Has anyone here installed Battle Box type reinforcements? Last weekend I put a set in my Bird. Bought them on ebay from Laurel Mountain and they are for the Mustang chassis. There is a slight difference in the chassis contour and the placement of the LCA mounting at the frame. The pics will show that I drilled a new hole 1-5/8" higher on the frame to match the reinforcement.
Here's a few of the upper box. You may be thinking "That idiot put them in backwards". The inside contour of the upper box must be different in the Stang because this is the way they fit. They are only bolted in.
I plan on launching the car with sticky tires and a T5 and wanted to stiffen these things up before trying to rip them out. The LCA's are MM's and the UCA's are CHE. I hope this will help in getting some consistent respectable 60' times.
Use the lower battleboxes on my bird(just bolted in) and i had the same problem with the lca bolt location however i redrilled the battlebox not the frame.
Thats what I'de have done too, because now your suspension geometry is going to be all f**ked up. Should be intresting to see if it will hook now though.
1-5/8" higher?!?
I'm going to have to check the "Strongly Disagree" box on that one.
I bought some of those, I might get them installed someday....didn't realize they fit that differently though.
Looks just like mine. I bleleive the battle bixes were re-drilled , just likeDominators. If it dries out around here, I'll get some pics up. Mine were completely welded in place too, no bolts.
The lowers don't even look like they reach the original mounting hole.
They do on mine just enough to cover over the existing lca mounting hole with a bit on the other side.
Don't know why those are so short.
EDIT- sorry, forgot you already know everything
Bob Myers
I'm thinking the geometry is very similar to having SSM lowers. When I get it down on level ground I'll take some measurements and plug em into the suspension calculator and see how bad it is. If it's in an acceptable range I'll adjust ride height (cut stock springs) to where it sits nice. The good thing is that it can be moved back to the stock hole easily if it is f**ked up.
I put the subframe connectors in last year. Unfortunately I didn't take any pics of the install. I used a cheap set for a Mustang that had a slight offset down towards the rear. They slid into the front rail about 8" and I opened the floor to weld them from the inside. The offset gave about 1/2" clearance for the fuel lines to cross in the stock location and they are welded to the bottom of the rear frame.
Here are the lower reinfrocemnts after I lenghten them for my car.
(http://i10.tinypic.com/34s2nog.jpg)
I fell that by moving the lwr mount point up will make it hit the tires harder, because the instant center is moved up to high and to the rear of the car.
The instant center should be about were the shifter is and about the height of a stock AOD shifter.
***********
Here is how I learned to think about launching a car. Imagine pushing on a refrigerator on a tile floor. Your feet are representing the tires on your car. The Center of Gravity (CG) of the refrigerator is imagined to be in the very MIDDLE on one of the shelves. If you were to push on the refrigerator somewhere above the CG then you will probably push it over (the refrigerator won't move) and you won't feel much pressure on your feet. Now, if you push on the refrigerator 2" from the ground, you will slip on the ground (not getting traction) and the refrigerator won't move. If you push on one side of it then it will turn and not go straight.
But somewhere in between the CG and the ground will be the "sweet spot" where you will get the most traction and the refrigerator will move the easiest. When changing the suspension, what you are looking for is the Least amount of power to move the car the quickest. This is Efficiency.
Definitions:
Exactly! Using my shade tree knowledge :hick: and the IC calculator at HARDCORE tells me to split the difference. I'm going to redrill at 3/4" above stock. The IC length should be @ 80" and somewhat high, but lowering the car will bring it down and shorten the IC length. The anti-squat should be @ 107 and increase very slightly as the car is lowered.
If this works out as planned it should yield some good 60's. If not it's back to the drawing board.
Any thoughts?
You will need a drag type strut up frt with like a 90/10 to help hold the frt end up, as to keep from unloading the tire after the 60 ft mark.
Yes, 1-5/8" is WAAAYYY too much. 3/4" is pretty good. I've usually done it at the axle end however.
Thanks for the input. Going to try it with the ride control struts first. It's very drivable on the street in the firm position and no front swaybar. In soft it's very bouncy but may launch well.
I got sent a set of 90/10's by accident and I was wondering what sort of effect they have on normal street driving as they come with all sorts of safety warnings on them. I was actually supposed to get the 50/50's for the rear - I wonder which would give the biggest bang for the buck considering I accidentally got the expensive struts while paying for the shocks.
Also, I am just going to make a pair of torque box reinforcements since the Mustang one's clearly aren't right. What gauge metal should I use? I was just given a brake/shear combo at work so the job should be simple enough. Also, how do people deal with the large protruding oval at the top where the top of the reinforcement is bolted to? Should I just bash it flat with a sledge and a piece of pipe?
I didn't know about safety warnings, but 90/10's would ride like on the street. They have a super stiff bound and super soft rebound.
They do just fine on the street
Really? Do you have them? How does the ride differ from regular struts?
Any advice on torque box metal gauge or sources?
Still looking for advice on metal gauge for torque box reinforcements and/or someone who has the name of a vendor who's reinforcements are long enough to cover the hole on a T-Bird/Cougar.
Not exactly what you are looking for, but a start.
http://www.wolferacecraft.com/detail.aspx?ID=294
These will help along with the boxes.
I get the feeling that they are looking to have people weld in that plate and weld up the torque boxes without adding the typical reinforcements. I wonder if that plate would fit on a Fox Cougar?
Here are some more examples but these are Mustang so I can't say how well they would fit.
Wild Rides Stang Box (http://"http://www.wildridesracecars.com/newstuff.html")
Wild Rides upper and lower re-inforcement (http://"http://www.wildridesracecars.com/chassis3.html")
Those plates will fit your cougar, as they fit my TC just fine. Also, even before you weld in reinforcements, you should weld the seams. I'm using them with the wild rides boxes, and everything is okay so far.