How Much Better?

[headcase]

Hi,

The $8050 required for the RideTech Suspension parts... is that everything, 4 link rear, shocks, coils, the lot?

Also, how much better would the 69 Mustang Fastback go with just buying that and bolting it all in?

[MIKE@RIDETECH]

The kit you appear to be asking about is our level 3 Air kit. That kit replaces front upper & lower control arms, and the stock coils and shock are replaced with our TQ Shockwave. On the rear we replace your stock leaf springs and shocks with a complete 4 link and TQ Shockwaves. The TQ / Track Quality Shockwaves have 3 valing adjustments. Rebound, Low speed Compression and High Speed Compression. They were purely developed for the driver that's wanting to be #1 at the track. Are you building a street cruiser, Cruiser and maybe auto x once or twice a month, or full bred track prepped racer?

[Steve Chryssos]

t will feel like a completely different automobile. It'll ride better, handle better and because of it's pushbutton and knob turning adjustability, it's probably the most versatile system you can buy. It may not be the best handling system in the universe, but it is, in my opinion, the most versatile.

[DBasher]

Hey George, maybe I missed it....how is the fastback set up now?

No doubt the Ridetech stuff is top notch and will make an old car ride better. Are you out driving your current suspension or are you just looking for a smoother ride?

:cheers:
Dan

[bret]

t will feel like a completely different automobile. It'll ride better, handle better and because of it's pushbutton and knob turning adjustability, it's probably the most versatile system you can buy. It may not be the best handling system in the universe, but it is, in my opinion, the most versatile.

Could only be better with an automatic maybe? :):)

To expand on Steves comments...It is a common perception that an air suspension car does not handle as well as a similarly set up coilspring car. This is possibly because MOST air suspension cars are not built with track duty as the primary criteria. [although we've built several]

Yes, I am the air suspension guy, but being in the unique position of having both air and coil cars that have been optimized for track duty, I can safely say that air suspension can be a serious tuning advantage [should you decide to take advantage of it].
Should you not decide to take advantage of it [and just drive the car around on the street] you can still enjoy GREAT handling performance AND adjustable ride height, AND superior ride quality.

If you ONLY want track performance, a coilover suspension will perform as well with less cost. Throw in the other performance aspects, then throw in a few extra dollars and step up to the air suspension.

The ShockWave and RideTech coilover ARE interchangeable BTW...so you can compare for yourself. The rest of the system...4 link, control arms, even the shock cartridges...are identical in every respect.

I would agree with Steve in the aspect that the "best handling system in the universe" is an ever moving target...and one that requires seat time and tuning to optimize no matter where it comes from. Buying good parts is a great initial step.

Good luck with your Mustang...LOVE those cars!

[headcase]

Thank you for the feedback.

I am still waiting for my car to arrive from the US. So as far as how I have used the car... no way.

How do I plan to use it, mainly a street car, however, I want it to be a street car like a Lambo is a street car. Firm, tight, handles if you wanted it to but probably lives majority of its life on the street.

I dont mind spending the extra $ to get few extra advantages.

Yes I agree the handling part will always get better and better and a good place to start is probably the best place to start until things develop further. I at moment feel RideTech have the ability to produce top performance. Which other company can do 'better'? I think its not a 'better' but another name that can perhaps achieve the same.

Just looking at what parts I can invest in that had the rest of the car that is not related to the suspension itself (torsional rigidity, chassis, light weight body parts [carbon fiber] and so forth) been modified, the parts themselves are good for lamborghini like handling, tightness, firmness.

I understand as a bolt in package its not going to stick to a lambos tail around a race track, or a Porches tail etc, but at least I know if i modify the chassis and so forth, the parts in my car can achieve me to stick to their tail. Thus the parts were not an initial waste of money when other modifications are called for to step the performance up as they were good for more but it was the body etc of the car that was not up to scratch.

Hope that makes sense.

Btw, I thought RideTechs parts were CoilOvers... air suspension? Is that using Air shocks to? I thought things like that was cheap trash compare to coils... I mean... far as I know, Aventador, Mclaren MP41C, Veyron, Koenigsegg etc all use Coil overs and they are the best handling 'street' cars in the world. Why dont they use something else...?

What has 'more' potential? Like factually rather than "well if u drive like this and that, and depending how u tune this and that". If all was optimum. Best Car Driver, Best tune up possible, (price irrelevant) what goes?

[bret]

After looking again at the OP...yep, no mention of air suspension. I think Mike was confused because the price you quoted was for the air suspension. The coilover version is a bit less expensive.

Anyway...all previous info is still true.

