Tramlining

[Mustangcol]

The car is new to me. Everything stock. I put 2 new rear tires and alignment, and I think the tramlining has gotten worse, but I'm not too sure because I have drove the car very little. The roads are trash here in colombia. These are the 2 new rear tires: https://www.virtualllantas.com/llanta-falken-azenis-fk520l-255-40zr19_46133#inicio-carga

The front tires are these crap tires, 40% tread: https://www.virtualllantas.com/llanta-westlake-sa37-255-40zr19_19038#inicio-carga

I have attached the alignment specs, they had only changed the tow ("convergencia" in the report)

Rear control arm lower bushings are shot, 25k miles. I'm waiting a bit to order them from USA just to see if there's anything else I need. For example, I can order a g-trac brace with those rear bushings.

Tire pressures are at 32psi all 4. The car tramlines badly that looks like im drunk. Any suggestions?

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[Mustangcol]

Translation to english

 

[Bluemustang]

The rear tires are a different brand? What tire brand and sizes do you have on all 4? This could be contributing to it.

 

[Mustangcol]

The rear tires are a different brand? What tire brand and sizes do you have on all 4? This could be contributing to it.

The rear tires are same, but different than the front. I have been reading a lot and bought ford performance m-5a460-m for the knuckle and bmr bk081 for the LCA. I emailed a few stores, but they either didn't reply or tried to up sale a lot of parts. I'll see how these work out. If no, I will try to align it differently because it's very cheap here, and then try changing the front tires to match the rear. If that doesn't help, maybe I can try fresh struts. The roads suck here, I wouldn't be surprised if the struts are worn with 25k miles, my bmw 118i needed a strut after 24k miles.

 

[Bluemustang]

The rear tires are same, but different than the front. I have been reading a lot and bought ford performance m-5a460-m for the knuckle and bmr bk081 for the LCA. I emailed a few stores, but they either didn't reply or tried to up sale a lot of parts. I'll see how these work out. If no, I will try to align it differently because it's very cheap here, and then try changing the front tires to match the rear. If that doesn't help, maybe I can try fresh struts. The roads suck here, I wouldn't be surprised if the struts are worn with 25k miles, my bmw 118i needed a strut after 24k miles.

That could be contributing to it. Different tires with different grip levels and wear levels, as well different behavioral characteristics. These cars are also very susceptible to tramlining so I wouldn't be surprised if that's it.

 

[Bluemustang]

The rear tires are same, but different than the front. I have been reading a lot and bought ford performance m-5a460-m for the knuckle and bmr bk081 for the LCA. I emailed a few stores, but they either didn't reply or tried to up sale a lot of parts. I'll see how these work out. If no, I will try to align it differently because it's very cheap here, and then try changing the front tires to match the rear. If that doesn't help, maybe I can try fresh struts. The roads suck here, I wouldn't be surprised if the struts are worn with 25k miles, my bmw 118i needed a strut after 24k miles.

I don't think the bearings are going to help matters unless a part was loose or damaged. Even so, in such case I would expect you'd be speaking of different problems. My money is on the tires first, alignment second.

 

[Mustangcol]

I don't think the bearings are going to help matters unless a part was loose or damaged. Even so, in such case I would expect you'd be speaking of different problems. My money is on the tires first, alignment second.

Yeah the bushing is torn up in the control arms. I took another look and saw the bushing in the knuckle for the tow link was torn too. Luckily I had already ordered them. Hopefully I'll have them installed in the next few weeks and I'll do an alignment. See how that changes. Then I'll put matching tires up front.

Picture of the control arm bushing. Both look like this.

 

[Bluemustang]

Good you found that. At the least your car will handle better and more tight with those bearings. I've got them on my car. Let me know how you get on. That's a good call on matching tires imo. For a car like this, you want it to handle right. Having matching tires on all 4 will help that a lot. And it's a lot safer too because you will have the same grip levels and handling behavior on all 4 corners.

