Suspension/Handling/Drive-ability/Safety Upgrades
Thought some folks might be interested in this...
For you Concours guys you can stop reading now – these upgrades definitely modify the car away from stock. And for you rodders out there (are there any left on this website?) these changes are probably too mild. But for those of you who, like me, want a car that “looks 1968” but “drives 2008” at a reasonable price, here's what I've done and would recommend. This is listed in a priority order where priority is some combination of benefit of the mod vs cost to do the mod...
(1) Add an export brace. Cheap, easy to do, can be reversed. Adds structural support.
(2) Add a metal divider between the back seat and trunk. I did this mainly for safety reasons (in case of a rear-end collision) but, interestingly, it also seems to add structural support. After adding the divider I noticed that the car didn't flex side-to-side nearly as much so this apparently also adds structural support. And all the creaks and groans (like when you back out of the driveway) vanished! It's cheap and easy to do.
(3) Arning drop (aka UCA or Shelby drop). Dropping the UCA 1”. Makes for much better handling.
(4) Roller perches. Again, this helps with the handling. It's a good kicker on top of the Arning drop.
(5) Progressive rate front springs – stock height. I personally don't like the front of the car being lowered. I'm also not fond of the reverse rake that stock mustangs have. I like the car to have a level stance, which is about what you end up with after doing the Arning drop but keeping stock height springs. When I added the roller perches I also added progressive-rate, stock-height, front springs so I don't know which contributed the most for the better handling – the springs or the perches (note, I've *read* that the roller perches add the most benefit). This, again, is a good kicker on top of the Arning drop. Note: The car previously had “lowered” and stiffer springs on it. I neither liked the lowered front ride height nor the “go-kart” stiff suspension feel.
(6) Front-end alignment to the Dazecars.com spec. Really helped with the handling and most of what I thought was steering linkage slop was gone after aligning to these specs. BTW: You can do FE alignments yourself with ~$200 worth of tools.
(7) Note: The car already had a upgraded front sway bar so I can't comment on how much benefit that adds...
(8) Headrests. Safety. I just added '69 seat backs.
(9) Front disk brakes. Safety.
(10) LED tail lights. Safety and unique look. One benefit of the GT/CS is that is so unique that people already tend to notice it on the road. The more you are noticed the safer you are. Adding LED tail lights which are both brighter and more unique increases the notice-ability (esp when stopping) quite a lot.
(11) Subframe connectors. I put Global West subframe connectors on the car. Along with the other suspension upgrades this makes the car handling fill really tight without having that “go-kart-jouncy-suspension” feel.
(12) 5-speed manual transmission. Fun, fun, fun (used to be a 3-speed... arrgh!)... also a bit better gas mileage on the freeway. Added a T5 transmission and changed the rear end from 3.0 to a 3.4.
(13) EFI. TBI, self-learning, EFI kit. It's a split decision whether I would recommended this or not. Not only is it the most expensive upgrade (~$1800) but, depending on your background, this could be a very frustrating addition.
The benefits: Better throttle response, better cold starts, better gas mileage, no fuel smell, adapts to altitude and ambient temperature changes (no re-jetting, etc required). And, if you do it right you can easily switched back (~5hours) from EFI -> carb.
The deficits: More complicated setup – more things can go wrong or fail and diagnosing them can become difficult. Moreover if you have EFI on a classic mustang and take it to most shops most of the mechanics don't know where to start. Even if they are comfortable with EFI a mechanic would need to know your specific EFI kit to be able to fix or modify anything. So, you end up doing a lot of your own work. And, unless you commute a long distance in your mustang, this mod will *not* pay for itself in any reasonable amount of time.
The decision:
Yea: If (like me) you feel more comfortable with computers than carbs, you like to fine tune the engine (eg A/F ratios, etc) using a laptop, and the above benefits of EFI are of sufficient value to you then, I'd recommend EFI. If you already know what you are doing, installing one of these kits takes no more than a day. The main things to focus on are the fuel system (esp the choice of the fuel pump), making sure the engine has very good electrical grounds (bad grounds cause a lot more problems with EFI while carbs are almost immune to this), making sure the engine has no vacuum leaks (again, EFI is much more sensitive to the vacuum signal) or exhaust leaks (can cause errors with the O2 readings).
Nay: If you're really comfortable with carbs, or are computer-phobic, or are not willing/able to do your own diagnosis/fixing of problems then I would stay away from EFI – even the one's touted as “plug-and-go”.
The tradeoff: If you only drive your car at a given altitude in an area where there's not a lot of ambient temp changes (eg coastal CA) then, IMO, you can tune your carb to within ~10% of what you'd get with the best tuned EFI. If you drive your car under differing and extreme conditions (temp, altitude) and really don't know how to fine tune a carb then you can probably get up to 25% better avg fuel economy (eg 16mpg -> 20mpg) from EFI along with better cold starts, better throttle response, etc
Thought some folks might be interested in this...
