lots of questions

[stanglou]

first of all, im building a custom coilover setup for my 66 mustang fastback. I had some design ideas and i want to know the pros and cons
1. i will be running rod ends for all suspension pickup points
2. instead of ball joints, im going to run uniballs integrated into custom aluminum spindles
3. instead of tubular arms im thinking of running billet arms
4. running the stock spindle snout for use of existing brake components

if i do all of this will the ride be too harsh? also, how would i go about doing stress testing on the spindle and the arms?

thanks a lot for your time and expertise
louie dietz

[wally8]

What exactly is meant by "too harsh"? Will it ride like a cadillac? Not with race car parts. Will it ride like a race car? Most likely, but in my mind that's not too harsh given the overall concept. How will the car be used mostly? What are your expectations?

For analysis I'd recommend making friends with an ME. They always seem to be really helpful on those sorts of things. I was always back in the ME department where I used to work asking questions like that. You must already have a machinist friend :-)


Wally

[stanglou]

yah, machining is no problem, after i considered price of metal and design time, it seems cheaper for me to just do billet everything. the one drawback i see to doing billet arms is the weight. i dont know if i can make them strong enough and light enough. i guess that is a universal question in suspension design. anyways, the car will see a lot of daily driver action, but i love the track. there is nothing like the feel of a classic car on a road course. im not even a good driver, but i love the speed, and i love projects like my dream posted here. as far as expectations go, i dont really have any. I know that the geometry i have come up with is far better than stock, other than that i just want it to feel like a steady fast car. i hate the slop that the unibody cars are notorious for.

[paul67]

check out some of the streetrod mags as Im sure some makes them in billet alloy for the mustang
paul67

[Mean 69]

There is a ton of good advise for the Mustang suspension systems on corner-carvers.com, but that site can be a bit unfriendly to people. Honestly though, you can learn a ton by searching there, lots of Mustang lovers (myself included, I have a 65 FB that I am going to begin transforming in the next couple months). One item for certain that you will want to replace, right away, is the stock spindle. They are weak, and the vast majority of them are probably cracked already. if not, they will crack. Stepping into a later model spindle (I think the 70 Mustang, some derivitives too) is a good way to go, lots more beef. As far as being restricted to using a stock type spindle, for the purposes of brake brackets, etc, I guess I am a little confused. If you have the skills to make billet control arms making the other associated brackets should be a snap? BTW, billet control arms scare me a bit, I'd HIGHLY recommend you have someone do a comprehensive FEA if you chose to go that route. They may look really cool, but I can't think of a single application on a race car that uses that, tubular construction is really hard to beat.

Mark

[stanglou]

thanks mark, thats the type of imput im looking for. for the arms what do you think the weight differences would be, would the billet aluminum be a lot heavier? as far as brackets go, im not scared of making anything, the custom billet spindle i want to make will have all of the original mounting points for both drum and disc, along with revised geometry. I got the idea of billet arms from an offroad company called camburg (www.camburg.com) and felt that if its good enough for serious offroad abuse, then a street car could probably use the same idea, but made smaller and lighter. as far as corner-carvers goes, they are really smart people, and i have gotten a lot of good info off their web site. as far as the attitude goes, i think that some of the people should take a stick out of their ass, and feel good about helping other people with questions. i at one time was registered there, but didn't use it for a while and got banned. i can register again, and the administrators wont return email. that site in general pisses me off(no offense to anyone here)
sorry for the ranting and raving

[Mean 69]

I didn't see the billet arms, but boy they have some beef looking suspension parts! We are thinking very seriously about designing fabricated spindles, much like the ones in one of the pictures shown in that site.

If I may, there is SO much potential to make an incredible track car out of the very early Mustangs. They are SO light, and if you don't mind cutting things up a bit, you can make an incredible setup. One of the faster cars in the California region NASA AI/X is a 65 FB, well modified, but nothing that couldn't easily be duplicated (or improved). Well, the car does have a $15k or so braking system, but other than that.... A good buddy of mine has a 67 Camaro that weighs in at about 2700 lbs, with a full cage, iron block SBC, and 9" rear. Given that a stock Camaro weighs about 400 to 500 lbs more than a similar Camaro, well, you can see that you can get the weight WAY down with a Mustang. The numbers might not be 100% accurate, but you get the point. For chassis rigidity, there is a bunch of things you can do, self made subframe connectors are a snap if executed well, and if you are going to cage the car, you will have no issues making a rigid (as in torsionally, which is the most important/difficult aspect to solve) car. Oh yeah, the motor is a lot easier to set back than a Chevy too, if for no other reason than the distributor is in the front (my 69 Camaro's cap is basically ON the firewall, but the Ford can go several inches before any contact to the firewall, much easier).

Great car, build it!!! And above all, build it to DRIVE it, hard.

Mark

[stanglou]

very true mark. as far as my chasis goes, im not putting in a cage yet, but i am having full length 2x3 frames bent with integrated trans mount, and driveshaft loop to strengthen the uni-body construction. as for the front, i am not into cutting stuff yet because i want to make a suspension with better geometry that can be adapted to stock mustangs. I will have a dual purpose crosmember in the front that strengthens the metalwork, acts as a crosmember for the rack, and also a lower mounting point for the lower arms. By making the arms a lot longer and lower, i can get much better geometry. as far as the arms on the camburg site, look at the 97 and up f-150. they only use a billet upper arm, but the uni ball setup is similar to what i want to do. as far as weight on my car, it looks like it will be in the 2800 lb range because it is a street car mostly with all the aminities. check out the arms and tell me what you think.
thanks
louie