road race maverick.....

is that service info copyrighted? lol

 

Don't worry - I think Chrysler had to lay off all of it's lawyers anyway

 

you would still keep your leafsprings it looks like. But have you considered maybe just doing the watts addition to the rear and seeing how that performs for you? If it's not what you want I'm sure you could turn around and sell it to someone else on the board and use the money towards fabricating something more custom.

 

I'm actually following this link closely because bryant and I have been talking about doing something to my rear end to make it handle better.

 

The main reason that I decided to go with a Watts set up is, when using a 4 link - coil over rear set up, you absolutley need some sort of lateral location device to center the rear and hopefully keep it there through the distance of it's travel. A solid panhard bar changes length (gets longer or shorter) as it arcs from mounting point A to mounting point B during it's travel causing rear steer. The difference with the Watts is that, as the 2 links of the Watts arc up and down during travel, the center pivot adjusts itself without causing rear steer. It keeps the rear centered in the car. Watch some of the You Tube videos of this action.

I learned this first hand during my stock car building days. The Watts set up was so much more stable than the panhard bar when going through the turns. I watched a 14 year old kid, by the name of Michael Ruttkampt from CT, come down to our PA track with a pavement Late Model and set the track record and the only difference in his chassis from other cars was this Watts linkage set up. He sold me on it.

I'm not familier with using Watts linkage along with leaf springs.

 

Composite Leaf-springs and cal-tracs

Hi there. I have been reading a lot of talk on road racing forums about mustangs going fast and handling very well with FAF (Flex-a-Form) springs with Cal-tracs. These are those composite leaf springs that came up some time in the past but afterwards just disappeared. Well, now it seems we can get them again, and in being a single composite spring, each leaf spring weights something around 7kg, instead of 50kg of unsprung steel. With the cal-tracs, ride is supposed to bit a bit harsh, since they use aluminum bushings in the front, but with composite springs apparently they don't bend sideways so much as steel and guys are ditching their watt's link. No suspension made to go around corners is going to be comfortable, no matter what people who sell's these three-link kit's will say. And all that can be custom ordered to fit our mavericks, including appropriate double adjustable dampers for that purpose, spring rate and all. Just my opinion, but that would be a much easier way to have a car that corners well, maybe not to win road racing events, but very few people have the knowledge to build (or modify entirely) a suspension system. No offense, I thought about doing all that, but I don't have the physic skills for it. Going that way you still have a very tunable rear suspension. Somebody else talked about a Global West Front suspension, and it is made bolt-on to mavericks, you can choose dampers (1-way or 2 way adjustable), and they are supposed to work well as well, they even have a "negative roll geometry" kit for road racing and street, but a drag kit as well. And with Cal-tracs, it won't disappoint you when you want to go straight and the line turns green. Just my opinion.

 

Guess I missed this thread, but some good information here.
A panhard and watts linkage setup will work with leaf springs, but will not be as easy to tune as a 4link, or coilover system, or even a 3link.
On my 1997 Mustang Cobra I did a lot of research and spent a fair amount of $$$$$ on the suspension.............now this car is a 4link unequal factory setup.............but it did perform pretty well right out of the box.
First, composite monoleaf springs...........at least in my experience with putting them on hotrods..............don't hold up, and will sag after a short time because of the weight of the vehicle...........I don't care what anyone says. I used a composite for a short time and went back to steel............this was on a transverse type spring.........both front and rear.
Even though putting solid bushings in a leaf spring (which will certainly help with side to side motion) does not totally stop the lateral motion of the rearend, especially over time. You still need sometype of lateral support such as a panhard or watts setup.
The first time I road raced the Cobra I used a panhard bar...............set it up loaded and double locked it into place...............when I finished the 90 mile race the car felt a little spongy in the rear.............and after inspecting the panhard setup I found it had punched a section of rear floor totally out where it mounted to the body. I took the car home, talked with Steeda (the manufacture of the panhard setup......which also changed the pinion angle slightly..................this gave me more bite......but at a cost) and was told this was impossible and I must have set it up incorrectly...........after a lot of discussion I welded a very healthy patch where it had punched through, set the car up (and double checked my setup) then went to the track for some testing..................after doing some good laps the car had some serious oversteer.................when I check the panhard setup I had actually bent the panhard bar itself......................after talking with the manufacture again he just told me I had set it up incorrectly again (the manufacture does not make this part any longer....I wonder why)................I told him to take a flying leap................and the next thing I did was to install a watts linkage, the car performed flawlessly and after some fine tuning it was pretty much neutral...........and very fun to drive.
What I am trying to get at here is that a watts linkage is my first pick, and a panhard bar would be my last..................now with that said I had a 4link.
Also, a lot of hotrod guys use the watts linkage off a Range Rover because it is very compact...........................As for a harsh ride with a race type rear suspension...............I never noticed any difference with the panhard or watts linkage over the stock already somewhat stiff ride, but I did have variable rate springs on all four corners...........first FMS, then Steeda and also had aluminum control arms in the rear.
Also I believe in deep sixing the front stock suspension on a Maverick rather than just bandaid a somewhat outdated design. If I were building a nice handling Maverick I would certainly consider replacing everything with a rack and coil overs with a Mustang II/III setup like Rod&Custom or if you wanted to stay with the shock towers I would consider the TCP unit, IMHO

 

May I add the the amnt of roll steer with a panhard bar is related directly to the length of the PHB and the amnt of travel in your suspension. The longer the PHB and the shorter the suspension travel, the less side to side movement of the rear you will experience.

 

Here's my homeade watts link setup...No hard to do if you can weld....Concerning composite springs, isn't that what Corvettes have been using for many years?

 

Build Thread please.

 

Sorry, didn't mean to offend anyone. It's just that in Brazil only two V8 powered cars were ever made, neither sold much, very few still run the streets, so finding people that know stuff enough to help me out it's tough. What I said above is what I am doing, as I said, for lack of the recurses you guys have in the US. I don't know a chassis guy that could help me out make my own, so I am using what I can to try and improve my car. Any opinions on whether a watt's link would improve my set up? Thanks.

 

I studied the photos on this page and essentially built the same for my Maverick......I didn't document the whole build with photo's but if you study this, can cut and weld steel, you can do it although running exhaust out the rear is going to be more difficult

http://www.cardomain.com/ride/703052/1965-shelby-gt350/page-8

 

Agree - I alway built the panhard bars on my 3 link stock cars as long as I could make them so the angle would change the least. Some guys were running those really short J-Bars off of the bolt on carrier bracket on their 9 inch rears and they were really antsy in the turns.

 

OK after reading all this I would like to ask a ? Can you run an unequal length triangulated 4 link without running the watts link? Or will the watts link also help in the tri.4 link? I know the fox mustangs run this set up and do handle very well right out of the box, and they can be made better but still based on the stock set up. I am seriously thinking about the trianglulated 4 link, do any of you have any pros or cons to this set up?

Thank you all to sharing, some great info here.

 

You only need 1 side to side locating device such as a panhard bar or a Watts setup. Without one or the other a 4 or 3 link setup would just flop around wherever it wanted to. The corner to corner bar in the triangulated 4 link would be that centering device. I can't imagine what benefit you would gain by adding a Watts on top of it. I'm still confused why use a Watts with leaf springs since the leaf setup is self centering.