Installing Maximum Motorsports' New K-Member

With the fascia marked, remove it from the car. A few clips hold it to the firewall, and once these are undone, the fascia simply lifts out. Also remove the windshield wipers and their surrounding grille. You'll need to access the area at the top rear of the firewall shortly, and you'll want the hood open as far as the hinges allow.

Cutting the fascia is best done with a single-edge razor blade. A series of light scores, followed by bending, will snap the small sections free. A bit of dressing with a file keeps the job neat.

Use the strut-tower brace to mark its mounting holes on the firewall, then drill the holes. This is the easy part.

The fun part comes when installing the tower brace where its nutplates and bolts must be mounted through the firewall using the holes you just drilled. Access on the passenger side is merely tight as shown; the driver side is gymnast/Braille work. Shown here is Erin Van Schmus, Maximum's chief engineer, who designed this mounting. He ended up atop our engine on his hands and knees, head contorted and fingers cramped in the cowl area while trying to install the hardware. He good-naturedly muttered something about "Talking to the guy who designed this!"

Actually, after reading the instructions (imagine that!), we all found installing the nutplate isn't such a terrible hassle. Lightly taped to a screwdriver and thus held in place, the nutplate goes in with only normal dexterity required. Don't use so much tape that the screwdriver can't be removed after the bolts are installed.

Aside from the missing strut tops not poking through the camber plates, this is a finished view of the upper front suspension install. It's interesting to note there are 14 fasteners on this tower brace alone--that, and it doesn't hurt to cheat a bit during the install. Nearly all the holes for those 14 fasteners were reamed or drilled 1/64 inch larger to facilitate the bolts passing through.

As Erin and Paul Mischel remove the stock K-member, the engine support hoist is clearly visible underhood. You'll need to rent or borrow such a support to hang the engine from while the K-member is out.

Without a K-member in place, there is an amazing amount of open real estate under a Mustang. Much of this extra working room is retained by Maximum's tube-frame K-member as well. Too bad we didn't have headers to install.

Increased steering precision is gained by replacing the lower steering column with an aftermarket unit that does away with the isolating rubber or rag joint as seen at the left of the upper assembly (stock) here. For '94-and-later Mustangs, Maximum prefers the Borgeson unit (shown), while on Fox Mustangs the company uses Flaming River shafts. Installation is more than simply slamming in the shaft, however. The adjustable shaft length has to be set by trial fitting the shaft after the K-member and steering rack are installed. While the K-member is out, though, is the time to at least bolt the steering shaft to the upper steering column where it pokes out from the firewall. By the way, Maximum brazes the U-joints to the shaft as insurance; otherwise only set screws and some crimps hold the assembly together. Should you do the same, use minimal heat to tack things together. Too much heat kills the grease and seals.

Normally the new K-members fit well during installation, but sometimes Ford built the car crooked or the K-member warped during welding, so some aligning and adjusting may be necessary. Don't forget the engine-mount heat shields, and don't cinch down the bolts just yet.

Once the K-member is snugged in place, it's time to hang a plumb bob and square the K-member in the chassis, unless you want a dog-tracking Mustang. This is done by plumb bobbing the front and rear suspension pickup points, transferring those points to the shop floor, then measuring the distance between points, including the diagonals. Plan on going in and out with the K-member once or twice to get it perfectly squared in the chassis as you might have to slot some of the bolt holes. With the K-member installed and squared, the K-member brace (g-load brace) is attached. This is troublesome because the forward attachment points bolt to the K-member, while the rear attachment points are on the chassis. This means bumping the K-member automatically puts the chassis attach points out of alignment. The cure is to drift-pin align, curse, or whatever to get the brace to line up. Tapering the bolts somewhat on the bench grinder can also help start it.

After the K-member is in, the sway bar can be refitted. Because the K-member and A-arms move forward, Maximum uses sway-bar mounts, which move the bar forward a corresponding amount. The stock sway bar is reused.

Somewhere along here, you'll need to assemble the Bilstein/Hyperco coilover units. This is little more than fitting the spring stops and threaded collars, and greasing up the needle-bearing upper mounts. Final ride-height adjustments come later, after the car is back on its feet. For now, the assembled struts need to go in the chassis. They can hang from their upper mounts until you're ready to mate them up with the control arms and spindles.

Maximum's A-arms are lighter than stock but still beefy and reinforced enough to survive normal street driving. They move the lower balljoint forward 3/4 inch for increased caster and can be used with either the stock or Maximum K-member.

While Maximum installs zerk fittings to service the polyurethane A-arm bushings, those bushings should be disassembled and greased before hanging the A-arms on the K-member.

Putting the steering rack back on is easy. No hydraulics are involved, so it's simply a bolt-on affair. Offset rack bushings such as ours may be required depending on how much the car is lowered.

Stock spindles have a taper where the outer tie-rod end fits, but Maximum's bumpsteer kit uses straight shanked hardware through the spindle. Therefore, the taper is drilled out--a job for which Paul used a mill. A vise and drill motor will get the job done as well.

Given everything that's moved under the car, it's no wonder the steering rack is farther away from the spindle's steering horn. Maximum's bumpsteer kit provides the longer distance needed, along with plenty of threaded area and changeable bushings to provide any needed adjustment.

As with the steering, the sway-bar end-links are a different length now. Simple hardware with urethane bushings at each end takes care of the situation.

A final look at the finished installation shows our A-arms at the upper, or maximum, lowering attach point, along with the extra room afforded by the more-open tube-frame K-member.