people keep telling me i have to change my whole front suspension on my 74' mav to "V8" components to accomidate the bigger motor.......how true is this before i go and spend money on parts that i may not even need.....yesterday an older guy told me that the supension i have now will not hold up to the V8.
I don't believe anything is different except the coil spring rates but a lot of guys still run the 6 cylinder springs with the V8.
Some people put 6 cylinder stuff in v8 cars. Its pretty much the same stuff with different spring rates.
The only thing I'd change is to add the v-8 belly bar. Might sit a little lower with the 6 springs, but that's what a lot of people want anyway.
74 has the same suspension if it came V8 or 6 cyl. FWIW I ran a V8 on top of my 60 Falcon 6 cyl suspension for 25 years with no problems. Also most big bumper 6 cyl cars weigh more and have a stronger spring rate than most V8 small bumper cars.
Yep...weight is weight. A/C cars have a different spring rate too. Ford used 16 different springs to pick from to match the weight. This is just for 70-73. See http://1bad6t.com/Maverick/repair/coilsprings.html and keep scrolling to see how many they used on all Mavericks.
mine was a 250cid, with the 91 5.0 hyd. roller the ride height stayed the same... there is a spring cut on the drawing board...
you can look up that by going to moog chassis parts look up coil springs . the inter change book lists nothing about weight difference on that. mavericks and comets from 1970 to 1974 are the same in this book.
There is no differance in the parts (upper/lower control arms are the same, the inner and outer tie rods are the same (only differance at some point is the outer tie rods between drum and disk spindles), springs would be the only thing really and that isn't really critical, the only other thing I can think of would be the "belly bar" I6 cars didn't have one but the V8 ones did... it goes right by the lower control arm mounts and behind them, the my '74 I6 car had the holes and all I had to do was find one and bolt it in... and according to some the belly bar isn't really neccisary either but it does give some extra support.
