The previous owner of my car was a backyard mechanic and drag racer and had some interesting notions about increasing car performance. In installing his 351c in the '65 car, he needed extra engine compartment width. To get it, he cut away the central member of the shock tower and installed an "L" shaped gusset. This was executed fairly well and has no impact for me other than its not concours. In addition, he heated and hammered the lower bumps on the base of the shock tower. They are compressed and flattened about 3/8". Although I saw this and knew it was done what I hadn't considered before now was the impact on the upper "A" arm position. When I disassembled the "A" arm when doing my suspension restoration, I found six alignment shims on each of the upper "A" arm attachment bolts. As it came apart, I said mentally, "Hmm...wonder why so many shims!" Then it dawned on me that the reason was the "A" arms bottom out on the opposite side of the hammered area when installed with no shims. I paused to think about this for a long moment and I realized that the rework results in a lot of positive camber, exacerbating the Mustangs handling problem in corners. Okay its mucked up! What to do about it? Initially, I decided to make up three 1/8 shims to go completely across the "A" arm mounting points. This serves to keep the "A" arms operable but does nothing to correct the positive camber problem. Here's some thoughts I've had:
I could replace the shock towers! Ugh! Thats expensive and means a lot of rework.
I could use Global West "A" arms that are 1" shorter. The net effect of this would be more negative camber by about 5/8" since with the shims present I can't get the full dimensional change envisioned by Global West. Appealing until I consider the price and I may not fully understand the implications of such a change!
I could use the ProMotorsports Engineering Vario-Centric lower arm adjusters. These could be welded on 3/8" outward from their design center position to compensate for the shimmed upper "A" arms. This would allow near stock camber adjustment but the track width would increase by about 3/4" total. I need to check to see if the tie rod adjustment will tolerate increasing the track width but assuming it does, then this seems to be the most cost effective and least invasive solution.
Any other ideas are welcome!
I could replace the shock towers! Ugh! Thats expensive and means a lot of rework.
I could use Global West "A" arms that are 1" shorter. The net effect of this would be more negative camber by about 5/8" since with the shims present I can't get the full dimensional change envisioned by Global West. Appealing until I consider the price and I may not fully understand the implications of such a change!
I could use the ProMotorsports Engineering Vario-Centric lower arm adjusters. These could be welded on 3/8" outward from their design center position to compensate for the shimmed upper "A" arms. This would allow near stock camber adjustment but the track width would increase by about 3/4" total. I need to check to see if the tie rod adjustment will tolerate increasing the track width but assuming it does, then this seems to be the most cost effective and least invasive solution.
Any other ideas are welcome!
