[mlnielsen]

Found a cool website for fiberglass leaf springs. They custom make the springs to your application and specifications.

Their springs weigh 8lbs each as opposed to 45lbs each for steel... Quite a savings.

Of course they're around $200ea...

http://www.members.carol.net/spring/

Cool though!!

[color:blue]
1967 Acapulco Blue coupe
302 4V, C4, 9" 3.25:1
Torq-Thrust "D" 225-60-14
1968 PDB, Corbeau
LeCarra, Alpine in-dash CD
http://www.geocities.com/mlnielsen_67/index.htm
WEBSITE UPDATED 2/28/01
</font color=blue>

 

[66gt350]

Very cool. But is that $200 per spring or per pair? If that's each, then OUCH.......

I wonder how well they work? I've never heard of anyone doing something like this befor.

Rob
Member: Slightly Modified
66 coupe 302
66 fastback 351W

 

[camachinist]

Great way to save on unsprung weight....

Thanks for the tip....

It would be interesting to talk to some users...

Pat
http://albums.photopoint.com/j/View?u=1570936&a=11937754&p=42910787.jpg

 

[Guest]

I have them on my 69 Mach and I am pretty happy with them. They are firm but not as harsh as the springs I had before. I'm not sure that I would buy them again though as they are very expensive. I bought them trying to get rid of a bad wheel hop problem that nothing would seem to solve. They did not solve that problem either.

 

[390fastback]

That price is not far off from the price I payed for the springs on my truck, each. My concern would be with the strength of a fiberglass spring

Someone please buy my Ski Doo!
68 fastback, 390 4V premium fuel
80 5.0 hatch, just finished
91 5.0 coupe, daily driver
84 RamCharger 4x4 extreme mudsliger and winter junker

 

[abn]

I've been looking at those for a while...the only thing that really worries me is the interface between the aluminum spring eye and the spring itself. It is bolted and I am worried that stress concentration in the bolted area could cause a local delamination of the fiberglass (well that and possible interactions between oil and solvents like brake cleaner that may get on the spring.), especially if he is using a unidirectional arrangment of fiberglass. I didn't feel comfortable asking him for his specific layup shedule and resin type because that is usually sort of proprietary. I figured that if I ever went that way I would at a minimum use underride traction bars or equivalent and a panhard rod to try and relieve the spring of as much structural duty as possible and let it just be a spring. But with that kind of effort it doesn't seem like much more to go all the way with a four link and coil overs. The only thing that really keeps me coming back to the composite leaf spring/traction bar/panhard rod setup is the ease of packaging with the existing Mustang structure. As a side note the flex-a-form guy swore that fiberglass was superior to carbon or other fibers as a spring, but didn't give any real substantial data as to why. Seems like a nice topic for discussion.