For you Concours guys you can stop reading now – these upgrades definitely modify the car away from stock. And for you rodders out there (are there any left on this website?) these changes are probably too mild. But for those of you who, like me, want a car that “looks 1968” but “drives 2008” at a reasonable price, here's what I've done and would recommend. This is listed in a priority order where priority is some combination of benefit of the mod vs cost to do the mod...
(1) Add an export brace. Cheap, easy to do, can be reversed. Adds structural support.
(2) Add a metal divider between the back seat and trunk. I did this mainly for safety reasons (in case of a rear-end collision) but, interestingly, it also seems to add structural support. After adding the divider I noticed that the car didn't flex side-to-side nearly as much so this apparently also adds structural support. And all the creaks and groans (like when you back out of the driveway) vanished! It's cheap and easy to do.
(3) Arning drop (aka UCA or Shelby drop). Dropping the UCA 1”. Makes for much better handling.
(4) Roller perches. Again, this helps with the handling. It's a good kicker on top of the Arning drop.
(5) Progressive rate front springs – stock height. I personally don't like the front of the car being lowered. I'm also not fond of the reverse rake that stock mustangs have. I like the car to have a level stance, which is about what you end up with after doing the Arning drop but keeping stock height springs. When I added the roller perches I also added progressive-rate, stock-height, front springs so I don't know which contributed the most for the better handling – the springs or the perches (note, I've *read* that the roller perches add the most benefit). This, again, is a good kicker on top of the Arning drop. Note: The car previously had “lowered” and stiffer springs on it. I neither liked the lowered front ride height nor the “go-kart” stiff suspension feel.
(6) Front-end alignment to the Dazecars.com spec. Really helped with the handling and most of what I thought was steering linkage slop was gone after aligning to these specs. BTW: You can do FE alignments yourself with ~$200 worth of tools.
(7) Note: The car already had a upgraded front sway bar so I can't comment on how much benefit that adds...
(8) Headrests. Safety. I just added '69 seat backs.
(9) Front disk brakes. Safety.
(10) LED tail lights. Safety and unique look. One benefit of the GT/CS is that is so unique that people already tend to notice it on the road. The more you are noticed the safer you are. Adding LED tail lights which are both brighter and more unique increases the notice-ability (esp when stopping) quite a lot.
(11) Subframe connectors. I put Global West subframe connectors on the car. Along with the other suspension upgrades this makes the car handling fill really tight without having that “go-kart-jouncy-suspension” feel.
(12) 5-speed manual transmission. Fun, fun, fun (used to be a 3-speed... arrgh!)... also a bit better gas mileage on the freeway. Added a T5 transmission and changed the rear end from 3.0 to a 3.4.
(13) EFI. TBI, self-learning, EFI kit. It's a split decision whether I would recommended this or not. Not only is it the most expensive upgrade (~$1800) but, depending on your background, this could be a very frustrating addition.
The benefits: Better throttle response, better cold starts, better gas mileage, no fuel smell, adapts to altitude and ambient temperature changes (no re-jetting, etc required). And, if you do it right you can easily switched back (~5hours) from EFI -> carb.
The deficits: More complicated setup – more things can go wrong or fail and diagnosing them can become difficult. Moreover if you have EFI on a classic mustang and take it to most shops most of the mechanics don't know where to start. Even if they are comfortable with EFI a mechanic would need to know your specific EFI kit to be able to fix or modify anything. So, you end up doing a lot of your own work. And, unless you commute a long distance in your mustang, this mod will *not* pay for itself in any reasonable amount of time.
The decision:
Yea: If (like me) you feel more comfortable with computers than carbs, you like to fine tune the engine (eg A/F ratios, etc) using a laptop, and the above benefits of EFI are of sufficient value to you then, I'd recommend EFI. If you already know what you are doing, installing one of these kits takes no more than a day. The main things to focus on are the fuel system (esp the choice of the fuel pump), making sure the engine has very good electrical grounds (bad grounds cause a lot more problems with EFI while carbs are almost immune to this), making sure the engine has no vacuum leaks (again, EFI is much more sensitive to the vacuum signal) or exhaust leaks (can cause errors with the O2 readings).
Nay: If you're really comfortable with carbs, or are computer-phobic, or are not willing/able to do your own diagnosis/fixing of problems then I would stay away from EFI – even the one's touted as “plug-and-go”.
The tradeoff: If you only drive your car at a given altitude in an area where there's not a lot of ambient temp changes (eg coastal CA) then, IMO, you can tune your carb to within ~10% of what you'd get with the best tuned EFI. If you drive your car under differing and extreme conditions (temp, altitude) and really don't know how to fine tune a carb then you can probably get up to 25% better avg fuel economy (eg 16mpg -> 20mpg) from EFI along with better cold starts, better throttle response, etc
