Well maybe not so much....anyway, I have found that my old Lakewood rear shocks on the racecar need replacing. They are leaking and probably the main cause of the excessive rearend squaut I've experienced since buying the car. I am trying to save some research time by asking the racers on the board what they have found to install with the least mods. The car has 100% stock upper & lower mounting configuration. On these cars,of course, the upper mount is the challenge and Lakewood discontinued the direct fit application some time ago.
this is just my opinion, & will probably cause some disagreement, but do you have any traction bars or control arms in the rear? when u bounce the rear by hand does it keep bouncing or stop? ie are the shocks really bad? usually without some type of traction control, the rear will squat to some degree. possibly all you really need is either traction bars or caltrac bars. when u install something that plants the rear tires, it also causes the rear of the chassis to lift slightly. might also help to jack up the body & install 2-3 spring clamps on the front half of each leaf spring. just a thought.
I use the QA-1 Adjustable shocks that are attached to Cal-Tracs. I used the bottom shock mounting "part" for a fox body mustang to adapt to the QA-1 ends. The Mustang parts are about $5/ea at Ford. You need to measure ride height to determine the length of a shock to fit your app. Good luck.
The car passed the bounce test before we removed the shocks. They extend reasonably well but compress like there was no resistance whatsoever; and, as I said, they are leaking. I am trying not to install any traction devices as the car has but 150 or so hp at the wheels and never spins a tire. The springs are clamped and along with the factory staggered shock design seem to keep wheel hop in check. Traction bars will add weight and that's not a good thing for me unless I can trim down in other areas. The Strange discs in the front will help in that dept. Once the rest of the off-season mods are complete, we'll scale the car and see where we are....might consider the trac bars then.
i just use standard shocks. i got them from summit some years ago. i have comp. engineering 3 ways on the front. QA1's are big buck shocks in my opinion.
Don. let lose with some of that old rusty Winner's money of yours. It's all in the 60's the low the better! As always just my .02 but we all know you have it. Terry
Has anyone done the research to come up with a Rancho part number that will fit our cars with minor adaptation?
'Sorry for the delayed reply. from an earlier post I made: "Ordering QA1 shocks tomorrow (p/n STS1578P good for 14" ride height). BTW, in order to use this shock, the QA1 guys recommend their very expensive adapter (from eyelet to stem mounting method). The guy doing the work says the same adapter is found on Fox Bodied Mustangs and can be found at Ford Dealerships for A LOT less than what QA1 sells them for." You'll have to got to this page and enter the info for your particular application. Hope this helps.
