next direction?

[94five0]

is u/l c/a worth the money? my car is going for all round handling, not so much 1.4 mile..and wha are the feelings of air ride susp? true the inital cost is kinda scary,(for a complete set) but what about a rear setup alone. i know lee an edgar run an air bag on there cars...seem to be doin fine. if i could get rid of some of the wheel gap i've got now, it'd better complete the look imo.

depending on the fitment an how low the new bumper drops the existing body line, i might have to put the rockers back on.

[Sendero]

On the Upper/Lower CA's issue: Just get you a good set of lower LCA's and leave the UCA's alone unless you are going to go full-on drag. Then I'd replace the UCA's with some solid adjustable links. Of course if you step over into the corner burning realm, then you will probably be going to a Torque Arm or Tri-Link setup which both replace the UCA's.

On the Air Ride suspension: I would like to know more about this piece. Hot Rod TV did a segment on it, but you know how biased they can be. It would be interesting to see it out on the road course with some numbers to back it up.

[Italian LX]

Originally Posted by Sendero

On the Upper/Lower CA's issue: Just get you a good set of lower LCA's and leave the UCA's alone unless you are going to go full-on drag.

I disagree. I believe both should be upgraded at the same time. Even without serous drag launches, you can still get adverse effects on the torque boxes by only doing lowers.

The problem is that the uppers are designed to keep the axles centered. When you corner or launch hard, the stock upper bushings will give and allow the axle to shift side-ways. Stock bushings on the lower will give enough to let the lower control arm move sideways also; however, if you have upgraded lowers, the stiff bushings will give very little and will tranfer the sideways movement (allowed by the stock uppers) to the torque boxes. It's only a matter of time before your torque boxes start twisting and tearing.

Drag launches will accelerate this problem more quickly, but aggressive street driving will bring the same problem after a period of time.

I highly recommend replacing either all or none.

[Sendero]

Originally Posted by Italian LX

I disagree. I believe both should be upgraded at the same time. Even without serous drag launches, you can still get adverse effects on the torque boxes by only doing lowers.

Get to this in a sec.

The problem is that the uppers are designed to keep the axles centered.

Don't forget pinion control too. (Axle rotation is what I mean)

When you corner or launch hard, the stock upper bushings will give and allow the axle to shift side-ways. Stock bushings on the lower will give enough to let the lower control arm move sideways also; however, if you have upgraded lowers, the stiff bushings will give very little and will tranfer the sideways movement (allowed by the stock uppers) to the torque boxes. It's only a matter of time before your torque boxes start twisting and tearing.

This is true, hence the need for a solid axle location device (ie Panhard Bar). As stated above, (SNIP) "my car is going for all round handling, not so much 1.4 mile" and unless you go directly to a Panhard or Watts setup, Uppers are the next best thing. But polyurethane (sp) bushing uppers are a bad idea because Ford designed those bushings to give during extension and compression. If they don't and the bind loads are to high, you will find out the meaning of snap oversteer when the bushing decides to unload its energy.

This is why I've recommended not messing with the UCA's because if you are truely wanting to do handling, then you will end up with a Panhard Bar or Watts. But if you start leaning towards the Drag side, then you will need UCA's.

[94five0]

nathan check out march issue of MMFF. have an air ride susp. autoX road test..pretty sweet schtuff..especially on a 4 ton marauder that bested the mercedes, BMW's there too..