Title says it all. I'm a little confused as to where to go with the car. For those that know I picked up an 03 GT this past spring when I totaled my other car and it only has 24k miles on the odometer. Car is my summer toy and rarely even sees rain as I like to keep it clean as ****. My point being, it sure will never be open-tracked, although I have taken it down the strip a few times just to see what it will do.

I'm trying to decide now what I want to do with the car in the future to save myself a lot of headaches. To help, it's going to be a 97% street car. Sees the weekly car meet and some fun on the backroads and freeways but that's it; isn't even my daily driver in the summer. Long story short, what kind of shocks/struts and springs am I looking for? I've read the suspension sticky and I'm assuming something like Tokico blues would be decent but they seem cheap to me. I just want to drop that bitch for the looks and handling, although the lower I go the worse it will launch correct? Trying to get a correct understanding going.

Any ideas? I would love Bilsteins and some H&R or MM springs! As for the car powerplant, it will stay bolt-on-only unless I come into some unforeseeable fortune.

 

Subframe connectors, first! They will seriously make the whole car more enjoyable to drive. Second, a good spring and dampener combo. For you, I'd go with Bilsteins due to not needing to be adjustable and being progressive. You'd probably only need the Sports or MM spec depending on what springs you pick. I like H&R springs, you can go from Sports, SS, Race. Sports being the mildest with not a huge drop, needing the lowest level dampener, like the Tokico blues or Bilstein sport. the H&R SS springs would require caster-camber plates, good dampeners, a rougher ride. The Race springs don't drop the car that much but have a high springs rate needing a good dampener. I'd go with the Sport springs in your case.

So, the lower, higher spring rate you go, the worse it will launch. I'm running MM torque arm springs (415-515# spring rate) so I have very little weight transfer so it will just spin off the line.

 

just go to Americanmuscle.com and they have mostly everything

 

If you can afford it get the good stuff. https://mustangboards.com/suspension...coilovers.html

 

well... if you want to drop that thing in the weeds you only have one option. the options the boys gave is good for the driving aspect but you wanted to change the looks and still launch, so I have your solution:

coil over conversion. You can drop it in the weeds for cruising and then with just a jack and 10 minutes (literally, that's all) you can set the front end up higher for a day at the strip or just add a little height for those days that you plan on driving over rougher roads. The collars on the coil over dealies make the whole adjusting thing fast and easy. Handling is way better with a good spring rate and damper choice on a coil over setup than a plain lowering job.

Decide how much you're willing to spend. then we can nail down a combo for you. I got real sick of lowering springs really fast. They're harsh and don't improve handling that much. CO conversion with bilstiens and a set of MM arms would completely change the car.

FWIW, I'm selling my MM arms cheap.

Here's some price points for you:

Regular lowering:
Springs: 250
Shocks & Struts: 670
Subframes: 100
install: 5 hours labor (you can do much of the install yourself but it's harder with regular springs than you'd think)


Coil over:
CO kit front w/ springs: 375
CO kit rear w/ springs: 452
shocks & struts: 670
subframes: 100
a-arms: 450
RLCA's: 340
labor: 5 hours (you can do the install of CO yourself easily)

I'll give you my control arms for 600 shipped if you decide to go coil over which saves you 200 bucks. The basic difference other than performance is 1000 bucks or 2200 bucks. The 2200 bucks is worth it, the 1000 I don't think is.

 

Perhaps I've going overboard on trying to make the thing launch. I've taken it to the strip twice and that's probably all it'll see this year, if that. Could you explain why lowering springs got boring quickly red? 2k is a decent amount of cash to spend, but more than anyone else, I'd like to do my research first and do the job right the first time. So in short, I would much rather spend one-grand on a setup than two, but if you think the coilover setup is worth it, I'll trust your word.

One thing I've confused about with coilovers is the spring-rate. After you adjust the height to where you want it, won't you need a higher/lower rate spring to accompany the height change? Also, I'm assuming the a-arms and RCLA's are directed towards my desire to help the car launch?

 

The spring rate and ride height are mostly unconnected. The spring rate is chosen based on the total weight of the car, the effective desired wheel rate (don't ask, it's complicated), and the weight distribution and a ton of other minor details. Suffice it to say that if you want to raise or lower the car on a particular corner, then you simply spin the bottom spring perch collar (you'll see when you order them) up or down. The spring still provides the same effort but the car is now higher or lower based on how far you spun the collar. You don't "need" to change the spring rate however for some applications it's nice to, ie for switching from full house road course running to full house drag strip running. In that case, a lighter spring in front just for the drag racing may be better, in all probability that much is going to be generally unnecessary for you.

A-arms reduce front weight and if you get the right ones (MM forward offset w/ delrin bushings are nice) will push some weight behind the spindle that didn't used to be there for better rear weight transfer. RLCA's are similar... aftermarket won't flex like stockers do if you really stick a launch and better bushings will help eliminate some of the dynamic loading and unloading of the tires that causes wheel-hop and all sorts of bad things. If you're going to launch HARD then get torque box reinforcements. You only get to **** the tq boxes up 1 time then the car is in a bad way. Sure you can repair it usually but that's still not good.

 

Ok I'm starting to understand this a little bit more. Essnetialy the coilover setup gives you the ability and ease to lower or raise the car as needed in about 10 minutes without sacrificing ride quality as per the spring rates of your choice, which will probably be sport/stage 1 *maybe* stage 2 for me.

If I am ok with settling with the ride height of the H&R Super Sports for example and ride height 100% of the time then I would be just fine with going withOUT the coilover setup correct? Just trying to get my head around it.

 

The coil over collars give you the ride height adjustment, the conversion also provides 4x the wheel rate of conventional springs so you get the handling benefit of a 1000lbs spring without having to deal with the excessively rough ride. High wheel rate + low spring rate = comfy and super duper well handling. High wheel rate + high spring rate = rough ride. Low wheel rate + high spring rate = seriously rough ride. Low wheel rate + low spring rate = Cadillac ride.

There are no "stages" in springs. Pick your rate for how you want it to handle.

If you're happy with the handling limitations of the H&R springs and the lack of adjustable ride height and the extra weight and all the other low spots then they're fine.

It breaks out like this: if you want a real race-able suspension that you can be competitive with, then CO. If you want to drive it on the street and you don't care about it actually doing the things that it looks like it should do as well as it looks like it should do them, then you're fine with what you have. One is there for guys that want performance over price. The other is there for guys that want price over performance. It's a simple equation... if your car ain't delivering then the decision is made and it's up to you to accept it or reject it.