You want them. From what i have read they make a huge improvement on how your car handles. Specifically they address the problem of your car diving and twitching when you brake. Shaun at street or track can give you better details about them. Here's a thread where i was asking if they produce any noise or harshness and the feed back i got was no.

http://forums.vintage-mustang.com/vintage-mustang-forum/736514-ride-harshness-increase.html

 

^^ Thanks for the link. I missed that discussion, but have now read it.

Good to know adjustable strut rods will not make the ride more harsh. Apparently they help the car to stop straight? I'll have to do more research about how they do that.

What else do adjustable strut rods do? I could send a note to Shaun at Street or Track, but the poor guy is crazy busy. And I don't want to bother him with a pretty basic question. If I do decide to go with adjustable strut rods, I'll contact Shaun to make sure it's a good idea and order the parts from him. I won't feel bad about bothering him if it's likely I'm going to buy more stuff.

 

Let me know if you go through Shaun...I have a credit there I haven't spent for my returned Adj. Strut rods. I'll make you a deal and Shaun can ship you a brand new set.

I didn't end up needing them after I got the air ride and already have most of what sells for my build.

 

I've have SoT adj struts on my 66. I used them to get more caster on my 66. I can't honestly give you before and after since I did a full SoT roller suspension at one time. What I can say it makes caster adjustment very easy. I would think it would make setting caster on your car easier then adjusting the nuts and bushings on your 70. There is absolutely no slop. I still have my drums I would not hesitate to jamb on my brakes with my hands off the steering wheel.

Even with a full bearing suspension, there is very little difference in noise or harshness. I have to be looking for it to notice. With just the struts I'd say you will not notice any difference other then a better driving car.

 

The 66 stops straight with the ones I bought from Rosehill. Great price and performance.
Pictures an info:
Adjustable Strut Rods

 

I was planning on getting those because I didn't want to pay a arm and leg for street or track. How do u like the Rosehill adjustable strut.

 

Thanks for the info, guys.

 

You might be confusing some terminology. Simply making the strut rod adjustable is not the cure all. It's the fact that most of these arms replace the squishy rubber bushings with a Heim joint or equivalent at the front of the rod.

The problem is under hard braking, the stock rubber bushings deflect and the strut moves toward the front of the car causing unpredictable castor settings and THAT is generally what causes the twitchy or unpredictable handling. That fact that they are adjustable simply makes castor settings easier as you won't have to mess with shims on the upper control arm as much.

On my car I opted for the miaer racing strut rod bushings. They are a Teflon/steel bearing that replaces the rubber bushings on the stock arm and eliminates the front to rear deflection while still allowing the strut rod to move freely up and down. VERY slick. I also like the fact that they keep the factory pivot point and are cheaper than the adjustable rods mentioned earlier. It doesn't sound like you really need such an expensive and race oriented item as the Heim style adjustable rods for
your intended use. I highly recommend the maier racing
bushings.


Sent from AutoGuide.com App

 

You might be confusing some terminology. Simply making the strut rod adjustable is not the cure all. It's the fact that most of these arms replace the squishy rubber bushings with a Heim joint or equivalent at the front of the rod.

The problem is under hard braking, the stock rubber bushings deflect and the strut moves toward the front of the car causing unpredictable castor settings and THAT is generally what causes the twitchy or unpredictable handling. That fact that they are adjustable simply makes castor settings easier as you won't have to mess with shims on the upper control arm as much.

WE HAVE A WINNER FOLKS!! just making the strut rods adjustable wont do much more than allow you to more easily set the caster. however when you add in the spherical bearings, at the chassis end of the strut rod and at the inner pivot for the lower control arm, you eliminate the slop of the rubber bushings, and you get a positive caster curve as well.

 

I'm never to busy to help a guy out. :thumbsup:

The benefits are two fold:

1) The most noticeable is you'll greatly improve the braking stability of the car. With the stock squishy bushings they, well, squish, which effectively lengthens/shortens the strut rod causing caster and toe changes under braking. This makes the steering vague and twitchy under braking. The old fix for this was to install poly bushings which sometimes led to this:

The reason this happens is that while the poly bushings are great for keeping the strut rod length set where it needs to be, they don't allow the rod to pivot when the suspension cycles. Take a paper clip, clamp one end on your desk now cycle the other end up/down and see how long it takes to fatigue and break.

