New shocks with stock base springs?

[Bartly]

I'm sure this has been discussed, but I'm lacking searching skills and the Black Friday sales are eating away at me to commit to buy something. I've had my GT for 3 years now, 2 years of it being FI. I told myself I wouldn't mess with the suspension, just because I didn't want to open that can of worms. But It's been so long since I installed anything I'm getting ansy. I have the CB005 in the rear and all the OEM front bracing from the PP setup but now do want to get the ride a little firmer and more stable, by reading it sounds like just adding shocks will improve things? I don't track the car or take it to the strip, but I do like getting on it more than I should, probably every time I drive the damn thing.
Seems like when I search for aftermarket shocks, they reference being designed for "lowering" springs. I'm wondering if springs like Steeda's (adj. and non-adj') or the Ford Track ones will be too short for my stock springs? Also, from my understanding springs and shocks are developed around one another. Being the the base model springs I have are probably the softest spring rate, how will that play out with adding shocks that were probably developed around a stiffer spring rate?

I guess #1? is will these aftermarket shocks fit and have the correct (or enough) travel for the taller OEM base springs?

#2 would be can I put the remove/transfer the front springs to the front struts with the traditional spring clamps, (the kind that have large cast hooks on a long thick threaded shaft and you use 2 per spring install), I've seen the video's of them using the "C" shaped scissor shaped compressor, and I don't have that setup.

#3 which shock would pair best with stock base springs? Yeah right, lol.

Thanks hopefully.

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[NightmareMoon]

1) All the shocks you mentioned will fit fine. Even lowered cars will go full droop if you go over a big bump (or get airborne) so all the shocks need to cover the full length of suspension travel.

2) You can do it with traditional spring compressors. It a PITA but its possible (I've done it that way). Or ... you can take the assembled struts to a nearby shop and have them disassemble / reassemble in a few seconds with a heavy duty spring compressor. Its a non-event with the right tools, or a real pain with the wrong ones.

3) Ford Performance track shocks, Steeda pro-actions (non-adjustable), Steeda pro-action adjustables, and Koni yellow adjustables are the most commonly recommended upgraded shocks. I'm partial to the adjustables, because you can fine tune for your preference, or run them set aggressively hard for sporty back-roads carving, or dial them back down to soft for daily commuting. Since your springs are pretty soft, you can get a lot of value from stiffer shocks.

Consider cutting your bump stops 1/4" while you're in there (optional) and possibly add some Steeda billet rear shock mounts, as they seem to help remove some of the vibration in the rear suspension going over short bumps. (also optional)

 

[Bartly]

1) All the shocks you mentioned will fit fine. Even lowered cars will go full droop if you go over a big bump (or get airborne) so all the shocks need to cover the full length of suspension travel.

2) You can do it with traditional spring compressors. It a PITA but its possible (I've done it that way). Or ... you can take the assembled struts to a nearby shop and have them disassemble / reassemble in a few seconds with a heavy duty spring compressor. Its a non-event with the right tools, or a real pain with the wrong ones.

3) Ford Performance track shocks, Steeda pro-actions (non-adjustable), Steeda pro-action adjustables, and Koni yellow adjustables are the most commonly recommended upgraded shocks. I'm partial to the adjustables, because you can fine tune for your preference, or run them set aggressively hard for sporty back-roads carving, or dial them back down to soft for daily commuting. Since your springs are pretty soft, you can get a lot of value from stiffer shocks.

Consider cutting your bump stops 1/4" while you're in there (optional) and possibly add some Steeda billet rear shock mounts, as they seem to help remove some of the vibration in the rear suspension going over short bumps. (also optional)

Thanks for the info. Good to hear that they will fit fine. Curious if you have the Steeda adjustables? if so, wondering what adjustment entails, would think jacking the car off the ground to get under it is a minimum, do you have to pull the tires off or anything to access the adjustment screws?

Was thinking adjustables might be best, cause for all I know I'll be putting springs on sometime, although I cannot afford much if any drop due to my driveway angle and all the curbs I park up to.

Thanks again.

 

[NightmareMoon]

I have the Konis, which are identical to the Steeda adjustables except for paint color and a different spec for valving from Steeda. The mechanical adjustment bits are the same and they're made in the same factory.

You definitely don't need to remove any wheels/tires to mess with the shock settings, but you do need a jack to raise the car a few inches to get access to the top of the rear struts.

The fronts adjust by turning a little knob with a key at the top of the front strut towers, very easily accessible from the engine bay with the hood open.

To adjust the rears, jack up the rear a few inches to get your arm in there above the tire to reach the top of the rear shocks. I do something which isn't recommended and slip a jack under the rear differential. Normally jacking up the differential isn't a good idea (you can crack the diff housing, which isn't designed to support the weight of the car), but since I'm only taking it up a few inches and not fully off the ground, I feel this is safe enough, and it saves one step when adjusting the rears. If that's scary for you, then just jack up one side at a time.

