Fox Body Drag Racing Suspension - The Suspension Is Killing Me

With the K-member in place, the engine was lowered onto the mount pads and tightened up. UPR's engine-mount placement was identical to factory.

Next, we bolted on the control arms with the old hardware. Poly bushings and the proper grease are provided for firm and squeak-free operation. Note how the control arms have new ball joints already pressed in and sway bar mounting pads integrated. Good stuff.

The steering rack was then located with a set of included offset rack bushings, which help quell bumpsteer on any Fox Mustang. Don't forget to reconnect the steering shaft. Luckily, it only goes on one way if you disconnect it at the rack itself.

The front struts require the bumpstop pad to be removed. By carefully drilling out three spot welds, this plate can come off with a gentle tap of the hammer. When holding a strut assembly in a vise, be extra careful to not distort or crush the case.

From underneath, the struts were raised into the waiting UPR caster/camber plates. These plates are included with the Pro Series kit and are required for any coilover conversion. We dialed them in for maximum positive caster and zero camber. This helps stability and reduces rolling resistance when coupled with a zero-toe wheel alignment.

With the front end coming together, you can really get a sense of how much lighter the UPR parts are and how much more space can be found around the engine.

With the tie rods reconnected, you can see the car now has quite a bit of toe-in (the tires point in towards the front.) We dialed this out by taking eight turns out from each tie rod end. This means the UPR pieces increase the front track by about a half-inch on each side to aid stability, but it could affect your wheel and tire choice. For us, it wasn't a factor because our skinnies will be the only tire on the front of this little Pony.

Moving on to the rear, we first removed the exhaust system to gain access to the lower control arm bolts. With an 18mm socket and a pneumatic impact wrench, these suckers slid right out. Since we had our digital scale handy, we were able to measure a slight reduction in weight in the UPR control arms as well. Because of their chrome-moly construction, each is 0.4 pound lighter than their respective Ford stampings-likewise for the uppers.

With the upper control arms removed, we found the source of our instability under full throttle. The culprits were the two upper control arm bushings in the rear axlehousing. They were so worn that they practically slid out of their shells-usually one has to go through much turmoil to drill or burn them out. Because these bushings locate the axle within the car and transfer torque, once the suspension was loaded and quickly unloaded upon each upshift, the whole housing was moving around, practically steering the rear of the car as we grabbed for another gear. UPR includes new poly bushings that slide right in.