Why doesn't Ferrari, Porsche, Lambo, etc use air suspension? Well, not being employed in any capacity by any of those companies, I can only guess, but I would think its because they don't want to give their customer any opportunity to "mistune" the car. Or it could be that they have the same perception of air suspension that most others have. Or it could be debuting on the 2014 models...hard to tell :)

Unfortunately I have never had the opportunity to drive a Lamborghini to see how it handles. But I did outrun one in my 33 Ford about 2 weeks ago at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. [sorry man...just had to ring that bell one more time :)

[Steve Chryssos]

After looking again at the OP...yep, no mention of air suspension. I think Mike was confused because the price you quoted was for the air suspension. The coilover version is a bit less expensive.

My input assumed air also. As for Lamborghini comparisons, it seems like a slippery slope to keep comparing upgraded muscle cars to mid engined, low center of gravity, computerized-everything supercars.

Focus on building a truly amazing muscle car and you'll be much happier in the end. That's what you'll get. No more.

[hp2]

Btw, I thought RideTechs parts were CoilOvers... air suspension? Is that using Air shocks to? I thought things like that was cheap trash compare to coils... I mean... far as I know, Aventador, Mclaren MP41C, Veyron, Koenigsegg etc all use Coil overs and they are the best handling 'street' cars in the world. Why dont they use something else...?

What has 'more' potential? Like factually rather than "well if u drive like this and that, and depending how u tune this and that". If all was optimum. Best Car Driver, Best tune up possible, (price irrelevant) what goes?

This actually is a very common mis-conception.

The old school Gabriel "Air-Jackers" were a band aid fix and an incorrect solution to a more complex problem. Yes, these were cheap trash in the way many of them were applied and used and that perception of air as a medium persists to this day.

Remember, a spring can be a leaf, coil, torsion, or air, but they all accomplish the same thing. The Shock wave air suspension system is just that, a system of integrated air springs and high end shock absorbers combined into a single unit that allows a wide range of adjustable spring rates that are accomplished via air pressures. They are air springs, not air shocks. They support the load rather than dampen it and that is a big difference from the early year air shock issues.

Why don't high end makes use them, I don't know other than it may be what Brett suggested, they don't want owners monkeying around with the tuned rates that come with the cars. Air springs have tended to be used in more heavy duty and luxury applications than performance, which hasn't helped their perception. It is only in the last decade that perfomance applications have begun to be extensively explored and talked about widely in the handling enthusiast world.

What has more potential? For your application, probably the Shockwaves because they can be tuned easily, from the driver's seat, using the supplied "brain box". I'm sure Brett can correct me if I'm wrong, but you can have several different pre-set performance parameters in the control box to select from, such as cruise with soft rates, race with higher rates, park with practically no rates to drop everything to the ground. You also can incrementally change individual corners to better dial in personal preference for over/understeer. You can grow the sophostication of the spring tune as your sophistication as a driver changes. If you are uncomfortable with that, you can simply use the provided pre-sets in the box.

[headcase]

Thanks for that.

I was meaning the "air ride" they offer, that is why I stated the 8050 price which used the ShockTower system. I just never understood why that when CoilOvers I always thought was the 'number 1' thing.

It seems however, if dialed in correctly etc, the ShockTower system will be equally (or perhaps) better than the CoilOver because it offers those nuances of differences that can be adjusted. Also makes for more practical in a street car at the push of a button.

[headcase]

Sorry to bump this up, perhaps somebody help set me straight.

The shockwave system is an AirRide system. The spring looking thing -II-... the black bits are made of rubber?

Does not this mean less life than a coilover?

Also, It takes more room and adds more weight to the car than the coilovers, no?

Does not that in a way mean 'yeah you get the benefit of pressing buttons but you get some extra weight, more fragile parts and thus wont be perfectly equal to a coil because a coil is a piece of steel and weighs less than this entire air contraption?

Are the coils adjustable by the press of a button to have like 2 modes like exotic cars, Race mode and Cruise mode as example?

Need some clarification on this

[hp2]

Yes, the Shockwave system is comprised of air springs, the big black rubbery thing, and an aluminum bodied shock, integrated into a single unit.

Does it have less life than a conventional coil over, I'd say no. Springs loose rate over time with use. Coil springs are not exempt from that and any top notch race team will replace all their springs over time as the rates change with use. Putting a 500 # coil spring in a system and leaving it in there and using it hard for 3 years means at the end of those three years, you may now have a 475# rate spring, maybe even less. Some springs will maintain more rate for longer than others, but they will all lose rate.

