BC coilovers 04 cobra coupe vrs billstein coilovers

Suki

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morning all
wanted to see if anyone had tried BC coil overs they have them on sale wanted some input i am running bill steins right now with maximum sleeve for coil overs is it worth the change over
 

01yellercobra

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My buddy has them on his charger and likes them. He likes them enough that he bought a second set up replace the first that has over 100k on them.

As for if there better than the MM set up... that depends if you want/need the adjustability. If you don't stick with MM. If you do go for the BC's.
 

2DXTRM

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morning all
wanted to see if anyone had tried BC coil overs they have them on sale wanted some input i am running bill steins right now with maximum sleeve for coil overs is it worth the change over

Whats the current setup? HD struts/shocks? What spring rate?

I went from the MM/Koni SA setup (350F /550R), to KW V3. Best move I made. Car rides/handles a lot better.

The KW V3 puts the rear spring back in the stock location (as does the BC Coilovers), I find the rear suspension articulates better this way.
Putting the spring over the shock on the rear of an IRS, might be ok on a flat track, but the street, I was not happy with the car.
 
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Blkkbgt

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For me there are enough documented failures of their coilover for me to stay away. If you do a Google search you'll see what I mean. I am not talking about mustang specific failures either.

Now if that doesn't change your mind the one major advantage of BC over your current MM setup is the ability to independently adjust ride height without affecting pre load.

Now will they ride or handle better? No clue.

With all that said I am already leaning hard towards a set of feal coilovers. A bit more pricey but I can get them custom valved, rebound and compression are adjustable as is independent ride height. Unless something changes this is probably the route I'll be going because I really don't like the ride height of my MM setup right now but we'll see what happens when I get the car together.
 

Blkkbgt

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Whats the current setup? HD struts/shocks? What spring rate?

I went from the MM/Koni SA setup (350F /550R), to KW V3. Best move I made. Car rides/handles a lot better.

The KW V3 puts the rear spring back in the stock location (as does the BC Coilovers), I find the rear suspension articulates better this way.
Putting the spring over the shock on the rear of an IRS, might be ok on a flat track, but the street, I was not happy with the car.

You're the first person I've ever heard complain about coilovers in the rear on these cars.

I don’t like how KW doesn't use a 4 bolt CC plate like MM.
 

2DXTRM

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You're the first person I've ever heard complain about coilovers in the rear on these cars.

No, I'm not the only one. There are quite a few out there that have expressed their views about it.

I'm picky with how my car rides on the street. What pissed me off was the guessing game with spring heights and rates with the Koni SA shocks, even with calling places like MM (8 inch or 7 inch, 550 or 650 lb springs). Switched shocks to the OEM Bilstein coupe shocks and coil-overs with a lighter spring (475), still wasn't happy. I have hundreds of dollars in springs brand new in boxes that I cant even get rid of. Had enough of the BS.

What really sealed the deal for me to go back to a stock location spring was looking at the setup on the FR500 concept car. The front SLA suspension was where all the business was. Rear IRS not much of a change from factory, stock location spring.

If I had to do it again, I wouldn't hesitate with the KWs, or I would keep it simple with coil-overs upfront (Koni or Bilsteins) and stock location spring (even some kind of height adjustable)/shock in the rear.

I don’t like how KW doesn't use a 4 bolt CC plate like MM.

I actually used the Griggs GR40 C/C plates with the previous setup. They have a nice pyramid design and were 3 bolt. I'm not sure if they even make them anymore.
However, I'm not concerned about the 3 bolt plates on the KW, as they are steel.
 

Blkkbgt

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No, I'm not the only one. There are quite a few out there that have expressed their views about it.

I'm picky with how my car rides on the street. What pissed me off was the guessing game with spring heights and rates with the Koni SA shocks, even with calling places like MM (8 inch or 7 inch, 550 or 650 lb springs). Switched shocks to the OEM Bilstein coupe shocks and coil-overs with a lighter spring (475), still wasn't happy. I have hundreds of dollars in springs brand new in boxes that I cant even get rid of. Had enough of the BS.

What really sealed the deal for me to go back to a stock location spring was looking at the setup on the FR500 concept car. The front SLA suspension was where all the business was. Rear IRS not much of a change from factory, stock location spring.

If I had to do it again, I wouldn't hesitate with the KWs, or I would keep it simple with coil-overs upfront (Koni or Bilsteins) and stock location spring (even some kind of height adjustable)/shock in the rear.



I actually used the Griggs GR40 C/C plates with the previous setup. They have a nice pyramid design and were 3 bolt. I'm not sure if they even make them anymore.
However, I'm not concerned about the 3 bolt plates on the KW, as they are steel.

Maybe I should have been a little more clear.

I was saying your the first person I've come across to complain about coilovers specifically on the IRS, rear end of the car.

I've seen more than a few stick axle guys complain though.

