Body roll

It is all in the suspension my friend. Start with subframe connectors...and then move into the more expensive suspension components and you can easily have a world class handler.

Don Manning

Don, the reason I say this is that I just got some great subs, and man... they've exposed the weakness in the rest of the car... Now, I want to corner hard! After subs, what would you suggest? Strut tower brace and K-member brace? Springs? Help me out here! :)

Brad

connectors...and

Body roll is caused by the CG shifting to the outside of the turn, and loading the outside of the chassis and unloading the inside. Pretty simple, and you probably already know this. There are essentially two train of thought to control this. First, a larger sway bar to control shift of weight. The bar will use the unsprung weight on the inside of the chassis to push up on the frame to keep the car level. But on normal driving and symmetrical dips it will have essentially no effect on chassis movement. The second thought is to manage that weight shift with stiffer springs. You would normally run a 600# spring. But with hard cornering you're placing, say, 750# on that corner. So you install a 750# spring to support that additional weight without compression, and keep the car level. But in normal driving and symmetrical dips the chassis will still be that much stiffer. Variable rate springs are a decent comprimise.

Personally, I vote for sway bars. Bigger than stock, front and rear a matched set, with urethane bushings. Still have that stock smooth ride during normal driving.

Well, due to the overall crummy-ness of the Fox chassis no single mod is going to get you where you want to be.

I vote for some new sway-bars and end-links to start. Steeda has a kit with all the bushings and huge tubular bar. I am really happy with the results on my car.

you don't have a rear bar, add it - After that, a nice spring shocks & struts package. Of course a strut tower brace will help... it just goes on and on.

Jim S. '82 Mutant

Brad and Mia,

I run an '89 and an '00 in SOLO2. There isn't any single thing that can be done to a pre-94 car as a fix...it's about 6 things.

Polyurethane swaybar bushings, sub-frame connectors, stiffer or adjustable shocks, strut tower brace, rear shock tower brace and K frame stiffener.

Springs with ratings much over 450 lbs. and larger swaybars DO reduce roll, but at the cost of compliance which can cause chattering in the suspension. Lowering the CofG is important also... 'F' springs in the '00 and the already sagged ~1" stock springs in the '89 work fine.

For a street car you just want to inhibit the initial 'spike' of the CofG change and allow the car to gently settle...good shocks and struts are the next step after the sub-frames.

Regards,

bradtx

Excuse my poor English, what does "body roll" mean?

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88' Mustang LX Convertible 2.3L

Body roll is when you go around a corner and the car sinks on the opposite side of the way you are turning. Does that make sense? :) If you turn right, the left side of the car sinks. It's annoying.

And thanks for all the advice guys! It is most appreciated!

Brad

Thanks Brad, looks like something mine does too and really gets on my nerves, I get a sense of insecurity when the car does that, for example if I am driving a curve to the right the car sort of slides to the left. The tires are properly inflated, aligned and almost no wear so it seems to be a physical problem and by reading this post, I see I'm not the only one that suffers from it.

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88' Mustang LX Convertible 2.3L

If it feels really bad, as you said it feels insecure, I would suggest that you make sure your endlinks haven't snapped. When I bought my car, the sway bar was in place but it had no endlinks!

Jim S. '82 Mutant

Thanks Jim I wish we could upload pictures in here, I don;t know how the sway bar looks like, not to mention the endlinks, I am lost here.

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88' Mustang LX Convertible 2.3L

Just crawl under your car... if everything looks solid, you're okay. Personally, I've never heard of snapped endlinks, but I'm sure it could happen.

Get the subframe connectors. And as the rest of the guys suggest, keep going from there. I KNOW for a FACT that when the GT came out in '87 it had a slalom speed that was only second to a Ferrari. Now, that was many years ago, but the stock suspension does a good job, it just doesn't feel like it... but today, it could do a lot better...

Brad

Pepito, The front swaybar is a round bar of steel connecting to the front suspension on each side. The front and rear swaybars are pretty well sized on the Mustang for a neutral handeling car. The rubber bushings, when worn or broken/missing endlinks (connect front swaybar to the suspension) can cause to rear to step out in turns as it doesn't have any wear issues.

An endlink repar kit and new bushings should get you back to the original handeling characteristics.

bradtx

Here is a picture. The blue thing is the front sway bar. The gold thing is the RH (passenger side) endlink. The red things are bushings. If yours are stock - they won't be such pretty colors. Just brown & black

I should mention, you won't be able to see all of these items at once because your fender liner will be in the way.

You can just crawl under your car and look/feel up. Or, to check the passenger side, turn the wheels all the way to the right and look behind the wheel from the front. Vice versa to check the left side.

Jim S. '82 Mutant

Thanks for your reply guys, Jim I took a better look yesterday at the junk yard. I haven't checked mine yet but the ones I saw at the junk yard that were from similar years as mine, were toast, the rubber parts were all cracked.

Do you think I can replace mine at home if the are in bad shape, or I need to take the car to a mechanic?

-- Share The Wealth

Swaybars and endlinks are very easy to replace in the driveway...have fun.

bradtx

In case anybody needs some new end links...

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88' Mustang LX Convertible 2.3L

Pepito, did you end up needing new endlinks?

Jim S. '82 Mutant

I haven't checked, I am in the middle of moving out and buying a lot of house appliances and stuff. I'll let you know.

I think I need new ones, the ones I have are stock and in poor shape but I'll have to live with those till I have some more cash to keep repairing the car.

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88' Mustang LX Convertible 2.3L