Maximum Motorsports' Rear Suspension

Maximum's subframe connectors form the outer mount for the torque arm's crossmember. Here the outboard section of one connector has received its strengthening gussets. The inboard edge will receive the same treatment, but not until the torque arm crossmember has been fitted for the exact location. It takes a few hands and clamps to get these smaller pieces properly positioned for welding.

If you were stopping at just the subframe connectors alone--a worthy improvement by themselves--this is what the finished job would look like. The black spray paint is anti-rust protection for the areas that had to be ground on for welding prep.

The first step on the rear suspension proper is to remove the stock lower control arms. There's no mystery here; simply support the axle at full droop, pop out the coil springs, and unbolt the lower arms.

Maximum's lower control arms use a combination of aluminum and poly-urethane bushings. You'll need to lube them with the supplied silicone grease and assemble the bushings in the arms. None of this is any big deal, but it pays to be thorough with the grease. Zerk fittings are supplied for future maintenance, but Maximum has tested these bushings by specifically not lubing the ones in the company open-track car for about five years. They still don't squeak.

Again, it's no mystery how the lower arms go in. They slide into place and you wrench them down mightily. With our coilover suspension, the lower control arms are simple, round tubes connecting the chassis and axle.

Next up is the Panhard bar, which is likely the most complex assembly in the rear suspension. It uses this bracket at the driver side of the axle, and chassis attachments on both the driver and passenger side of the framerails. This bracket must fit tightly against the axle assembly to realize its maximum strength. Therefore, the fore and aft bolts must be torqued first, then the side-to-side bolts. Furthermore, the upper side bolt hole may need reaming or enlarging to accommodate the bracket's bolt, as Ford allows a huge 1/4 inch tolerance on this bolt-hole location! We were lucky and didn't need to ream.

On both framerails, the Panhard bar attachment points need to be located, pilot drilled, and then drilled through just the outboard side of the framerail. A special bracket is measured to fit inside the frame-rail, cut to length, then installed. It's easier than it sounds, and it starts by locating the holes by holding the Panhard bar's upper assembly in place and marking the holes. Here the holes are being drilled through the outer framerail wall.

Once the outer holes have been drilled, the depth of the holes to the inner frame walls is measured so the distance can be transferred to Maximum's cut-to-fit bracket. The distance measurement is super simple--felt-tipping the shank of a screwdriver inserted in the hole works fine. Then hold the screwdriver next to the two-pronged bracket as shown here, transfer the marks, and cut the bracket's bushings to length. The idea is to get the bushings to pass through the holes in the outer wall of the framerail and butt against the inner framerail wall. This keeps the framerail from being crushed when the Panhard bar bolts are torqued.

Once the strengthening bracket has been installed, the Panhard bar is fitted and the holes are drilled all the way through the far framerail. Just before the bolts are installed, a shim can be fitted between the bracket and framerail to take up any slack between the Panhard bar and the outer framerail. Then the bolts are installed and torqued.

With the framerails drilled and reinforced on both sides, and the upper Panhard bar bracketry installed, the Panhard's crossbar can be put in place. This bar is adjustable in height. With the car sitting at a level ride height, the bar should be parallel to the ground.

A small shock bracket for the coil-overs is necessary on the passenger side. An existing locating hole on the axle assembly is used for this bracket, but only after being enlarged with a file, ream, or unibit to accept the larger Maximum Motorsports bolt.

The coil/shock assemblies are something new for Maximum Motorsports. Premium Bilstein shocks are used, fitted with a groove to accept a snap ring. That ring provides the stop for the spring collar and so on. You can expect a minor amount of easy assembly on the coilover kit. Compared to the rest of the job, it's nothing.

The upper shock mount for the rear coilovers is this trick housing fitted with a spherical bearing and four mounting studs. You'll need to drill four holes--a template is provided--in the unibody where the stock shock mount is. This mount ends up visible in the trunk. It looks neat and takes up nearly no room while providing positive shock location.

Installing the coilovers is easy stuff. They go in like a stock shock, but the adjusting collar allows simple ride-height adjustments.

The torque arm itself bolts to the axle easily enough. Bolt it to the rear axlehousing at the differential, and allow the front end to hang for now.

The torque arm itself bolts to the axle easily enough. Bolt it to the rear axlehousing at the differential, and allow the front end to hang for now.

At the front of the torque arm, the job is to fit the crossmember to the torque arm, then locate the crossmember's mounts to the subframe connectors so the mounts can be tack-welded in place. To do this, you'll want to at least drop the rear of the exhaust system's H-pipe to allow the crossmember to fit above the exhaust. We had an exhaust leak to take care of anyway, so we simply removed the H-pipe, which worked well.

The torque arm designates the pinion angle, which must be measured and adjusted during installation. A protractor and framing square do the job nicely. The idea is to match the angle between the front U-joint flange and the rear pinion flange. Adjustments are made by shimming the torque arm where it bolts to the front flange on the differential using washers provided by Maximum.

Finally, we arrived at the trick, adjustable, tubular sway bar. Maximum ships the sway bar assembled, so the whole shooting match will simply slip up to the rear axle and bolt on with U-bolts. It's an easy step.

The last meaningful install job is locating, drilling, and reinforcing the sway bar's chassis attachment points. This is done in the same manner as the Panhard bar's chassis points, with reinforced holes in the framerails. A solid link between the sway bar arms and the chassis brackets simplifies locating the brackets--just swing them into position against the chassis and mark the holes. Again, fitting the brackets tightly against the framerails in all dimensions is important. Once the sway bar is in place, the installation is complete. You can now turn to adjusting the sway bar, Panhard bar, shocks, and springs as necessary. That's another article, however!