Here is a great video showing the benefits of an SLA suspension over a Strut. Granted the study is biased but it makes perfect sense.
Cantilever suspension is just plain badass. Like I said.. a car is far more than just it's suspension design alone. Each design can be reengineered and tuned for the drivers individual style and end up beating up on another car with a "superior design". Look up the old Cobra R to see a car running past many others with much more optimized suspension designs. A fun old video. I believe there was a Steeda R that broke some track records too. Obviously other cars with better suspensions were bested while it was breaking them as well. Some of you here are speaking in absolutes when it comes to these suspension design choices.. but this is just a Maverick.. not a high dollar GTO racing class with pretty much carbon fiber everything covering ceramic rotors with billet aluminum and magnesium sprinkled everywhere it can be used to cut weight. If you're seriously looking for state of the art suspension.. or for that matter, state of the art anything.. you surely won't find it being sold for this car. Not many here could ever fully realize the potential shortcomings of any one of the designs being discussed here if it were fully tuned to perfectioin anyways, so pick your poison and drink it down while you enjoy the ride.
Yep a car isnt shia of you cant drive worth a poo lol Hell Mary Pozzi was beating up everyone for years in a camaro with stock subframe and leafs..hotchkis setup
The macpherson strut is not a good road race setup when Steve Salean raced mustangs he said there was no way to make the mustang go around corners fast until he replaced the Struts with a wish bone front suspension! but Like you I would look at something elce besides the Mustang II front suspension ! there are better choices out there
That's not entirely true as he raced many classes that it wasn't legal to chanmge from factory and yet he still won against many other SLA equipped cars anyways. And when he did do that suspension mod it was only because Steve Saleen raced in upper divisions that allowed that particular mod to be done. Keep in mind that Steeda(and MANY MANY others/Mustangs were VERY popular) raced in divisions that did now allow that and broke track records with their "crappily designed struts". All depends on how fast you wanna go and what mod's are allowed, I guess. My opinion is, yeah I know.. broken record.. that this is not the proper platform to plan on racing world class cars anyways. The weight bias is pure crapola and the engine is WAY too far forward(for the wheelbase and rear tire weight) to maximize ANY fully optimized and state of the art suspension. Cantilever, SLA, or otherwise. So, you guys can speak in "design absolutes" all you want.. plus, I don't think the OP's question really wanted all this extreme design limitation advice anyways but we all like to dream and go overboard at times.. but the fact still remains that the rest of this car still sucks at pushing any designs flaws right to their maximum fault levels anyways. In other words, unless you have 14" brakes with 6 piston calipers(and about 70% of that brake torque spec for the rear too) to push really fast and deep into a corner?, not to mention being able to thread the needle like a Steve Saleen.. it's highly doubtful any of this makes much more than a small iota of difference for a street/strip/track car. Some designs will compare slightly better than others when you get the time slips.. but all have their place and limitations for each respective form of racing. And I think that was said and generalized upon very early on in this thread.
Well guys i appreciate all the responses. I realize now that they all have their drawbacks and positives. I was originally asking about spring perch vs coil over setup. But now that i have had time to read your posts and digest it, i am even more confused. I want this car to perform on the road, mostly daily driving, tire wear is an issue. I think i am basically down to aje k member, r&d MII, or just dropped spindles. Which one performs better in daily driving? I plan on swapping in a aluminum headed 302 or gm 6.0. I think a GM 6.0 is what i really want. So who has experience driving either and what are your impressions? If i do a mustang 2 i will brace my frame rails to the firewall. Would i need to box in the frame rails with a mustang 2?
I've had my RC107 kit for about 7 years. I am very pleased with it. the design boxes the frame in itself. I have 2" drop spindles.
There are a couple guys on here with GM LS engines and both have the R&C MII kit. (71gold above for instance) Im pretty sure that is about the easiest way to fit one. It also looks better than the AJE in my opinion. I'd go with the coil overs so you dial in the ride height better. Even if the kit doesnt require boxing the frame rail, you might as well do it. You're welding in the cross member anyway.
Boxing a frame rail implies adding a piece of plate to "close in" the typical 3-sided channel shape of a rail (on full-frame vehicles) and making it an actual 4-sided box. Most all unibody cars like the Mav rails already have "boxed" rails...
Agreed but kits like the Total Cost Involved IFS include boxing plates for beefing up the frame rail even more.
