Eibach's Multi-Pro R2 coilover...
Eibach's Multi-Pro R2 coilover kit offers high quality with bolt-in convenience. Eibach tech Dan Papaeliou ran us through the install, which is a good home-shop job. The stock strut is removed in its entirety and the Eibach strut is fitted. You'll need to handle the two high-torque bolts between the strut and steering spindle, and find a place to mount the reservoir. The reservoir's hose is long enough to snake through the plastic fender liner to the engine compartment. That's a good place as it allows easy access for quick adjustments.
Horse Sense: Even with its reservoirs, hoses, and such, Eibach's Multi-Pro kit weighs 13 pounds less than the matching stock components. No one was more surprised than the Eibach crew, who says their kit scales 62 pounds and the stock stuff comes in at 75 pounds.
Once as racy as open headers, coilover suspensions have moved into the street scene to stay. Thanks mainly to their ride-height adjustability, coilovers are now prized by everyone from street cruisers to performance junkies. But there's much more to coilovers than dropping your ride into the weeds for car shows, which is why Eibach Springs has engineered a bolt-on coilover kit for S197 Mustangs.
Eibach's new system, the Multi-Pro, builds on coilovers' true strengths: foremost, a quality shock and spring combination designed to give the best possible suspension control. Other advantages are relatively easy and inexpensive spring changes, adjustable corner weights, rebuildability, and yes, adjustable ride height. In the Multi-Pro R2 case-the system we're detailing here-there is also "double adjustability" in the Eibach-built dampers. That is, both compression and rebound dampening are adjustable separately.
In short, the Multi-Pro R2 kit can put Indy car levels of twiddle and fiddle into the spring/shock combination. Such adjustability sounds sexy, and it is, but as many of the more enthusiastic Mustang street fans have found, dialing the ride height up and down on the same schedule as a department store elevator is too much work. After a car show or two, the ride height is invariably set to a workable street height and left there.
The same is true for street/track machines. Typically these cars are set to an acceptable compromise and left at that. However, all this adjustability is good for setting up the car just the way you want it; a real boon when changing wheels and tires. Let's not forget the coilover's strong-est suit: excellent dampening and chassis control. This also suggests why "cheap Charlie" coilovers aren't worth the trouble.
Eibach has combined all the coilover strengths into a package that bolts onto a new Mustang. There are perhaps two minor holes to drill in hidden places, but the rest is bolt-on work.
We're down with this look,...
We're down with this look, and so is Eibach's Multi-Pro test mule. The weed-trimming ride height is one benefit of the coilover's corner-by-corner adjustability. For a lowered vehicle, this yellow looker boasts a comfortable ride that's a single notch firmer and busier than stock.
Eibach designs, prototypes, and manufactures its own struts and shocks in house, including the valving and gas pressurization. These are monotube inverted shocks with the piston at the top of the shock, so they use a remote reservoir. As there is no stock counterpart to the reservoir, they are mounted wherever is convenient using billet aluminum brackets. The monotube design, besides allowing better hydraulic characteristics, leaves room for a generously sized shaft. That means extra rigidity for greater precision from this suspension locating part.
The front strut bodies are made from electropolished 304 stainless steel that's been cleared of iron impurities, so the stainless steel is more rust and corrosion resistant. Combined with the nicely finished springs and other hardware, the struts have a surprising luster-at least until you drive through the first puddle.
Eibach, which supplies springs to everyone from street machines to NASCAR, Formula One, dirt bikes, buggies, and trucks, obviously makes its high-quality coil springs in-house. For the Multi-Pro kits, the company uses its popular 2.5-inch diameter coils, which are available in a comprehensive span of spring rates. It doesn't matter if you're equipping a flyweight drag car or a show car dripping with stereo gear, Eibach has the springs for the job.
The rear shocks are not so flashy: just DOM hydraulic tubing finished to a matte-black sheen. Both front and rear shocks feature remote reservoirs required by the inverted design and give less oil aeration and more consistent dampening.
Installation is essentially the same as R&Ring the stock springs and shocks, with the addition of fitting the remote reservoirs. These are connected to the shocks with Eibach-specific stainless steel hoses that are sleeved in vinyl and attached with hard steel fittings. Swivel fittings may be used in the future, but those will be installation niceties only. The reservoirs must mount on the chassis near the shocks, which is easy enough to do thanks to the billet aluminum brackets supplied for this job.