 

[Mustangcol]

Good you found that. At the least your car will handle better and more tight with those bearings. I've got them on my car. Let me know how you get on. That's a good call on matching tires imo. For a car like this, you want it to handle right. Having matching tires on all 4 will help that a lot. And it's a lot safer too because you will have the same grip levels and handling behavior on all 4 corners.

I was having issues to find in stock the tow link bearings. I'm realizing how it will be difficult to get stuff here and it's better that I just do everything in 1 shot. So I made an order..

Ford performance strut tower brace
Ford performance front control arms
Ford performance Tow link bearing
Ford Performance Tow Link
C&L Resonator Delete H-Pipe
BMR CB005H Cradle Bushing Lockout
LCA Bearings

After thats all done, I'll put 2 new front tires to match the rear. I feel like that should fix whatever tramlining that I have. And with the h-pipe it will sound faster

Any recommendations on alignment specs for street/track? From what I read online, everybody has different ideas.

 

[NightmareMoon]

Your plan sounds good.

For alignment, try 2.2-2.8 front camber, 1.8 rear camber

Front toe 0 or +0.5 toe in. No more than that. Your 0.1 front toe will chew tires up a little too fast.

Rear toe, 0.1-0.15 toe in per side.

More front camber helps the front grip in corners, less is a little more mild for street use. If you dont like a car which can oversteer sometimes, then go 2.25. If you want a car that really carves corners, go with up to 3.0 front. You can go higher than 3 but probably overkill for a street car.

 

[Mustangcol]

Your plan sounds good.

For alignment, try 2.2-2.8 front camber, 1.8 rear camber

Front toe 0 or +0.5 toe in. No more than that. Your 0.1 front toe will chew tires up a little too fast.

Rear toe, 0.1-0.15 toe in per side.

More front camber helps the front grip in corners, less is a little more mild for street use. If you dont like a car which can oversteer sometimes, then go 2.25. If you want a car that really carves corners, go with up to 3.0 front. You can go higher than 3 but probably overkill for a street car.

Thanks for the reply. Is it possible to adjust the front camber or do I need camber plates?
It would make sense to do camber plates in the future with new struts.. I've been thinking about sway bars and struts, but I'm not sure yet about the springs. Ride height is a big issue here, there's speed bumps everywhere in my city and ramps to enter parking garages. At maximum I can do is minimum drop springs, which I think is 1/2" drop, but not sure if the juice is worth the squeeze.

 

[NightmareMoon]

Yeah you’d want to add camber plates when you do struts. If the car is a base you could swap to stiffer full height struts from another model, like a PP, but struts and sways with camber plates will drive great!

 

[Mustangcol]

Yeah you’d want to add camber plates when you do struts. If the car is a base you could swap to stiffer full height struts from another model, like a PP, but struts and sways with camber plates will drive great!

Yeah, the car is a GT Premium without performance package. The suspension is awful that it's actually scary. Thanks for all the help, I've been reading and learning a lot. I was thinking of doing the ford performance track strut/shock kit, base springs, maximum motorsports camber plates, PP rear sway bar, and BMR 3-hole adjustable front sway bar as my next upgrade. But I'm not sure how these struts/shocks would work with the base springs because it says "designed for lowering springs". I saw that Bilstein B6 is for stock ride height, but the billet rear mounts don't work with them.

https://www.americanmuscle.com/frpp-shock-strut-kit-1516gt.html

 

[NightmareMoon]

I think the struts will be fine, but I'd consider some Performance Pack springs while you're in there. They're just barely stiff enough to help the car handle without sacrificing ride quality. They show up used here from time to time.

MM Camber plates... I'd get the steeda ones. The steeda ones are pretty flawless and affordable. IIRC some people had trouble getting all of the allowed camber with the MM ones. That might be a rumor but I know the Steeda plates work great.

 

[Mustangcol]

I'll have to think over the springs. I test drove a M240i with eibach springs and it suffered on every speed bump and there's tons of them here. There would be many places we wouldn't be able to go with the Mustang. But my gf and I just got a 2024 Yamaha Aerox 155 so maybe we can make it work and just take the scooter.

There are 2 type of performance pack springs, right? Are you talking about M-5300-X ? I think that's 1" drop

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