A Couple of Mustang Questions

[rthompsonjr]

So I'm planning on started to doing Solo with a Mustang, either a 96-98 Cobra or a 99-00 GT.

I have a couple of questions:

For anyone who ran or is running in FS, have you changed the front roll bar? If so what brand and what effect did it have on the car?

I have reviewed the rule book and have not found an answer to what class subframe connectors are legal in, would they bump me all the way into one of the Prepared or Modified classes?

My other question is if anyone has any experience with Maximum Motorsport and their parts? Eventually I'd like to move into something other than stock class, like STX or SP, and I was looking into their panhard bar and torque arm system.

Thanks for any help!!

[gordon0412]

My car (an '04 Mach) came with a front sway bar, but I upgraded it to a Steeda 35mm front bar, and yes it helped a lot with bodyroll. However, it also stiffened up the front and brought back more push. Now that my car is in a street prepared class I'm going to put an adjustable rear bar on the help balance out the push.

The subframe connectors would put you in SM I'm pretty sure. That's a very competitive class. But a fun one to with lots of competitors and different types of cars.

I use MM wheel spacers when I run, and also have their caster camber plates. Their products have an excellent reputation in the Mach community. Not sure about the overall Mustang. But there are a lot of alternatives. You could do some searching/asking around on the forums at stangnet.com, or also the mach1registry.org which is very active, and has a lot of people who doing various types of racing.

[PaulL]

The front bars on stock Mustangs are usually pretty stiff, and stock cars usually already understeer a lot, too.

Increasing the size of the bar will help with body roll, but it will probably create more understeer as well. Although this rule doesn't always hold fast and true ... if you can control your camber loss with a stiffer bar, you might end up with less understeer. It's a gamble sometimes.

Adding sub frame connectors would usually put you in SM, but using the update/backdate rule in street prepared, you could add the bolt-on factory Ford SFCs that come on the late model convertibles. These are pretty cheesy, though, and really don't do too much for chassis stiffness.

And Maximum Motorsports is one of the best Mustang parts suppliers, in my opinion. They have a good tech department, too. Sometimes you can buy their parts through Livermore Performance and get a better price.

[gordon0412]

Paul's right. I should have added I installed adj. shocks before the sway bar. This allowed me to stiffen the rear and soften the front to compensate for the push the bar added. However, even with that the bar still causes too much push for my taste whereas it was fairly neutral with the factory bar and adj. shocks.