3​
BMR soft				377	200		369	122
BMR med				439	289		430	176
BMR stiff				501	378		491	230
Eibach soft	35​	25​		372	198		365	120
Eibach med				475	234		466	142
Eibach stiff				515	285		505	173
Steeda soft	35​	24​		520​	280		510	170
Steeda med soft				580​	350		568	213
Steeda med stiff				650​	N/A		637	N/A
Steeda stiff				725​	425		711	259
Steeda soft (38)	38​				N/A		0
Steeda med soft (38)					N/A		0
Steeda med stiff (38)					N/A		0
Steeda stiff (38)					N/A		0
Pedders soft				455	170		446	103
Pedders med				492	197		482	120
Pedders stiff				530	224		519	136
Whiteline (BFF95z, BFR68z)	30​	25​					0	0
H&R 72692 (solid)	34​	25​		refuse to disclose
RTR	35​	25​

 

[TeeLew]

You’re so unnecessarily aggressive. Time and again. It’s just an Internet forum don’t take yourself too seriously.

It's pretty simple; play nice and so will I.

 

[K4fxd]

Is that a missprint on the Steeda 35mm bar? It is much stiffer than either the BMR or Eibach 35mm.

@tj@steeda

 

[NightmareMoon]

The more I read threads like this, the more I steer away from modifying my PP1.

EVERY action has a reaction. Many aren't aware of how changes can affect things negatively. If I want a better handling street car?

I will have to look towards a Porsche or a Corvette for that. LT6 may influence that.

Unless you are heading to the track, factory setups are hard to beat for overall balance and performance.
I had a customer in my shop with my identical option list. He did the Steeda lowering springs etc.. Drove like crap on the street compared to my stock PP1. I let him drive mine too. He agreed. Says he wishes he didn't bother. I would have to agree in that case.

Ford put some serious engineering time finding a proper combo that works well on the street. It's going to be hard to beat without trade offs.

I will say, it's stance looked better than mine. Looks aren't everything.

Yeah its not rocket science. If you don’t want to ruin the ride, don’t lower the car and inch or more on soft springs. Many lowering springs are too low with not enough spring rate, and they’re installed on stock shocks.

If you understand the roles that each component plays, and you have a healthy respect for the neccessity of suspension travel, you do have options.

If you want a good ride and great handling, go stiffer on the shocks and sways and leave stock height springs in place, like the PP1 or GT350 non-R springs. BTDT and it rode better than stock.

 

[shogun32]

Is that a missprint on the Steeda 35mm bar? It is much stiffer than either the BMR or Eibach 35mm.

@tj@steeda

I'm not aware of it being wrong. it is ONE HELL of a STIFF bar.

 

[AvalancheSVT]

I'm not aware of it being wrong. it is ONE HELL of a STIFF bar.

that's what she said.

 

[Hack]

Maybe this is extremely elementary and beneath all of you, but one of my big rookie mistakes I always make on track is not adding enough steering angle. When the car starts to understeer mid-corner under maintenance throttle, I tend to slow down. But really what I should do is add more steering angle first. Steering grip continues to increase with greater steering angle, even after the tires have started to let go.

And I would recommend if at all possible finding a track (or at minimum a place with no traffic and safe run off areas) to test this kind of stuff.

 

[Bulldog9]

The more I read threads like this, the more I steer away from modifying my PP1.

EVERY action has a reaction. Many aren't aware of how changes can affect things negatively. If I want a better handling street car?

I will have to look towards a Porsche or a Corvette for that. LT6 may influence that.

Unless you are heading to the track, factory setups are hard to beat for overall balance and performance.
I had a customer in my shop with my identical option list. He did the Steeda lowering springs etc.. Drove like crap on the street compared to my stock PP1. I let him drive mine too. He agreed. Says he wishes he didn't bother. I would have to agree in that case.

Ford put some serious engineering time finding a proper combo that works well on the street. It's going to be hard to beat without trade offs.

I will say, it's stance looked better than mine. Looks aren't everything.

I did the Steeda springs on the stock OEM PP1 shocks/struts and it was an improvement over stock, but I wasn't happy, something felt off in tight high speed situations. Overall was better than the stock, but.... I had already added the front Steeda Brace, and IRS bracing which made a real difference, and immediately noticeable.

Fast Forward a few months and after saving my pennies, I pony'd up for the prebuilt Steeda Sport springs and dampers, with their camber plates for the front and shock mounts for the rear.

I discovered that the idiots in the shop did NOT cut the bump stops when they installed the springs front or rear, so at anything other than normal sedate driving, I was on the bump stops. The new setup has proper sized stops and the handling is much better. The difference on the Tail of the Dragon was night and day.

I'm not going to track my car, am too old and not interested unless it was just me on the track alone.

I'm super impressed with the handling of the car now. It was good out of the box, and its comfort as a grand tourer, not a track car

I recently took my 76 Porsche with spherical (rather than pressed suspension bushings), Bilstein shocks and stock torsion and sway bars. It was perfectly balanced and very fast and stable, and thoroughly satisfying.

