Comment

Comment by Rick Zappia on February 9, 2012 at 10:35am

Hey Clarence, try this web site I think you might like it:

www.lov2xlr8.no/brochurel.html it has almost every car ever made and there specs.

Comment by Clarence Converse on February 8, 2012 at 4:55pm

Found an old picture of the 2 '67's. I was concentrating on taking a picture of the GT350 and the GTA just happened to be there too.

Comment by Clarence Converse on January 28, 2012 at 9:06pm

Hi Rick, Your right, the upper a-arm lowering started with the 65 shelby's. To do it right though a template must be used. THe 65-66's had one template. The 67-70's had another. I worked at a shop that specialized in early mustangs, shelbys and AC's so I too have been exposed to the modes mentioned. My boss referred to the entire changeover as a boss 302 mod so that is how I mentioned it. The pitman and idler arm also got changed out depending on if the car was going to go w/o power steering. The springs installed was a heavy duty, thicker spring than stock and were designated as 620's and are still avail. (see links below) Cutting of the coil brought the body down onto the chassis. The amount cut depended on how the car was going to be used. The rear leaf springs were re-arched using an extra 1/2 leaf (again if memory serves) to bring the rear end down level with the front. When re doing the suspension on my '67 there were 2 sites SAAC members seemed to like most that helped me with my project,Eaton Springs and grab-a-track parts . From what I was told, (never really looked for doc**entation), because of the relocation of the upper control arms the Camber and Caster does need to be slightly off from stock but not enough to cause ride or tire wear issues since as a performance car we rarely get full milage out of a set of tires anyway. :-) Toe in was 1/8", 2 deg. pos. caster w/ power steering 1 1/2 deg w/o power steering. Anywhere between -1/2 to -1(best) camber was ideal at least for my '67's. I would give the guys at the links a call. Explain what you want to do with the car and how you want it to sit, perform and they can get you what is needed. Definitly use a template to lower the upper control arms though. All the rest being said, mods are up to the driver and how he wants to run the car.

IMHO that is....

Comment by Tim Ray on January 28, 2012 at 8:12pm

Hey to everybody, thanks for having this Mustang group, I just wanted to show some pictures of my buddy Art's, 69 Mach 1. This car was headed to the crusher, Art got a hold of it and this is what we came up with. He does all the mechanical work and I do body and paint. The only original parts that were not replaced were the firewall, front frame rails ,both strut towers, and the roof skin. Hope to have fun, and I know I will learn alot  from everybody on this site and especially from this group. Thanks Guy's

Comment by Rick Zappia on January 28, 2012 at 6:30pm

Hey Clarence, I think  Shelby perfected this method back 65' before the Boss's came out. All the 65' GT 350's got this treatment. They never cut the coils though they wanted the suspension to retain the full travel so in hard turn the tires still had contact with the pavement. If you cut the coils what you do is put the same about of weight on fewer coils and lose the stability of the front end and it oversteers the faster you go ino a turn. His best bet is to put in big block springs in and lower the upper control arms, that should give him the right front end geometry and still lower the car. I have done this process on a number of cars and it works well you can also retain the the standard front end alignment. Once you cut the coils and the front end bottoms out you are screwed you have replace the springs.     

Comment by Clarence Converse on January 28, 2012 at 4:03pm

The setup Rick was taliking about is the Boss 302 suspension. lowering the upper a arms, cutting a coil to a coil and a half off of the heavier duty coils and then re-arching the rear leaf springs. The car sits lower and flatter and handles awesome. First thing I did on my 67GTA and it ran clean in autocross. If you want a copy of the template for lowering the upper a-arms, let me know.

Comment by Rick Zappia on January 28, 2012 at 2:35pm

You can drop the ride height in the front without any cost to you except labor, remove the front spring and upper control arms and drill 2 - 1/2 h***s one inch below the existing ones. This will 2 things one it will lower your ride height and two it will increase your handling { an old Shelby trick }. For the rear there should not be anymore then 4 leaf springs, if there is remove one until you get the right height. If there is 4 springs you can buy a spacer that goes between the rear housing and the spring that will lower the ride height. Does the car have the factory rear shackles, if it doesn't take them out and put the original ones in that will also lower the car. I know what it is like trying to make the car what you picture in your mind. I have owned my Shelby since 1970 and finally got it to the point where I don't have to constantly replace parts. 

About the trans, check the modulator on the tranny some of them are adjustable. Pull the vacuum line off it and look inside and see if it is adjustable, use an Allen wrench and back it out 1 turn at a time. This will reduce the spring pressure and make it shift a little sooner, check it in drive at wide open throttle from a dead stop and see what rpm's it shifts at. You don't want it to exceed the maxium rpm of thr cam shaft this keeps the shift points very consistant in drive and you still stay in the hp range of your cam. Good luck Rick 

Comment by Mark Burnley on January 28, 2012 at 1:08pm

Rick, the Mustang has less than 200 miles on it since the rebuild and had 54,000 miles on it when I purchased it. The previous owner had no idea what he was doing and basically was trying to body fill over rust and weld rusted areas together. The entire front end from the firewall foward has been replaced. New door skins, quarters and read were put on the can, the interior was gutted and replaced due to the guy before me selling off the teak trim from the dash and doors. I reworked the engine and replaced all the wiring, guages and just about everything from bumper-to-bumper. There's over 300 hours just in body work and a tad over $10,000 in new or replaced stock parts. As for the ride at that height, she rides damn good for her age but I still have work to complete. The trans is giving me issues going from 1st to 2nd but does eventuallly shift but very hard. Have a few electrical issues to resolve but she runs great and smooth. This year I will convert the front drums to disc and rebuild the trans. I ripped out the single exhaust and converted to dual but it need to be a bit louder than what she currently is. Needs a more agressive growl. this was my first restore from the ground up and not everything went as I had planned. This year I'll go back and correct my mistakes and continue to make modifications. Need to bring the height down without busting the budget so I'm looking for solutions and ideas.

Chiseum,

Thanks for your comments. I bought this one 3 years ago for $3,000.00 and it ran. It was just a death trap waiting to happen until I got it home. Keep the faith, yours will come along someday when you least expect it to, if that's what you are wanting.

Comment by Chiseum Dent on January 28, 2012 at 10:21am

Mark love the 69 its beautiful, "very jealous!" (says the guy with no mustang at all lol)

Comment by Chiseum Dent on January 28, 2012 at 10:18am

Rick, nice G.T. 500 it looks really good.

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