kj_cinci said:
Hi all, time for some more parts and service...
How much oil do I need? (Too lazy to look it up...) You with C/F blowers, did you need to add oil after S/C install? What oil is the best for our cars? Someone told me Mobile1 5-20 or 5/10-30 Full Synthetic?
Does anybody else but Steeda have camber plates? Quality?
Anybody on the Eibach shocks? How are they? Any other shocks I should look at, I know there has been a few on here...
Figured I'd throw it out here and then do my research for a change... might save me time since you guys allready did it for me! Right!?! :winks
Thanks!
Hi Kj,
Lazy? O.K. For an '05 GT you'll need 6 quarts of 5-20 weight motor oil with a factory Ford filter change. Don't buy cheap filters, you are only hurting yourself and your engine's future! Buy Ford OEM filters or premium FRPP racing filters. IMO Mobil 1 is the best full synthetic available.
Save your money, DON'T buy Steeda's very nice fancy billet camber plates for the '05+ Mustangs, you just don't need them at all. H&R has special camber adjusting bolts (as will any well trained and competent alignment shop), for the new '05+ Mustangs and they are cheap too boot. You probably won't need them but if you do H&R's are just as good and much less money to do the same thing as the fancy billet camber plates.
Here is something relavant I just posted on this subject on that other board.
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I talked to Eibach directly. They said that the Mustang struts and dampers were not quite available as of 3 weeks ago. BUT, they said to check back at the end of September which is coming up soon.
In my many telephone conversations with various Eibach technical and engineering people I managed to get some good technical information about Eibach's new sport struts and dampers.
First, the Eibach sport struts and dampers are not gas charged, this good for coming to the game with a low price but very bad for performance. Here is why: as a conventional oil damper (non-gas pressurized), strut or shock's piston moves throught the damper's oil it aerates the oil and this creates foam. Foam is bad for dampening because it reduces or removes the strut/damper piston's ability to dampen movement because the piston valves are designed to operate with a non-compressable liquid (oil), air is compressible and this plays havoc with the dampening rates. Obviously this messes up the whole purpose of the strut/damper and makes for inconsistant or worse case no dampening for short periods of time causing loss of control over the wheels and tires. Again, this is obviously a bad situation for a sport strut or damper and bad for handling. A gas pressurized strut/shock prevents oil foaming by applying pressure to the oil with a bladder or piston (separating the oil from the gas), which allows the damper's oil to expand as it heats up leaving no air spaces and minimal chance of the oil foaming up. The result is a much more consistant damper which allows a driver to maintain much better control of the car. Consistancy and feel is key to a driver's ability to inturpret what the car is doing in the middle of a turn. To give you an ide of how important gas charged struts and rear dampers are for a performance car Ford designers originally supplied the '05 Mustang GT's with gas charged struts and rear dampers even though cost was a big issue for the new pony. You should buy gas charged sport struts and dampers for your car, they are much better than convential plain oil dampers.
Second the Eibach sport struts and dampers are not adjustable, have only a fixed valve rate and there is no velocity sensitivty or variable dampening used in the design. This is also a cost cutting move which makes for cheaper shocks that don't work very well under the many different conditions encountered on the street or track. Having adjustable valving using a fixed design is pretty handy for a car used on the street, road course or drag strip. You could drive to the track in confort and when you arrive adjust the damping rates for best control and balance on track. Then when you are finished on track simply turn the dampening rates back down to your street settings and drive home in comfort after a hard day of driving. Life is good with adjustable dampening shocks!
On the question of other struts and dampers the only other high performance struts and dampers available for the s197 cars AFAIK of this date are Tokico's D Spec struts and rear dampers. You can get them for $600 delivered easy. Tokico has been shipping production kits for a few weeks now but they are still somewhat scarce. So you have to ask first!
I have been complaining about the under dampened rear end of my '05 GT once I installed the Eibach ProKit springs for months. I love the way it looks with the Eibach ProKit (low but not stupid low), but hated the way it handled because of the marginal dampening in front and the way too soft valving of the stock OEM Tokico gas shock out back. The rear was almost dangerous!
I had been hammering Steeda, Tokico, Koni, Bilstien, Eibach and H&R with phone calls for months and all I kept getting was the promise of soon for the last 3 months! Finally Steeda said that they had signed off on the valving for the Tokico D Spec struts and dampers for the '05 Mustang GT (Steeda claims to do the development work for Tokico for Mustangs), and that it would only be a few weeks before they went into production and became available. Shortly after I called Tokico directly (they are in SoCal as am I), told them my sad story and how I really needed a set and I got lucky, they had one set available. I said hold on to them and I'll get my guy at JBA to call you. BAM! One day later I got a call and was told that a set of Tokico D spec struts and dampers were waiting for my and to come and get them before they sell them! I picked them up and found that the box was marked as a "sample" kit, needless to say I was a happy camper sample or not!
So I got my Tokico D specs about 4 weeks ago and installed them in time for the drive to Laguna Seca for the Monterey Historic Automobile Races the third week of August. I drove up to Monterey via California Route 1 the whole way from L.A. (actually Santa Barbara), and had a blast! I found a bunch of cars all going to Laguna Seca for the races and we traveled in a fast pack. C5, C6 Porsche Carrera4S, another '05 Mustang GT (a stock car), myself and several other late model higher end european sports cars. The fastest cars in the group were the C5, C6 and my GT. We had the power to pass at will and I was happy to lead (I love this drive and am pretty familiar with the road, I usually get to take this drive several times a year), during many of the most twisty bits without embarrasment as we went blasting up the coast route. I was surprised at the difference between the C5 and C6's capabilities in the tight turns and how fast that new C6 is. I had the measure of the C5 (exhaust, forged BBS rims w/Pilot Sports), in the turns and the straights, but the C6 (chipped, w/Corsa exhaust, forged 3 piece modular wheels and huge tires), was faster in a straight line than my '05 GT but he was very surprised at how hard it was to keep up with me in the twisties with my skinny Nero A/S tires. I told him I like to steer with throttle which you can still do with skinny tires.
These things work GREAT!
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Cheers