This won't happen with our heim setup. It keeps the length set yet allows for bind free movement as the suspension cycles up/down.

2) The second benefit is you can use them to make changes in caster although I would still make my large adjustments with the UCA, then fine tune it with the strut rod.

I don't think $150ish more than a set of bushings is bank breaking territory. You'll get the billet steel, CNC machined frame coupler with heim joint mounted, the LH/RH threaded tube and the LCA mounting bracket with steering stop. All the hardware and instructions and all beautifully powder coated! As an added bonus our strut rods are forward compatible with our coilover system should you find the money tree one day!

I don't get why some people think these are race car parts? The companies name is Street or Track! I develop this stuff to do both as best it can, the track stuff for me comes into play because its fun and a great way to test the durability of the products. There are WAY more of these on street cars than track cars and those street cars have been pounding out the miles all around the world for 11 years of me selling these. :thumbsup:

 

I'm never to busy to help a guy out...

Thanks so much for your reply, Shaun. I greatly appreciate you taking the time to help me. I'll take a look at your adjustable strut rods. If I don't get them right away, I will get them eventually. I'll be picking up a set of your Bilstein shocks as well.

BTW, all the parts I listed above I bought from you and I'm very happy with them. I always recommend Street or Track for anyone looking to buy Mustang suspension parts.

 

Shaun

After I reread my post I did make it sound like your strut rods were gee wiz race only parts which they are not. High quality stuff to say the least. An extra $150 for adjustability is something everyone will have to weigh when they make a decision. I plan on auto crossing scca so keeping stock attachment points is also important to me. I don't plan on changing my caster settings once they are set properly. And I would still have to use shims anyways so I held on to my $150 in this instance.

 

Adjustable strut rods will NOT affect the braking twitch(67-73 mustangs have them). strut rods weather fixed or adjustable with "SPHERICAL ROD ENDS" in place of the rubber bushings WILL STOP the brake twitch.

 

This is what made me curious about the "adjustable" strut rods.

Seems you only "adjust" them once (when you get an alignment done). And my 69 stock ones can do that, so I never understood what the big deal is.

 

My car is just going to be a cruiser. So i guess bushings should do just fine.

 

As long as you are referring to the maier style bushings and not poly. Don't walk from polyurethane strut rod bushings, run! Shaun's pic is the exact reason why.

 

Yep maier style bushings.

 

I wouldn't recommend using adjustable strut rods to add any significant amount of castor without spherical bearings in the lower control arm. Just something to keep in mind.

 

Good advice. You can bind up the factory rubber bushings. Opentracker has some inexpensive lower arms that work well. These are nice. I have a pair on my Mustang but they are over priced. They make it easy to fine tune the Camber on the 65/66 cars after you have shimmed the upper arms http://www.themustangshopaz.com/Products/ClassicMustangs/AdjustableArms/AdjustableArms.html

 

I have Shaun's strut rods on my 70 mach and I believe he used my blurb that I wrote to him after I put them on the car on his website. When I got my car it had brand new aftermarket repop strut rods and bushings. Within about 300 miles one was shot, so much so that under braking the car listed toward that side. I can honestly say that before and after is night and day and that is changing nothing but those SR's, everything else is just stock. I went from normal strut rods, to worn out strut rods, to Shaun's with out changing anything else.

I was worried that given there is no bushing or flexibility that it would make everything a little harsher. Complete opposite though it wasn't harsher but it just made everything feel tighter. I had more confidence to brake and given the nature of the dual threads like a turnbuckle they are super easy to adjust when you get your alignment. At the very least after seeing what those POS repops looked like coming off of the car and how long it took them to go from new to dangerous I wont ever use those again on anything.

Next up from him for me is the Bilstein's, I want to take some of the slop floating out of the shocks and stiffen those up a bit too.

 

Absolutely! I couldn't of said it better. Shaun's parts are excellent.

 

the nice thing about spherical bearings is that not only do you get more articulation, they are more easily replaced when that time rolls around.

 

Excellent pics Huskinhano!
I did the Daze Cars modified strut rods using Heim joints. I do agree with the need for roller LCAs, which is on my list of mods I haven't done.