Fox T-Bird/Cougar Forums

Gonna try to lower my sons 1988 LX Bird as it sits really high with T coupe wheels and stock suspension.Is this a standard spring compressor job like my old 67 cougar or is it gonna be more involved.Bird has 8.8 1988 tang rear under it and don't want to run into any issues.Any and all help is appreciated.He wants to lower whole car down a few inches and im sure this will effect the ride

Rears are easy to swap just support the car w/stands.  I usually put blocks under the rear tires to avoid the axle from moving on me too much.  Just lower it down on the stands and blocks enough to get weight off the control arms. Then you just remove the two lower control arm bolts and pivot it down enough to remove the spring.  Now is a good time to put in new spring isolators as well.

If it's in the budget a set of CHE lower control arms will really firm up the ride and handling as well.  If he's lowering it very much I would recommend upgrading the shocks and struts too.  I'm running Fox Mustang Tokico "blues" with Chuck W's rear shock adapters (lowers the mount so you can use fox 'stang shocks).  I ran stock replacement Monroe sensatracs for quite a while with the car being lowered and it never did ride well.  Changing to the Tokico's was a huge improvement in ride and handling.  After inspecting the Monroe's when I removed them I found that one was not cycling correctly and was sticking in place.  I assume this was something to do with having the car lowered and putting the shocks out of their "sweet spot".

Fronts you will pretty much need to rent, borrow, etc. a spring compressor to do it safely.  Not gonna lie, last time I swapped front springs I just took it to a friend of mine and let him do it since he was going to do the alignment afterwards anyway.  Front springs have made me nervous ever since a friend of mine had a spring fly out and go through the roof of the service station he worked at...it easily could have killed him.

What springs are you going to use?  There are really no "new" T-bird specific lowering springs available.  You can run fox mustang front springs (I am running Steeda springs off a '92 Steeda Mustang) but on the rear you don't want to use Fox 'stang springs.  It will cause the car to sag and ride horrible due to our cars weighing a bit more.  I had Mustang rear springs for awhile and just couldn't deal with it.  Now I run Moog T-bird Turbo Coupe-spec rear springs with a couple of coils cut off.  Rides great and best of all, no sag!

He should be able to swap in some 99-04 Mustang GT springs (front and rear) and lower the car about an inch all the way around correct? From what I've heard this would give a decent ride as well.

All I did to swap my rear springs was lift the car with a floor jack and support it under the frame rails, then let the rear hang down. Unbolt the shocks, and I gave each side of the rear a push with my foot and just pulled the springs out. Never did unbolt the control arms.

I used '99 Mustang springs all around. gave the car about a two inch drop front and rear. I think any lower than that, and you'll be one of those guys that has to come to a near complete stop and crawl over speed bumps. The ride is great as my car is now, and, I can cross a railroad track, speed bump, and still take a relatively steep grade just fine while still having the car lower.

I have never run the SN-95 springs but several of you guys had had good success with them.  I've heard of some guys using Bullitt or Mach 1 springs to get just a little lower as well.

Thanks for the info guys.Gonna make a good father son project for sure and we have the resources to get it done.Trying to do it on a budget but don't want to sacrifice the Great car it is already.My 1988 that I had was a six cylinder hertz car and sat a lot lower than my sons v-8 car on 16s tcoupe wheels.This Forum seems like the right place for some very good info.We will document the progress starting after Christmas as springs are gonna be a present.

You used stock rear control arms and no caster camber plates with the '99 Mustang springs right? I'm just making sure the guys doesn't need and extra parts before he takes his suspension apart :).

I have no caster camber plates, and the rear uses CHE control arms, but the springs are still in the stock location, not lifted or altered as far as position goes.

I use 2000 GT springs in the front for about 1.5" - 1.75" drop and 2000 V6 convertible springs in the rear for about 1.5" drop.  I used the softer V6 convertible springs because they drop to the same height as the GT springs but ride nicer without the sag of non-convertible V6 springs.  My stance over 17" steel police wheels:

^ looks tough.

I also do not use CC plates...car drives straight and as far as I know the alignment is fine.

Cool thanks guys. I just didn't want the original poster to come back here asking why the springs didn't work if we forgot to tell him he needed extra parts ;).

About the spring isolators, I suppose I would need some from an sn95 if I use sn95 springs, correct?  Where can I find some?

I love the stance!

You can just get spring isolators on the rear for a fox Mustang.  I think mine are BBK or something like that from one of the many Mustang parts vendors.