Usually the guys I see complain about coilovers as a whole are the ones running supper cheap setups that are slammed with next to no bump travel. These same people complain about creaks and pops when the suspension fully unloads going over large dips. To me that is user error and not the fault of the coilovers.

I 100% understand wanting your car to ride a certain way and be comfortable on the street. This is actually why I swapped in an IRS and went coilovers to begin with.

Lastly I subscribe to the thought that its the valving rather than spring rate (to a point) that causes a harsh ride. With that said I wonder how much of what you're enjoying is due to the valving of the KWs?
 

shurur

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I know the terminator is heavier in the front than the 99-01 cobra and the 2000R, but I think half the problem with folks not liking the rear COs is the rates that MM seems to recommend compared to the front COs.

FTBR ran a 400/500 F/R ratio. That's 0.8. (But that does include the eibach swaybar).....but...
I can't help but think staying 0.7-0.75 might be better for Terminators. I just tend to trust Bruce at FTBR over MM.

This may be why MM is often selling folks on stiffer front swaybars...
 
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Blkkbgt

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I know the terminator is heavier in the front than the 99-01 cobra and the 2000R, but I think half the problem with folks not liking the rear COs is the rates that MM seems to recommend compared to the front COs.

FTBR ran a 400/500 F/R ratio. That's 0.8. (But that does include the eibach swaybar).....but...
I can't help but think staying 0.7-0.75 might be better for Terminators. I just tend to trust Bruce at FTBR over MM.

This may be why MM is often selling folks on stiffer front swaybars...

Where did you find that info? Did you message Bruce?

Thats completely opposite of what MM recommends in the way of matching rates. They want them as close as possible front to rear.

This is something I've also noticed with feal setups. They actually go with a softer spring in the rear.

Do you have any insight as to why and what the benefits are by chance?
 

shurur

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Where did you find that info? Did you message Bruce?

Thats completely opposite of what MM recommends in the way of matching rates. They want them as close as possible front to rear.

This is something I've also noticed with feal setups. They actually go with a softer spring in the rear.

Do you have any insight as to why and what the benefits are by chance?

From what I have seen, for that front spring rate (400#), MM seems to recommend a difference (delta) of 150#+ like religion.
It's FTBR that only has a delta of 100#. It's about keeping a ratio between front to rear spring rates.

So if you had 350# front then the rear would need to be ~438# to be at the FTBR 400/500 ratio.
(So you would look for an actual spring closest to that 438# rate).
I think that the MM recommended delta for a 350# front spring would be larger than of a ~438# rear spring.

The delta gets larger as the front to rear weight ratio does; so the delta might be a bit more for the more nose heavy terminator...but I don't think it would be as large as MM seems to often recommend.

But then Bruce was running the stiffer eibach rear swaybar..still the MM delta seems larger than it needs to be...even with the OEM swaybar.

The taz cobra site talks about how the suspension works like a lever.

Bruce posted up for me in some thread I was getting jumped on. I can try to find it.

This site has a handy chart from the Taz site to show what handling mods do what in terms of oversteer and understeer. It can also be found on jrgoffin's terminator site.

Tech Docs
Suspension
 
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shurur

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Id be interested, if you can find the link.
Well, I looked all afternoon, but haven't found it yet. I had a svtp post saying the rates were 450/550, but my CO doc said something different..400/500.

I may find the thread link in some other document.
 

Venom351R

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I recently decided to redo my suspension set up due to having MM Race3 CO when I bought it. Decided I wanted to blistein HD's for the front / rear and keep the CO set up. I reached out to MM and they recommended #600 springs in the rear and #350 in the front. I mentioned about just wanting to run H&R springs for the rear and keep the CO's on the front but they advised against the H&R and said they are too soft for this car and will bottom out ( The Sport ones )

So what I'm asking is thoughts on what they suggested for the spring rates and thoughts on if I decided to go HR's on the back and keeping the CO's on the front. This is a street driven car, might see the track once or twice a year but is not being built around that at all. Just want a better riding street car with improved handling over stock. I know people here have a lot more experience when it comes to how these ride on the street and what the IRS seems to like better. I've only had my Terminator a short amount of time
 

Blkkbgt

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I recently decided to redo my suspension set up due to having MM Race3 CO when I bought it. Decided I wanted to blistein HD's for the front / rear and keep the CO set up. I reached out to MM and they recommended #600 springs in the rear and #350 in the front. I mentioned about just wanting to run H&R springs for the rear and keep the CO's on the front but they advised against the H&R and said they are too soft for this car and will bottom out ( The Sport ones )

So what I'm asking is thoughts on what they suggested for the spring rates and thoughts on if I decided to go HR's on the back and keeping the CO's on the front. This is a street driven car, might see the track once or twice a year but is not being built around that at all. Just want a better riding street car with improved handling over stock. I know people here have a lot more experience when it comes to how these ride on the street and what the IRS seems to like better. I've only had my Terminator a short amount of time

What is the rear spring rate with your H&Rs?

From there you can calculate the wheel rate and match the front coilover rate to the rear.
 

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