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2011 Mustang Alignment advice and general suggestions

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Hi everyone,

I need some help and advice about setting up my 2011 to handle better. My car is a 2011 brembo car and it is mainly used for spirited driving and some track days once a year or so. It is a street car used 95% of the time on the street.

My suspension consists of the following mods:

Ground control coilover kit (springs/shocks/struts/cc plates), lowered maybe a bit more than 1.5" on the front and 2" on the rear. spring rates are 380F/280R if i recall correctly.
Bmr supporting mods - Panhard bar, UCA, LCA, LCA BRACKETS all are poly bushings.
Whiteline sway bars - set up on the stiffest setting up front, and 2 out of 4 on the back.
19X10 Forgestar F14 +39 offset square wheels, with 285/35 pilot super sport on the back and 255/40 MT street comps on the front for the moment (I know this is not ideal but I could only afford to replace the rears for now).
Steeda bumpsteer kit - installed but not yet aligned.

My issue is, the car does not seem to handle better at all. The balance is off (fast understeer-oversteer transitions), the steering is lacking (it is lacking feel/feedback and is moving more liberally and less precise).
Also, the car suffered some major bumpsteer (which i think is getting better since i installed the bumpsteer kit but i have yet to professionally align it).
The car was ofcourse aligned after each change, and right now i have it set on -1.8 camber, stock caster and almost no toe. Everything is intalled just like the instructions indicated, but it seems that the whole geometry is way off and i that i have only made the car handle worse than stock. The only things that did improve are the zero wheel hop that i have since i lowered it and installed the uca, and that the car does feel stiffer and a lot bouncier, but not balanced.

I'm heading to the alignment shop this week and would like to know what is the recommended and simplest way to align the bumpsteer kit, what are the recommended toe/camber/caster settings for my use of the car and any other advice regarding height, sway bar adjustment etc that can help me to improve this frustrating situation.
Please note that I'm not from the U.S and I imported my mustang to where I live. This means there is virtually no knowledge or shops that deal with these cars where I live, so I base all of my work and modifications over the internet and personal experience.

I attached some photos of the car so you can see how it looks/sits. I would appreciate any advice that can help me set it up the right way. Thanks!

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11334094_778655378915510_3968865256389480338_o.jpg


image.jpg
 

ArizonaBOSS

Because racecar.
Moderator
8,730
2,734
Arizona, USA
The "simplest" way to adjust the bumpsteer kit is to shim the spacer stack so that the inner tie rod is parallel with the front lower control arm. If you are interested in the "detailed" way to do it, there is a bump-steer adjustment thread on this site.

What setting are your rear Lower Control Arms set at in the relocation brackets? If you have these adjusted all the way down you will get roll oversteer which may be part of what you are describing.

Are the shock damping levels adjustable?

Also you want probably a hair of toe out, maybe 1/8" total.

@modernbeat has a bunch of experience with those swaybars as well and may be able to offer some setup insight.
 
My rear control arms were previously set on the lowest setting, but now they are set on the middle setting, almost parrel with the car at rest. The shocks are rebound adjustable and I play with their settings a lot. I usually have them set on the stiffest setting on the front and lowest on the rear, or up to 40% on the rear. But even with the shocks being at the highest setting it does not help much with what I'm experiencing. What do u think causes the lack of steering feedback and feel that I'm getting? Is it the car being too low for the whole geometry in the stock a arms/bushings etc? should i raise it more? and what alignment settings would you recommend for a street car?
 

Grant 302

basic and well known psychic
Pretty sure most of your problems are coming from lowering the car -1.5" up front.

If you look under the car and your front lower control arms are pointing UP , then you can see the problem. If you want to stay that low, I would add tall ball joints and that should help some.

I suggest trying about 1/2" to 3/4" from the stock GT geometry height and see how that feels.
 
898
544
Grant 302 said:
Pretty sure most of your problems are coming from lowering the car -1.5" up front.

If you look under the car and your front lower control arms are pointing UP , then you can see the problem. If you want to stay that low, I would add tall ball joints and that should help some.

I suggest trying about 1/2" to 3/4" from the stock GT geometry height and see how that feels.

This is what I was thinking too. It is easy to lower the car to much and cause geometry issues that negate any benefits other parts may have.
 
Alon 5.0 said:
Hi everyone,

I need some help and advice about setting up my 2011 to handle better. My car is a 2011 brembo car and it is mainly used for spirited driving and some track days once a year or so. It is a street car used 95% of the time on the street.