Yes, a shockwave is a bit larger in diameter and a nominally amount heavier than an equivilent coil over. The size is accounted for in the mounting system designed by Ridetech. They weigh change would only be an issue in a competition car where hundreths or thousandths of a second matter. It is not going to add significantly to the sprung or unsprung weight any worse than some wheels, brakes, or suspension links. However, it also wll require an on board air system with a compressor, tubing and wiring for the control system.

Is it more fragile, no, not at all. Like I said previously, air ride suspensions are a mainstay of heavy duty trucking where tens of thousands of pounds are supported by air springs of hundreds of thousands of miles annually. Do they require periodic inspections, sure. They are a mechanical item and sometimes things break, but in a street car application you are probably not going to hurt them.

Are coils adjustable at the touch of a button, no. A spring is wound at a specific rate contingent upon wire diameter, material, lengths, and windings. You can make a progressive rate coil with alternate winding spacing and variable diameter wire. These actually work on a principal of "bottoming out" certain soft sections of the coils to generate the increased rate through the balance of the windings. Cars that have sport and comfort modes typically control that feel through shock valving. By firming up the valving, you slow down the spring loading, but you do not increase the load capacity at all. This may produce a feeling of improved performance because the shock can better control short duration, transiant responses, but on a long, fast sweeping turn, you will eventually reach the springs limits.


So yes, because the Shockwave is tunable from the driver's seat, it offers a big advantage of "on the fly" changes that you cannot duplicate in a a traditional coil over arrangement. This ability does come with a slight weight penalty and a more complex install/set up of needing additional wiring as well as the associated plumbing for the air system to be able to adjust remotely.

In a race car, this cost/benefit ratio is not there because in most cases, governing bodies tend to prohibit or severely limit the amont of on track tuning that is allowed to be done by the driver, if not outright outlawing air systems altogether. So in that regard, you will rearely ever see these in competition. That doesn't mean that air systems are no good, just that they are not allowed.

[headcase]

Ok, now let me target this angle (knowing myself).

I want a hard feeling car. The last 'hard' feeling car I was in was a Viper. That thing felt like glue on road, no body roll, every bump in a road pretty much felt like a speed hump, but around corners, the entire car felt like you could feel the road.

Once I set the Air system in place to its hard/race setting, I would most probably leave it on that setting always, even for a street car as that is the feeling of car I like/enjoy (hence of mentioning the viper). I dont care for soft. If I want soft I will jump in a Toyota Corolla.

So once the rates are optimized and set up, I would not muck around with it.

From this angle, I think the extra weight + cost of a Shockwave setup would not be worth it?

Also a major factor for me is, I would not want to sacrifice the luggage space of the mustang. I have seen air ride systems in peoples cars in AU and you can kiss the trunk goodbye. It pretty much becomes a 2 door, 2 seater race car like exotics, just larger with space taken up by other things.

Also as stated before, exotics have a button press from race mode to normal mode.. I do not understand what is that button actually changing considering they run on hard rate coil overs. Is it the actual change in the shock itself rather than the spring which kinda gives it a 'softer' more 'bouncy' ride than if the shocks were at there max or what?

Finally, forgive me for not remembering who the poster was, he has a ridetech silver mustang as his avatar and spoke about buying the shockwave and the coils and then deciding what way you wanna go as all other parts are the same pretty much.

He mentioned the 'ride quality' of the Shockwave is un-beatable.

If the shockwave was set up for firm and grippy, and so was the coil-setup. How would the drivers sense of feeling interpret whether its a shockwave or coil over?

The comment 'has a superior ride quality' is referring to what? The ability to adjust by pressing buttons or is it referring to the fact that both coil and shock if set up with same rates, the ride quality will still feel different though the same rates were there because Air vs Metal is different.

Also in short - How would one tune a coil setup to be more 'street' friendly? Would one require to have 2 sets of springs, ones for street cruising and one for racing and then decide what ones he wants to slide on the car before going out or it doesnt have to be that time consuming?

[DBasher]

Wait until you have the car and put some time in behind the wheel. From the looks of it, it's already lowered and might be what you're looking for.

I had a 68 coupe that was a blast to drive. All the factory suspension was in place with the typical for the time upgrades. 620 coils in the front, bigger sway bar and Koni shocks, the rear had lowered springs, sway bar and Koni's. That car was tight and handled really well.

With mild power, 350-375hp it did just fine. Doing it again I'd put more tire under it and upgrade the steering, never did like that steering. :drive:

Search the site, read about what others have done or are doing. When the car shows up, get in and drive it and see what you like and what you may want to improve on.

Better yet call Ironworks or the Roadster Shop and have them build you a complete set up....:G-Dub: