The Mustang Forum for Track & Racing Enthusiasts

Taking your Mustang to an open track/HPDE event for the first time? Do you race competitively? This forum is for you! Log in to remove most ads.

  • Welcome to the Ford Mustang forum built for owners of the Mustang GT350, BOSS 302, GT500, and all other S550, S197, SN95, Fox Body and older Mustangs set up for open track days, road racing, and/or autocross. Join our forum, interact with others, share your build, and help us strengthen this community!

Help with my base suspension setup, 08 GT Koni and steeda content.

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Hi all,

New member and S197 owner here.

I recently picked up an 08 GT Premium with comfort and appearance package. It has decent engine mods making 330 RWHP, suspensions is a wreck. Currently it has Eibach sportline springs on stock shocks, it is way too low and almost on the bump stops. Looks cool, handles for poo.

Sold my 92 GT and picked this up as the Fox chassis cars are going up in value and this one was a good deal with 26k miles on it. The 92 was my HPDE car and summer DD, that's what I want from the 08 also.

My local tracks are Gingerman and Grattan with the latter being my favorite. I race in the Lemons series in an 89 notchback, that cures my itch to compete.

Lets start with what I have, to work with.

Full weight car.
Steeda competition springs and sway bars, Koni sports, Ford lower control arms, ? adjustable panhard, Steeda strut mounts. GT500 wheels with stock tire sizes, 255 F 285 R. Stock brakes with Hawk pads and hopefully ducts by then.

This is round one to get me on the track in this thing. First event is July 17 TNiA at Gingerman, with my daughter sharing the car for her first track event.

Do any of you have any experience with these components and have any recommendations for initial settings for the damper and sway bar settings.

Round two will be control arm/bushing/bump steer, and a square setup for tires, in a 200TW, current tires are Conti 340TW summer tires.

Done with the first post ramble.

Tony
 

Norm Peterson

Corner Barstool Sitter
939
712
Exp. Type
HPDE
Exp. Level
5-10 Years
a few miles east of Philly
With slightly stiffer springs (BMR 260 vs your 225) up front I was reasonably happy with the struts at 2 full turns up from full soft. Never really got the rear setting to my liking before the diff started making noise, but +1.75 turns was close but not there for 220 lb/in rear springs. Might be a good place to start for 185's, though.

Caveats - I don't know how the Steeda bar stiffnesses compare to the Strano bar stiffnesses, which might affect things a little. As might your staggered setup vs the square setups I've always tracked with (255/45's on 18x9.5 GT500 wheels, 285/35's on 18x11 Forgestars).

I'm also running the Steeda HD strut mounts, at about -1.9°, maybe -2.0° camber. Car is only lowered about 0.6", sig pic is most likely from when it was still on the OE springs. You can see a brake duct inlet. My ducting doesn't go all the way to the nozzles on the backing plates/dust shields, but it ends fairly close and has been sufficient so far (Carbotech XP8's, 10's, and 12's on the little 12.4" OE rotors, G-loc R10's on a 14" SVT/GT500 upgrade).


Norm
 
Last edited:

Norm Peterson

Corner Barstool Sitter
939
712
Exp. Type
HPDE
Exp. Level
5-10 Years
a few miles east of Philly
Your engine is making a good bit more power than mine, so you'll want to give some thought to gearing and tire size. You'll want to avoid needing 5th as long as you have a stock-gearset TR3650, it's just too far away from 4th. Supposedly there is an 0.81 5th, but at that point you might as well start considering 6-speed boxes.


Norm
 

ChrisM

Mostly harmless.
1,180
1,419
Exp. Type
HPDE
Exp. Level
3-5 Years
South Carolina
@blacksheep-1 has me thoroughly convinced that you'd be better off getting the Ford pack and starting from there if you aren't looking at coilovers. There's a good bit of logic associated with that. The parts play well together because they have factory backing and guys like him have lots of experience working with them, so they can give better tips for setup. It's difficult to tell someone how to set something up unless you have the exact same setup because it isn't well documented how the parts will play together. That's where most people land on giving the advice "drive it like it is and play with it to find out what works best for you."

If I ever get a new track car, I intend to just stick with Ford parts unless they aren't available.

Also, welcome! If you get a chance, check out the link in my sig for some links to other 3v information. I'll be sure to add yours.
 

JDee

Ancient Racer
1,797
2,001
Exp. Type
W2W Racing
Exp. Level
20+ Years
5 miles from Mosport
+1 to the Ford stuff. I have the FR track suspension kit on my car and for a dual purpose car it is excellent IMHO. The ride on the street is hardly worse than the stock PP suspension unless you get on a really bad road, and the performance on track is excellent. Car is very predictable and has no bad habits at all, at least none that I've found yet. Pretty simple too, no need to fart around trying to figure out shock and spring rates, Ford did all the hard work on that for me. Just drive the thing and enjoy!
 
+1! A lot of aftermarket setups will require a lot of trial and error tuning to get the right handling balance you want. One of best attributes of the FPP setups is they're engineered as a balanced package to let you get all the power down coming off mid-corner. Since a Mustang's main strength is its good torque and speed potential down the straights, the earlier you can accelerate out of a corner the faster you'll be down the straights. Gotta be able to get the power down early to do that.
 

Norm Peterson

Corner Barstool Sitter
939
712
Exp. Type
HPDE
Exp. Level
5-10 Years
a few miles east of Philly
+1! A lot of aftermarket setups will require a lot of trial and error tuning to get the right handling balance you want. One of best attributes of the FPP setups is they're engineered as a balanced package to let you get all the power down coming off mid-corner. Since a Mustang's main strength is its good torque and speed potential down the straights, the earlier you can accelerate out of a corner the faster you'll be down the straights. Gotta be able to get the power down early to do that.
Agreed, though I think with a 4.6 car getting the power down early is less of an issue simply because there isn't as much of it. Short of adding some sort of power adder, anyway.

For a DD, nearly all aftermarket "lowering springs" - including most of FPP's - involve at least a 1" drop, and you have to be good with that over the full range of your driving.

That said, doing your own tuning for handling balance may be outside what any given person is willing (or able) to get involved with.


Norm
 

TMO Supporting Vendors

Top