Fox Mustang Suspension Upgrades

Likewise, with the rear suspension, eyeball the chassis where the upperand lower control arms attach. In cars driven hard --drag racing startsare the culprit--these attachment points can be cracked or torn away fromthe chassis proper. Reinforcement with patch panels and a welder are theanswer.

More commonly, the control-arm bushings may have succumbed to ozonecracking and hard driving. This is most important with the lower controlarms; the upper arms are built with soft bushings to provide thedefinitely needed compliance in the rear suspension to avoid bindingbetween the upper and lower control arms. When eyeballing the lowercontrol-arm bushings, keep in mind the forward end of the lower arm usesan elongated bushing, so don't be overly alarmed if you can see someclearance between one side of the bolt and rubber bushing.

The spring isolators between the coil spring and the lower control armsare almost certainly turned to powder. This is almost always the causeof the "settling" of the rear ride height normally attributed to therear springs. While the springs can settle with age, it is not nearly asoften as is commonly thought. It's usually just dusted spring isolators.

Of course, the hard-working shocks are almost always ready forreplacement. Another given is the rear sway bar is just fine. It boltsdirectly to the lower control arms and uses no rubber bushings, so it'sgood for life. Also, the kicker shocks are probably OK as is. They'rethere to dampen rear-axle reaction motions and thus avoid axle hopduring hard starts. If axle tramp is not an issue with you, there'slittle need to service these units.

What to Do About It

The fun begins when formulating a plan of chassis restoration. A couplepractical issues soon become apparent. For starters, a few of the commonwear items are obsolete from Ford, so you'll have to go aftermarket forsome parts. You'll want to go aftermarket on other parts because ahandful of the stock Ford parts are best replaced with strongeraftermarket items. And, most importantly to the enthusiast, simplyrenewing factory levels of performance is often not as exciting asstepping up the game somewhat. Therefore, fixing up a Fox chassis isjust the excuse you were looking for to install a set of loweringsprings or more sports-oriented handling. Other times--and you old-timersreading this magazine know who you are--providing a showroom-new ride toyour Fox is all you want. Let the kids pound their kidneys.

To get to the bottom line, restoring a Fox chassis typically meansupgrading a Fox chassis, and for that, a parts package often makessense. There are several choices readily available, depending on yourcar's condition, desired result, and budget. Should you want them, totalperformance suspension replacement and chassis mods are available fornorth of $5,000--but that's not what we're addressing in this article.

This time around we're aimed at daily driver Mustangs--our own150,000-mile '91 5.0 LX hatchback proved a good example. Never raced,and used as a daily driver by two older enthusiasts its entire life, itwas still a candidate for suspension work. We admit it was generally"loose," but what got us to finally look underneath was a lazy wander onthe freeway. That turned out to be a worn inner tie rod. Simplyreplacing it would have returned the old hatch to daily service butstill not quite showroom-new manners, and certainly nothing as preciseas would be desirable.

For a casual driver such as our car, a favorite package is the EibachPro System Plus--offered direct from Eibach and numerous dealers,including Maximum Motorsports, for example. This is an affordable($1,247.35) spring, shock, and sway-bar kit offering a 1.5-inch loweringwith a ride quality a notch more sporting than stock. Fitting it wouldgive us fresh shocks all around, as well as the new ride height from thenew springs and the matching roll stiffness from the slightly largersway bars.

Other parts were sourced mainly from our local Ford dealer and MaximumMotorsports. The photos and captions have details on these, but the ideawas to replace the necessary items and support the Pro System Plus kitwith durable isolators and other small parts.

While not shown here, the Ford Racing Performance Parts catalog offersfront and rear upper control arms, complete with bushings and balljoints. These are excellent options should you have worn control-armbushings or cracked control arms. The price is reasonable ($189.95,front; $102.90, rear) installa-tion is as simple as it can get becausethe bushings and ball joints are already mounted in the control arms,and upgraded ball joints and bushings are fitted where appropriate. FRPPalso offers heavily upgraded rear lower arms as well.