ok so my mav and i assume most or all mavs have tons of body roll, i plan on getting front and rear sway bars(1 in the front and 7/8 in the rear i believe they are) is there anything else that isn't t expensive that i could do to increase handling(by nt to expensive i mean 200-400 dollars...not 2200 for a coil over front suspension...) any help is welcome...thanx
But I keep hearing mixed "reviews" on the Shelby drop... I guess if you don't like it you could always go back to the original holes and have it realigned.
Negative camber helps the car handle better. Unfortunately, we are lucky if we can get any negative camber at all on our cars (some allow it - some don't). To allow more negative camber (tire sticks out farther at bottom than the top), I removed the lower control arms and elongated the adjustment slots on the frame to allow the Arm to move outboard more (edited: was inboard). I welded a 3/16" bead on the adjustment cams and ground them down to a smooth surface - where I had about 1/8" more travel. This was more than enough to allow a -2*camber at ride height. Nothing difficult - just time consuming. There are after-market A-arms out there - but FREE fits my budget. edit: This was WITH the Shelby drop already done also.
Rick Why on Earth would a drag car need -2 degrees camber???? Most sport cars have 2.5 degrees or less. A car such as yourselfs would gain time with a true 0 degree camber/a tiny bit of toe in and lotsa positive caster.....while in motion going down the track. The hard part is figuring out what this equates to at a rested/ settled posistion......
Springs. 550 and 620lb 1" drop springs are under $100. You could get custom stiffer leafs for the rear on your budget as well.
I do have "true zero" camber - under acceleration. When the car is at rest, there is 2* of negative camber. The front of the car was jacked up 3 inches during the adjustments to simulate the car under accelearation - and the camber set to Zero. When the car was taken off the jacks, it rested with 2* of negative camber. re: "tiny bit toe in" I had mine set at ZERO toe-in set under simulated acceleration. Zero toe-in is less friction than a "tiny bit". Bottom line - I couldn't control the car above 100mph before the modification - now it runs straight as an arrow and it doesn't make me poo-poo my pants above 100 mph. I don't think so (unless you mean 'negative' 2.5). Most wide tired, 'handling' cars have at least 1/2* NEGATIVE camber. It just makes sense - to me anyway. I have front runners (skinnies) on my drag car. The narrower tires can tolerate more negative camber than the wide tires.
Re: ways to increase handling . . . Hi Random Hero, I just wanted to point out that you can save some money on sway bars by re-using the stock front bar on the rear. It's been done by someone on this forum and I am planning to do so soon myself. I bought a 1" Addco bar from Summit Racing for my '73 Maverick. Regards, BaldEagleMav
Rick I did mean negative on the Camber. Your car must rise alot but glad somebody did it right for you. The reason I say a tiny bit of toe in, is it helps keep the car in a strait line and not to follow ruts,dips etc.... The postive caster helps with this also...... I said most sports cars have 2.5 neg. Most passengers cars are 1.0 or less neg. I've aligned many many cars. I'm also certified in performance aligments so I gots this kind of stuff figured out. I do alot of racers cars,I like to see videos of the car launching first 60 ft, and mid track stuff. I also do alot raised/ lowered vehicles.
The 2.5 had me confused. It wasn't clear that you meant "negative 2.5". I'm sure you do fine at what you do. I was just glad to be able to get more negative camber in my car. I needed new undies the first time it got over a hundert miles an hour. After the mod I did, I could get up to 3.5* negative camber. It looked like the front end had collapsed when I maxed it out at first. Anyway, I was offering up a suggestion on how to improve the handling with just some "elbow" grease instead of paying out the kazoo for after market stuff.
There are after market tubular upper control arms for Mustangs. If you could find out what year Mustang upper arms interchange with which year Mavericks you could install them. They are made to give up to -2 camber with stock adjusting cams. They are stronger and lighter too which helps with unsprung weight. When you combine the tubular arms with the Shelby drop you can make a car (at least a 65-66 Mustang) turn like it is riding on rails. THAT is fun!
Well, since he did ask "is there anything else that isn't t expensive that i could do to increase handling", I would guess that dropping $750 on control arms is not at the top of the list....
