Let's talk coilovers.

[1low03gt]

Suprising enough, the k member, and the cats have slight rashing.... the k member brace has taken most of the abuse. Driving can be tricky LOL

[ZR]

None, feel amazing on them.
Have a MM k member and all the assorted bits in the Cobra, stuff just plain works with no downside.
Lots of guys here running coil overs in Fox's all the way to the '04.

[1low03gt]

Good hear. Can't remember who told me such, and why. Didn't make sence to me at all. LOL

[ZR]

Heard the same thing over the years, reason I was so reluctant to try them way back when.

[RedSN]

Maybe because most fox bodies the shock towers aren't connected to the k-member anymore?

[RAT ATK]

^^^they aren't designed to take the stress of coilovers. That's where the strength of the MM cc plates comes into play. Keeping your shock towers in one piece.

[OldSchool]

I have had the pleasure to ride in Spenser's 04cobra with coils all around at mosport....... Wow wow wow. He is nuts too which helps. But with r1s on he was making the gt3 boys move over with me in the car as well. Shock towers are the least concern at that stage of performance.

[tulowd]

been running Koni shocks for 30 years in all my Foxes; went to Koni Double Adjustables all around with MM/Koni front coilovers 3 yrs ago; just ordered my rears this week (been on the to do list for some time).

Coilovers have the potential of better ride quality in most situations, since the spring and shock/damper are functioning in the same plane, eliminating bushing and balljoint bind. On stock Fox and SN 95 suspensions, the springs work in an arc/ different plane than the shocks, so the entire design sux balls on top of being a strut front and solid axle rear buggy suspension. Add in worn out 20 year old rubber bushings and flexy chassis and you have a typical Fox/Sn95.

The front shock towers were not designed for coil overs, but with the correct (aka Maximums) plate it is not an issue unless your car needs to be dragged to the scrap yard pre modding, lol.

Suspending your car's mass and making it stick to the road with your particular tire / wheel setup also has a huge impact on what can work or not. Crap or mismatched parts = fail.
This also means a flexy chassis cannot work properly because the springs and shocks are not getting the correct input from the suspension travel, as the chassis is absorbing too much of the forces. (big engineering exercise potential on this point - Don will moderate, lol)

Wheel rate is the calculated force required to move the wheels a certain amount. This is based on the location of the spring vs the wheel on the suspension architecture. ie) the fat kid on the end of the teetertotter will keep us skinny waifs up in the air, until he sits in the middle of his side.
The dampers have to control the motion after the initial hit, so the suspension isn't a pogo stick.

read this: http://www.maximummotorsports.com/faq_coilover.aspx

All of this boils down to 2 things.

1) The dampers must be able to control the spring motion
2) There is no free ride = doing this properly costs money. Has nothing to do with being a corner carver or race car; simply understanding what it is you are doing.

[b1lk1]

The more I read and learn makes me wish I had just stuck to a completely stock suspension. Even just refurbishing one of these cars to stock isn't cheap, trying to do it on a small budget is worse. I already have $5K sitting in this car and it's in my garage with not a piece of front suspension in it, and from all accounts I have $600CAD of the wrong rear suspension in it already.

Always wanted one, finally got one only because it was an inexpensive shell. Only could afford mostly used parts, but now that I am at the suspension refurbishing stage I wanted all new parts. I dropped a wad (to me) on the 17" rims and I budgeted $500US to do the front suspension as I figured what I had done out back was good for a DD/weekend cruiser. Minimum I'm finding good front end stuff, as I need everything other than my stamped arms and spindles are fine, that is being recommended is over $1K US. Not happening. Even scraping up $500US is going to be a couple month ordeal.

Now I've built cars, mostly lifted trucks, many many years ago when I had the money to play. Money now is tight, I buy/sell computer parts and make a small bit of coin, but we;re talking $100-200 a month. Some of that money also has to go towards rebuilding my 1992 Dodge B250 which is my DD. At $120+ a fill up, it leaves me precious little to squrrel away and every now and then the wife tosses me a few bucks to keep my project going. I have never been under the illusion that it was going to be cheap to build a car. I'm not upset at what I have spent, I just honestly expected to be further along by this point. Sadly, I have mis-spent a good $500 so far, one step back but not a big one to say the least.

What I am trying to accomplish now is to buy a setup that is within my budget and make sure there is the ability to upgrade over to better parts without throwing away anything expensive. To me, $200 CC plates are exotic parts, I wasn't even dreaming of spending that much a year ago, now I have cornered myself into an almost impossible situation where either I buy them or go back to a stock setup.

If you managed to wade through all my whining, at this point I am either going to have to go with the UPR stuff I have posted earlier or just stop and be in limbo for quite some time. I truly appreciate honest answers given, again, I never expected this to be cheap. I guess my next question is would the parts I listed work with the KYB GR2 struts I have (they are new at least) since I can't return them and would I get at minimum a stock type ride. I would think at a minimum I'd get a better ride due to what I read on the MM site, but my budget will never allow anything better, not for a long time.

I'm to the point that I just want to drive my car. Until I figure out the mess I made and how to make it bearable, that ain't happening. I still have body work and major interior work to do as well. I was aiming to make it 100% on the mechanical end first.

Man, just realizing a very hard lesson, I should have just saved a few bucks and bought something in one piece (stock) and driven it. Building lifted trucks (we're talking back in the double solid axle days) was easy. This is just an exercise in frustration unless you have a minimum $10K sitting around for mechanicals alone.

[tulowd]

Fix whats broken, which is usually the suspension bushings and shocks. Leave the stock architecture, and use conventional springs matched to your shocks.
The CC plates will benefit you even now for getting a better alignment, which is part of the driving experience. Add some good frame re enforcements if at all possible.

Make a list of needs and wants in order of priority. You can get your car on the road - lots of decent deals out there to be had on parts. Just know what you need before you drop the coin.

Just make sure it's safe. These things had dubious sheetmetal "frames" when they were new. Lots of (hidden) rot in 90 % of em.