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Excessive Wheel Hop

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regalt87 said:
BUT- As a former owner of 2 1970 Boss 302's I got to get another one. Deal is pretty much worked out.

Ya I'm Nuts. Hope the above helped answered you question.
Welcome to BMO and good luck with landing a new Boss 302.
 
Thank You. I am excited and can't hardly wait. I know it will be a fun car.

I edited my spelling on the previous post. It really looks bad when you mess up on the first few posts!!
 
Welcome to BMO regal! Good to see you over here. I'll offer my $0.02 as a fellow '07 GT500 owner. The suspension on the Boss is VASTLY improved over the '07-'09 GT500s. I was fully prepared to do all the same things to my Boss that I had to do to the GT500, including a full Griggs GR40SS with Watts link and coilovers. I did myself the favor of putting it on the track first. I was faster out of the box (stock) in my Boss than my GT500 on the road course with all those suspension upgrades, and my GT500 puts down 640rwhp/625rwtq. I'm just suggesting to take it slow. You'll be amazed at what Ford did with this car out of the factory. The only changes I've made to the suspension are MM caster/camber plates. At this point I'm not touching the rest of it. I'm able to run with the fastest cars on the track just the way Ford delivered it (with track wheels, tires, pads and rotors of course ;))
 
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cloud9 said:
Welcome to BMO regal! Good to see you over here. I'll offer my $0.02 as a fellow '07 GT500 owner. The suspension on the Boss is VASTLY improved over the '07-'09 GT500s. I was fully prepared to do all the same things to my Boss that I had to do to the GT500, including a full Griggs GR40SS with Watts link and coilovers. I did myself the favor of putting it on the track first. I was faster out of the box (stock) in my Boss than my GT500 on the road course with all those suspension upgrades, and my GT500 puts down 640rwhp/625rwtq. I'm just suggesting to take it slow. You'll be amazed at what Ford did with this car out of the factory. The only changes I've made to the suspension are MM caster/camber plates. At this point I'm not touching the rest of it. I'm able to run with the fastest cars on the track just the way Ford delivered it (with track wheels, tires, pads and rotors of course ;))

Hey, I noticed you mentioned caster plates.
- Is the stock setup too restrictive for optimizing caster/camber per track requirements?
- What are your specs up front? Oh yea, sra, front only... ;D

By the way, anyone concerned about excessive drive train slop & put in an aluminum drive shaft??

Also, anyone lowering the car & how much?
 
The key to reducing axle windup and the resultant 'hop' is to reduce or eliminate bushing deflection. But beware, if parts are not carefully selected, you may not be happy with the resultant NVH increase.

While the OE lower control arms utilize a fairly soft rubber bushing(s) the upper control arm use a very low durometer, large rubber bushing at the chassis end. Some have had success changing only the lowers, the upper, or both. There are more threads on individual experiences with regard to the topic than one could ingest in a month.

My input on the matter is this - stay away from poly bushings, 'ball' or not. They disintegrate and make the issue far worse. You are then left with either rubber or steel joints. I prefer a combination of both. I like the idea of a well articulating lower control arm, free of bind (as much as possible, anyway). You can use a lower with heim joints on each end and keep near factory NVH sound attenuating qualities - the key being the choice of upper (more on that in a minute). If you choose to use a heim jointed lower control arm, use only the highest quality joint you can and I promise you will not be dissatisfied. They offer instant response while at the same time remain bind free with zero deflection.

They key is the upper. With its large marshmallow-style bushing, the axle housing is allowed far too much deflection. The factory utilized this bushing to minimize NVH as this short arm at this juncture imparts quite a bit in terms of harmonics into the cabin via the floor pan. If you use a heim jointed upper control arm you will greatly increase cabin noise, as some have inferred. I think I have found a pretty good compromise here and it happens to involve use of the Roush upper. It utilizes the same small diameter rubber bushing at each end of the arm. The arm itself is of greater thickness than the stock one as well as being reinforced. I've been running Maximum Motorsport's heim jointed Extreme Duty lower arms in conjunction with the Roush upper and have noted no increase in NVH.

I highly recommend the setup to anyone, road racing or otherwise. More here...
http://www.svtperformance.com/forums/shelby-gt500-150/635669-parts-mm-xd-rlcas-panhard-bar-roush-uca.html
 
lbp said:
Hey, I noticed you mentioned caster plates.
- Is the stock setup too restrictive for optimizing caster/camber per track requirements?
- What are your specs up front? Oh yea, sra, front only... ;D

By the way, anyone concerned about excessive drive train slop & put in an aluminum drive shaft??
Yes the stock setup is too restrictive for optimizing camber for the track. Caster is fine, and I didn't adjust it even with the plates. Full factory caster works just fine. You'll be at approximately -.95 degrees of camber from the factory and that is likely from the 11mm drop in the front on the Boss over the standard GT. I have run mine on the track at -1.7, -2.2 and now -2.7, and settled there. My front tire temps are pretty even there. With the MM plates results have varied anywhere from a maximum of -2.4 to -3.3 and seems very car dependent. I can actually get to -3.1 on the driver's side but only -2.7 on the passenger side so that's where they're both set.

As far as the drive shaft, there are a few people that have done one-pieces so far, but not many that I've read about. The S197 chassis is very susceptible to driveshaft vibration and I'm sure that's why Ford uses a 2-piece on all the Mustangs since 2005. I had a one-piece aluminum on my GT500 with an adj UCA that allowed resetting the PA to the correct specs and had no DS vibration. I went to a torque arm with no PA adjustment and had issues. I ended up with a 2-piece aluminum/chromoly that weighs in at 27 lbs. The factory DS is around 40ish. A friend of mine is planning to install a CF on his LS soon, so hopefully we'll get some feedback on that. I believe Kendall (nota4re) has successfully installed a one-piece on their LS and is selling one on his site. Hopefully he'll chime in here on this thread.

As Tob indicated, all of these potential changes may increase NVH and you have to weigh the tradeoff in terms of streetability. I didn't see any increased NVH from the MM c/c plates.
 
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I have never had wheel hop at the track. The only time I have ever had it is when basically just dumping the clutch from a stop. Then I get massive wheel hop. I did that twice. I don't like it.....it scares me. There are some interesting posts here that I am sure at least help out if not cure the problem. The problem for me is that the stock suspension is so good on the track that I don't want to screw it up! The suspension really is one of those things were you change one thing and before you know it the entire suspension is different.
 

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