My suspension consists of the following mods:

Ground control coilover kit (springs/shocks/struts/cc plates), lowered maybe a bit more than 1.5" on the front and 2" on the rear. spring rates are 380F/280R if i recall correctly.
Bmr supporting mods - Panhard bar, UCA, LCA, LCA BRACKETS all are poly bushings.
Whiteline sway bars - set up on the stiffest setting up front, and 2 out of 4 on the back.
19X10 Forgestar F14 +39 offset square wheels, with 285/35 pilot super sport on the back and 255/40 MT street comps on the front for the moment (I know this is not ideal but I could only afford to replace the rears for now).
Steeda bumpsteer kit - installed but not yet aligned.

My issue is, the car does not seem to handle better at all. The balance is off (fast understeer-oversteer transitions), the steering is lacking (it is lacking feel/feedback and is moving more liberally and less precise).
Also, the car suffered some major bumpsteer (which i think is getting better since i installed the bumpsteer kit but i have yet to professionally align it).
The car was ofcourse aligned after each change, and right now i have it set on -1.8 camber, stock caster and almost no toe. Everything is intalled just like the instructions indicated, but it seems that the whole geometry is way off and i that i have only made the car handle worse than stock. The only things that did improve are the zero wheel hop that i have since i lowered it and installed the uca, and that the car does feel stiffer and a lot bouncier, but not balanced.

I'm heading to the alignment shop this week and would like to know what is the recommended and simplest way to align the bumpsteer kit, what are the recommended toe/camber/caster settings for my use of the car and any other advice regarding height, sway bar adjustment etc that can help me to improve this frustrating situation.
Please note that I'm not from the U.S and I imported my mustang to where I live. This means there is virtually no knowledge or shops that deal with these cars where I live, so I base all of my work and modifications over the internet and personal experience.

I attached some photos of the car so you can see how it looks/sits. I would appreciate any advice that can help me set it up the right way. Thanks!

I'm sure you will get several different suggestions on how to work out the handling issues you are experiencing. I'll throw my vote into the mix as well based on my own experiences and the information you have provided on your current setup. I certainly dont think my approach is any better then the others, its just my opinion.

1. I think the combination of having a staggered tire fitment along with a very stiff rear bar is not helping matters for you. I would start by dropping the stiffness of the rear bar ALL the way down to the softest setting first. You might even consider backing off the front bar stiffness by a notch also. It sounds like the car may be just too stiff all around (Bar & Damper Settings) and that could be having a negative effect across the board. Even on the softest setting, the Whiteline Rear bar is still very stiff IMO.

2. You may want to also consider using 1.5 turns of Rebound in the Front and slightly more then that in the back (say 2 turns) as a new starting point with the above combo. This is based on the assumption that your Ground Control Coilovers are stuffed with a Koni Yellow insert of some flavor in the front and standard Koni Yellow rear shock in the back.

At this point I would stop any furthur changes and see how the car reacts to this. In my experience I find it best to leave the car in a given configuration for a few days and drive it until you have a good handle on what has changed with the handling characteristics compared to before. I know there have been many times where my initial reaction to a change was not favorable but after some miles were put on the car in a progressivly more agressive manor I found that my initial reaction was off base and I liked the cars behavior more then before. Granted, this is not always the case and you could certainly have made the car worse by a given set of changes but I find it best to hold off on initial impressions until your certain about what the car is doing.

In terms of alignment these are my settings which seem to work well. Keep in mind I'm using a Square Tire setup but I think it would still be decent in most cases:

Caster = Driver (+7.0) - Pass (+7.1)
Camber = Driver (-1.4) - Pass (-1.5)
Toe = Driver (+0.02) - Pass (-0.02)

Total Toe = 0.00
Steer Ahead = +0.02
Thrust Angle = -0.05

Lastly in terms of Ride Height I would say a drop of anything more then 1.5" for a street car and you begin to encounter headaches and other less then favorable behavior. My car is dropped 1.5" at the lowest point and goes up from there (due to corner balancing). I used to have it lower and besides the scraping on everything not level with the road it also rode like crap, even with good dampers.

Other then the sway bar and tire configuration on your car I would say you certainly have all the parts needed to make for a fun car to drive. You just have to turn all the right knobs to get it dialed in :)
 
Sorry for the delay, been busy with a few exams. Thank you all for the reply's. I re adjusted my height, installed a bumpsteer kit and now waiting for an alignment. I'm waiting to see how and if the balance and steering is going to feel better this way. Before I'm heading to the alignment shop, I'd like to ask what settings would you guys recommend for a setup like mine? The car is not a daily driver so I dont have to worry about my tire's life or anything. I'd just like to do the best alignment possible for a steet setup with maximum feedback.
 

Grant 302

basic and well known psychic
I assume you're eventually going to get Super Sports for the front? How much did you raise the car?

For low mileage and Super sports, I'd probably set it to maximum negative camber and max caster. Set toe to 0.0º for reduced wear or 1/16" out for a bit quicker turn-in.
 

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