Team Z and Street Use

NotSatisfied

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I bought an 04 Cobra with a Team Z Metal Matrix K Member and non adjustable arms. It’s also has Strange 10-way Coil Overs with 175# springs. There is no front sway bar and the rear has H&R Race Springs and QA1 Double Adjustables.

Honestly with Houston Streets, this setup is not desirable. I’m not liking this setup as its easy to bottom out. I called Maximum and they emailed me a recommended list that involves changing out the K member, controls arms and everything. It was 4,500 bucks. Nice stuff but.. Damn!

They mentioned the K member was strictly for drag racing and that the control arms could fail under heavy braking due to their not being gussets between the tubes where they connect to the K member.

What can I do to get closer to stock and be happier? This is a weekend toy that I may want to do some HPD AutoX weekends, roll racing, street romps.

I got a factory sway bar on the way from eBay. I want to maybe swap the front and rear shocks out for Bilsteins and put matching H&R front springs in the front. Maybe a bump steer kit. I have MMCaster Camber Plates already.

What would you do? Thanks!!

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01yellercobra

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You could always post an ad to trade someone for their stock set up. Never know what you'll find. If that's what you're interested in. Too bad you're not closer as I actually have a stock set up sitting in my back yard collecting dust.
 

NotSatisfied

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You could always post an ad to trade someone for their stock set up. Never know what you'll find. If that's what you're interested in. Too bad you're not closer as I actually have a stock set up sitting in my back yard collecting dust.

Is necessary to change absolutely everything?

I know many run a similar k member, just don’t know how safe it is on the street or roll racing.


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01yellercobra

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It all depends on what fits with whatever K member you want. Generally the MM set up does require you to use their control arms. However someone on here made a set of BMR control arms work. What all was involved I couldn't tell you. I have the full MM set up in my car.

Looking at your pic I'd definitely switch it out before hitting any HPDE events.
 

CobraSam

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Could you see a fabricator about adding gusseting as needed? Then you’d probably want to change at least the coil over springs to a different rate, or even better, use MM’s complete coil over setup.
Your rear springs will be fine, but prob swap out the rear shocks, but they are adjustable, so you can probably dial in the settings to match your coil rate.
You can’t just swap out the front springs because your current a-arms don’t have spring perches. So, you either have to swap control arms or just swap complete coil overs, preferably MM.
As far as failing on the street, I dunno. It absolutely could happen I suppose. I’ve street driven thousand of miles on my Foxbodies over the years with drag suspension including drag spindle that would supposedly explode if I hit a pothole….nothing ever broke, so I’d say too many variables involved.
1 last thing to consider is bushing material used in the pivot joints. Drag setups tend to use stiffer bushings to reduce movement while street setup tends to be more forgiving.
 

03' White Snake

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It will be fine. Never heard of one breaking from street driving. If the front end can withstand wheeling off the ground and taking the shock load of landing, you are not going to cause that much force on the street hitting bumps. Stop over thinking it.

Your best bet is to swap out the coil over springs for more of a street car not race car. MM has a very good chart on there site for reference. Or replace the entire shock/struts and coil overs and sell the ones you take off the car.
 

bigja01cobra

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so what is heavier braking driving on the street where you somewhat follow the rules. Or going from 140+ at drag strip down to 15-30 in the shutdown area. Sounds like they were blowing smoke to try and get a sale.
 

01yellercobra

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so what is heavier braking driving on the street where you somewhat follow the rules. Or going from 140+ at drag strip down to 15-30 in the shutdown area. Sounds like they were blowing smoke to try and get a sale.
But you only do it once. While a canyon run might not hit 140+, there's still a lot of braking involved. I'd say it also depends on how many track events he's looking at attending.

Maybe someone like @bubblehead93 would be a good one to hit up.
 

Blkkbgt

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If you have FB go look at MMs page for starters. Look for something called "Not MM". You'll see several pictures of failed A arms and SRA lowers.

In short yes a drag racing oriented A arm has a higher probability of failure than stock or one made for open tracking.

Now will it fail on the street? No because tons of people run them and if they were failing all the time people would bitch. But on a track under heavy breaking loads with sticky tires the likelihood goes up and again there have been failures. Even Griggs has had issue.

MM has however stated repeatedly over the years that the worst event an A arm will see is hitting a pot hole while breaking. They designed their arms to handle this situation without a problem.

Take a look at the differences in designs between your A arms and MM or even BMR. You'll notice more gussets and thicker tubes. BMR botched their K member roll out but I'd trust their A arms on the street before a drag race arm.

Now I am going to assume you bought A arms without sway bar mounts. If I am correct they need to go if you want the car to handle well. Sorry but it WONT happen without a sway bar, period.

Next your shocks and strut setup along with your springs need to change as well. Neither of those current parts will help your car handle well.

No matter what you are looking at spending some money if you truly want the car to handle well.

Honestly I do not know why anyone would buy a setup like that unless they were building a drag car. I think you need to do some reading on MMs site before moving forward.

Please for the love of God run the **** away from ANYONE who tells you that your setup should handle great. When I was researching K members and A arms ages ago I ran into and talked to dozens of idiots that told me their setup that was just like yours and handled great or amazing. One dumb ass I talked to had no sway bar and pizza cutters up front but insisted his shit handled like a vette or porsche, all I could do was laugh and walk away. You can still find old posts like this on forums and they are laughable.

Also steer clear of any manufacturer that tells you something similar. Sway bars don't exist on damn near everything for no reason at all. You want to talk about people blowing smoke to make a sale? The drag race oriented companies can be just as bad as anyone else.

The cheapest option in all of this is to actually put your old K member back on with H&R red race springs, stock A arms and global west Delrin bushings. Your old stock struts may or may not need to be replaced.

The upgraded stock setup WILL handle better than what you have up front now. Now if you just swap the a arms and add different struts and springs it becomes slightly debatable but I'll say that your Team Z K member lacks bracing and probably has no geometry changes to improve handling.

I hope this helps but you need to do some reading and choose parts wisely if you want the car to do what you say you want it to do.
 
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