Both Konis and Steeda adjustables have about 2.5 total turns of adjustment, which breaks out nicely into 10 quarter-turns I just think of the settings being from 0/10 to 10/10, with each adjustment being 1/4 turn or 90° of rotation.

 

[Bartly]

Sounds like you have been happy with them, and thanks again for those details. I have adjustable shocks on both my other vehicles, but they are 4x4s where stuff is like 1/2 price of mustang stuff. I played with the jeep settings for the first couple of years, but haven't changed them in a decade, and the truck set them on install and have been good since. With the Mustang I may get springs down the road, so my thinking is I can adjust these now to best match the OEM springs and then at least have the option to adjust with some new springs.

So here I go, going to drag out my own thread a little.
So I've read in the forum that guys with the Steeda adjustables have them set on the low end of the dampening. From what I understand (could be way off base, so correct me if so) as a spring rate goes up, the shock dampening needs to increase. Being that the base model springs that I have are probably the softest of the bunch, will the low end of the steeda adjustables be low enough. Wouldn't want to get myself in a situation where I'm like "Damn, now I need new springs to make it good again". Probably making a mountain out of a mole hill, just figured I'd ask.

Anyone have a GT with the base springs and Steeda adjustables care to comment (Or anyone else of course).

Also have been wondering how much new shocks would benefit me since there is 100lb of supercharger stuff in the front end. Thinking that's probably the worst thing to do to the base model "softest" springs?

Thanks again to anyone and Happy Holidays!

 

[NightmareMoon]

Generally speaking, as the spring rate goes up, the shock stiffness would too however shock settings are always relative to your goals. You can overcompensate for soft springs with extra shock stiffness... up to a point. Seems like the softer the car, the higher you migt want to overdo the shock stiffness to compensate. OTOH if your spring rates are high enough, you may go minimal on the shock settings because a car that bounces an time or so is more comfortable than a rigid car that has no compliance in the socks OR springs.

That said, Shocks won’t affect your ultimate body roll or dive/squat, just how fast you get there, so while they can do wonders for transitions and back road handling, at some point you need to look at higher spring rates.

Going from soft (GT w/PP) stock springs and Koni shocks adjusted to pretty firm for handling use, I never really felt I needed to up the spring rate to ‘get there’. My bud with non-pp springs found himself running with Konis on the /maximum/ stiffness when he’s racing at 10/10ths to compensate for soft grand touring springs. Now he’s on 285 wide very sticky RE71R tires and holds a national championship jacket in F Street (stock mustang class) at SCCA Solo Nationals (autocross) so he’s a bit extreme, but it makes my point. Dont be afraid of stiff shocks, especially if you have an overly soft car to start with.

 

[Roadway 5.0]

I ran stiffer aftermarket dampers on OEM springs (145lb/in front) in my 335i and loved the dynamic. Have no fear with doing so in the Mustang, especially with adjustable dampers.

I have to ask: why not do springs now? A good set this weekend costs less than $200 and you won’t have to do the install/alignment twice. If you chose the right spring, you could even get fixed dampers and the cost savings would buy you the springs. My .02.

 

[Norm Peterson]

There's no real harm in doing the shocks & struts now and springs later once you discover a specific reason for increasing the spring rates. I'm only going to hint that it probably won't be cornering roll that helps you decide if and when you need more spring, so don't focus on that.

I actually went the dampers-first route, though I did upgrade both sta-bars at about the same time. Turns out that some of my best lap times so far have been with the car still on its OE springs. In fairness, laps run with the new springs - about double the OE front rate and ~50% stiffer out back - have all been run on tires well past their prime and me with somewhat less current practice. Haven't zeroed in on how much rear damping in particular I now need either.

Here's a plot showing (more or less) ride quality and performance vs damping. This is in terms of "critical damping", so it's generally applicable even if the curves varied a bit. Taken from the classic text by the Millikens (father and son) "Race Car Vehicle Dynamics". That funny little squiggle character is the critical damping parameter.

Norm

 

[tj@steeda]

I ran stiffer aftermarket dampers on OEM springs (145lb/in front) in my 335i and loved the dynamic. Have no fear with doing so in the Mustang, especially with adjustable dampers.

I have to ask: why not do springs now? A good set this weekend costs less than $200 and you won’t have to do the install/alignment twice. If you chose the right spring, you could even get fixed dampers and the cost savings would buy you the springs. My .02.

Especially when we have some great specials still going!

TJ

 

[Bartly]

Generally speaking, as the spring rate goes up, the shock stiffness would too however shock settings are always relative to your goals. You can overcompensate for soft springs with extra shock stiffness... up to a point. Seems like the softer the car, the higher you migt want to overdo the shock stiffness to compensate. OTOH if your spring rates are high enough, you may go minimal on the shock settings because a car that bounces an time or so is more comfortable than a rigid car that has no compliance in the socks OR springs.

That said, Shocks won’t affect your ultimate body roll or dive/squat, just how fast you get there, so while they can do wonders for transitions and back road handling, at some point you need to look at higher spring rates.