Actually, no.  SN-95 springs are the go to choice on our cars, because they're dimensionally identical to ours.  SN-95 front lower arms were carried over from OUR cars, which means you can transfer over the isolators you already have.  Front and rear.  You should never run Fox Mustang springs if you can run SN-95 springs.  The Fox Mustang springs won't ride well and are usually overly harsh even at similar rates.  I'm not an engineer, so I can't tell you exactly why, I think it has to do with our longer control arms placing the lower end of the spring out further.  I was told it was a geometry problem.  You can probably run Fox springs in the rear, but everyone (myself included) seems to run SN-95 springs in the rear, too.

It's the blacked out police steelies.
I had to use 1" spacers to get those wheels even CLOSE to right.  I think this year I'll see about having .250 removed from the fronts so I can run the same tires as the rear without hitting the fender.

Just to be clear, you CAN use fox Mustang spring isolators.  You can also run Fox Mustang front springs.  I am running some now with no issues...its the rear that gives problems.  That being said SN95 springs are a better choice overall.

Like i said, i heard second-hand.  I didn't even bother with Fox springs. The SN-95 are typically less expensive anyway. I went with them in the first place because when I dripped my K, I found both my fronts were (like most others') broken at the bottom. The stock SN-95s were less expensive than even direct stock replacements for 88 TBird.  2 birds with 1 stone (no pun intended).

I'm gonna play the devil's advocate here and say that ordering a set of the Maximum Motorsports CC plates would be a smart thing to do if you are going to drop the car more than an inch.  I know that most do not need them but what would suck is to have one of those cars that needed and and they did not have them to put on.  Running a car around with a bunk alignment will tear up a set of tires in no time.  I have no real experience lowering a Bird or Cougar with conventional coil springs.  I did drop my 93 Coupe with some H&R Sport springs which was a 1-1/2" drop and ended up having to put the CC plates on it as we could not get the caster or camber to come into spec.  It was not off a ton but I had to drive it to work and back so I ordered the CC plates that Monday and installed them on the car Friday night after work and had it back down to the alignment shop on Saturday morning.  Had to cough up $$$ for the second alignment which pissed me off but time is money and I was the dumb ass who passed on the CC plates when I ordered the springs.

Darren

I think CC plates would be a good idea.  I've got -1.8 camber (although my caster is dead nuts on) and thats the best I can do without plates.  Also, although I haven't had a problem with bump steer, my tie rods enjoy a rather large upward angle from the rack, and I know I'm asking for trouble.

I would say that if you have a bump steer problem (which I would bet you do) that it is small and you just compensate for it without really knowing.  I have bump steer kits on both my cars and the base line is for the control arms and tie rods to be at the same angle which on my cars is almost parallel to the ground for some reason.  Just weird with them being to different cars and all.  I have never gone through the steps to accurately set the bump steer as I do not own a gauge and plates but one of these days I will make it down to Dallas and borrow my buddies stuff to do it.  Again, both my cars are full coil over cars so its a bit different than what is going on with the OP's car.

I will say that I had Maximum's tapered bump steer kit on my car with the H&R Sport springs and it helped quite a bit and was super easy to install.  Since both of my cars now have the SN95 spindles I use MM's through bolt kits which require drilling out the spindle where the tie rod bolts up to get the larger diameter grade 8 bolt through it.

http://www.maximummotorsports.com/MM-Bumpsteer-Kits-C348.aspx

Darren

Anyone with an 87 or 88 car following that link should know that you're looking for the "79-93 w/SN-95 control arms" kit.  If you've got 86 or older, just the plain 79-93 kit.

Foe, I really like the stance on your 'Bird. I've got '97 GT springs under mine and while it dropped it a bit, not as much as yours however, and I feel I can do alright with more. Will probably be looking for some new(er) coils when the warm weather comes back.. ;)

Here's a closer look.  Close enough even that you can see the door I need and the bad bondo I inherited.

That looks good I just put mine in the weeds and love it

Looks pretty sinister, and it's not a look that you see everyday, much less on a rather uncommon Fox.

Has anyone had a problem with rubbing?  I wouldn't imagine so..

I had rubbing at the top of the wheel arch in the front with the 245/45ZR17s when I would corner, but my backspacing situation is a bit messed up right now.  I switched the fronts to some 225/40R17s I had in the garage and they don't rub on compression.  That's only because I have too much spacer in the front between the wheels and the Ranger rotors.  The Police wheels have somewhere like 7 1/2" backspacing, with 1" spacers, it's 6 1/2" and the SN-95 wheels that fit so nice for everyone are 6 1/8"  So I need to lose a bit more backspacing.  6 1/4" would be perfect, I think.