Recently, on a similar 100 mile fast twisty road jaunt, though I have never found the handling of my 46 year old beauty wanting over the last 12 years, and driving it back to back with my E36 M3 then with the Bullitt and OEM and phase 1, but now with the full matched Steeda springs and shocks, with the other bits, the car is so dialed in, and aggressive and competent, I am looking at suspension upgrades for my Porsche.

To the OP, I'm NOT a racer, or a suspension guru, but I used to autocross Saab's and GTI's, and have driven my Porsche and M3 on track days, and I have a bunch of blanks in your situation particularly:

- Tire size, pressure, brand and condition.
- Speeds? What speeds are you talking about? What speeds and conditions produce understeer?
- Body transitions? You say the front end plows like a Mack truck, but what is the rest of the car doing?
- Lower front X or Straight brace?
- Rear Suspension bracing?
- Are you sure that your suspension setup is right?
- How did the car perform before the mods?

I've been driving 'fastish' sports oriented cars for 40 years, from original muscle cars, to euro (GTI, Saabs, M3) and a couple Porsche's (924, 914 & 911). The Bullitt was good out of the box, but with the mods is stellar. The rear is rock solid and planted, response is stellar as is front end bite. Step out with throttle is linear and controllable

I think you have something mismatched, and I would start by putting your front bar on the lowest setting, rechecking your alignment especially the rear if you messed with the links, lowering tire pressure to 30-32. See how that works, then look at adding more parts by starting with a stiffer rear sway bar. I'd also look at your driving and braking habits and position in the turns. Are you setting up right?

I'd also slow down to where the car performs as you want, and slowly increase speeds, pick different apex, brake and accel points and see how the car responds. I have to drive the Porsche exactly as you would a motorcycle, and very different than a front engine RWD car.

I'd also reach out to Steeda to get their feedback.

Because posts are worthless without pics, here are a couple.

GOOG LUCK!

 

[TeeLew]

@shogun32 called it. I am bottoming on the struts. The rear shocks still have about 1/4 inch of travel so the rear is OK.

I have ordered the spring rubbers hopefully this will give me enough spring rate and I can simply remove them for street.

Are the adjustable sways necessary? I suppose I should try the rubbers then decide.

Cool. It's always fun to find out the next step in the story. The spring rubber will show up as a polyurethane donut of sorts. Take a hack-saw and cut the ring once. Put the car in the air and feed what is now a polyurethane strip of sort in between the middle coil. Use zip ties to secure it in the spring. I drove on a pair for 6 months and they still basically look new.

Here's a pic of what the spring rubbers look like installed.

Now, about the Sunbeam....There's just no way for a modern car to match it. The holy-grail of that type of sportscar is 2000# and 400 HP (Roughly numbers off a competition Cobra). The Sunbeam wasn't 400, but it was enough. The closest thing to that built today would be a Miata.

 

[bnightstar]

Unless you are heading to the track, factory setups are hard to beat for overall balance and performance.
I had a customer in my shop with my identical option list. He did the Steeda lowering springs etc.. Drove like crap on the street compared to my stock PP1. I let him drive mine too. He agreed. Says he wishes he didn't bother. I would have to agree in that case.

Ford put some serious engineering time finding a proper combo that works well on the street. It's going to be hard to beat without trade offs.

I will say, it's stance looked better than mine. Looks aren't everything.

This is kind of true the stock PP1 is great suspension for a GT car to go on a cruise with. But it understeer from the factory and the body roll is what don't make it a great track car. Also the bouncing in the back on highway speeds is super annoying especially if you spend 9 years driving a fiesta which is doing the same at the back. I get that ford engineers think that bouncing rear like is a ship is a comfy ride but it's annoying. With that in mind when I first start developing my car I did surprisingly little to make it a great canyon carver just Steeda Camber Plates and front swaybar with the right street settings the car was amazing in the corners and was perfectly neutral to drive. Then I decided to step up to coilovers and since most of the rubber in the shocks/struts is gone now it made a lot more NVH but it drives even better than stock much faster on track.

So when you mod your car you need to consider that what is great for the guy that is every weekend on Laguna Seca may not be what is great for you going on a road trip with your wife for the weekend. That is why the first thing to discuss is goals and then budget because if your goal is to win the 24 hours of Nurburgring for example maybe your budget don't cover it.

Then you need to understand a lot about spring rates.
Overall I think you can find a lot of the go fast mods for your needs in the Ford Performance catalog for example if I'm just doing lowering springs I would have gone with Eibach Pro-Kit the progressive rates are not ideal for the track but they work great with OEM PP shocks and drop is where you don't need to alter suspension geometry and they come with pre cut bumpstops etc which make the install a breeze.

So there is a benefit in modifying the PP1 but you need to be careful at how you do it.

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