Going from soft (GT w/PP) stock springs and Koni shocks adjusted to pretty firm for handling use, I never really felt I needed to up the spring rate to ‘get there’. My bud with non-pp springs found himself running with Konis on the /maximum/ stiffness when he’s racing at 10/10ths to compensate for soft grand touring springs. Now he’s on 285 wide very sticky RE71R tires and holds a national championship jacket in F Street (stock mustang class) at SCCA Solo Nationals (autocross) so he’s a bit extreme, but it makes my point. Dont be afraid of stiff shocks, especially if you have an overly soft car to start with.

Thanks again for all the info.

I ran stiffer aftermarket dampers on OEM springs (145lb/in front) in my 335i and loved the dynamic. Have no fear with doing so in the Mustang, especially with adjustable dampers.

I have to ask: why not do springs now? A good set this weekend costs less than $200 and you won’t have to do the install/alignment twice. If you chose the right spring, you could even get fixed dampers and the cost savings would buy you the springs. My .02.

Sounds like I shouldn't have any concern. As far as not doing springs, I have a pretty steep driveway approach that I already rub on as well as how often i catch myself scraping my front bumper on curbs when I park. Also found myself driving over a median the other day, can't pull that off with a lowered car, lol. In reality I probably won't ever lower it just because I know I don't have the patience to learn how to adjust my driving to watch for all the gotchas that would bottom me out.

There's no real harm in doing the shocks & struts now and springs later once you discover a specific reason for increasing the spring rates. I'm only going to hint that it probably won't be cornering roll that helps you decide if and when you need more spring, so don't focus on that.

I actually went the dampers-first route, though I did upgrade both sta-bars at about the same time. Turns out that some of my best lap times so far have been with the car still on its OE springs. In fairness, laps run with the new springs - about double the OE front rate and ~50% stiffer out back - have all been run on tires well past their prime and me with somewhat less current practice. Haven't zeroed in on how much rear damping in particular I now need either.

Here's a plot showing (more or less) ride quality and performance vs damping. This is in terms of "critical damping", so it's generally applicable even if the curves varied a bit. Taken from the classic text by the Millikens (father and son) "Race Car Vehicle Dynamics". That funny little squiggle character is the critical damping parameter.

Norm

Thanks for the insight. I've pretty much gone full circle and am now thinking the non-adjustable steeda shocks are the ones I'm going to get. As mentioned above, it's about a 99% certainty that I won't ever do springs.

Looking at that plot brings back some faint memories. In college the professor actually called that "critical dampening" symbol "squiggle", I don't think he ever mentioned the real name, but if I recall it was properly called zeta, but that might just have been some slang as well. The reason I was concerned about messing with just shocks applies to "squiggle". In college the target on any system was to get squiggle to be critically dampened meaning =1. Looking at that plot the desire is always less than 1, so I guess by adding stiffer shocks to the system as it was designed just moves squiggle closer to critically dampened. So that makes sense. In college everything was a simple problem, no where near as complex as an entire car's suspension and all the different types of conditions it must satisfy.

Especially when we have some great specials still going!

TJ

I am now most likely going to get the non-adjustable ones. Have one more day to commit.

Thanks everyone for the suggestions.

 

[Bluemustang]

I would advise against the KONI adjustable. I used them with my SP080s (basically stock rates) and it was way too much damping. Car felt jacked down. And crashy. At low settings too bouncy. Couldn't find a balance. Too much rebound damping and not enough compression.

For stock springs I'd go FP track or Steeda. The Steeda ones might work best for stock springs if I had to guess. You could go with adjustables which will work for you if you ever decide to go with higher rate springs. My understanding is the Steeda shocks had a wider adjustment range and can go very soft if need be which should be great with your stock springs.

 

[Norm Peterson]

Looking at that plot brings back some faint memories. In college the professor actually called that "critical dampening" symbol "squiggle", I don't think he ever mentioned the real name, but if I recall it was properly called zeta, but that might just have been some slang as well. The reason I was concerned about messing with just shocks applies to "squiggle". In college the target on any system was to get squiggle to be critically dampened meaning =1. Looking at that plot the desire is always less than 1, so I guess by adding stiffer shocks to the system as it was designed just moves squiggle closer to critically dampened. So that makes sense. In college everything was a simple problem, no where near as complex as an entire car's suspension and all the different types of conditions it must satisfy.

It is 'zeta' (lower case), and no, you do not want full critical damping in a road car's suspension (especially at high damper piston velocities where all the short, sharp bumps put them). For the street handling/composure you definitely want something more than the roughly 18% critical damping for optimum ride without going too far past 45% . . . keeping in mind that those percentages might not be perfectly accurate for any specific car.

Adjustables also offer the ability to compensate at least to some degree for gradual wear by their ability to be dialed up.


FWIW, I haven't found Koni yellows to be as bad as others feel that they are, and early harshness does seem to drop off after some amount of driving (I suspect seal friction/stiction is involved; friction damping is inherently harsh in nature). That said, final adjustments made for street ride quality do seem to take a more careful touch as spring rates rise. Can't think in terms of quarter-turn steps, more like eighth or less.


Norm

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