Mid 80's Mustang vs Camaro

[RazorbackGT]

I think driving position is a huge part of it. Seems like a GM thing, their cars always seem to sit lower. In the case of '80s Mustangs and Camaros, it seems like it might as well be a full FOOT lower you sit in a Camaro. It's a BIG difference. Recently when they did that IROC build on Detroit Muscle, i thought it was pretty interesting they came with torque-arm suspensions, since that's the hot-ticket Fox conversion.

I remember Chevy always having the handling advantage, but the Mustang won a lot of those comparisons because of it's better every day livability and other intangibles. The Mustang was just a better all-around car. I'm not a track guy of any kind, so I'm very happy with that. I think the '93 Cobra even won a comparo or two vs. the new fishmobile 4th gen F-car (the "F" is for "fish") despite the Cobra being totally outclassed in the power department.

Yeah, I agree about seat height. I'm 6 foot 6 and I can comfortably drive my 85 Mustang all day. Now my wife had a new Camaro a couple years back, my God, it was like being folded into a suitcase. Absolutely the most uncomfortable vehicle I've ever driven.....torture.

[wraithracing]

Yeah, I agree about seat height. I'm 6 foot 6 and I can comfortably drive my 85 Mustang all day. Now my wife had a new Camaro a couple years back, my God, it was like being folded into a suitcase. Absolutely the most uncomfortable vehicle I've ever driven.....torture.

I am just under 6' 2", but I have a long torso so I sit very tall in the seat. I actually have more headroom in a F body than I do most of the time in a Fox. Actually one of the reasons I hate a sunroof Fox is because the additional structure for the sunroof causes my head to actually touch the headliner in my normal seating position. For the same reasons, I love a T-top car!

[RazorbackGT]

Has anyone driven a new Challenger? Just looking at them, they look like they have a comfortable seat height.

[qtrracer]

Back when I was looking for a 'vert (I was a Chevy fan for years), I selected an IROC Camaro first. They only came with autos. Thing was a pig; too heavy, lack of throttle response, etc. Then I tried an 87 then an 86 Mustang vert. The 86 was by far the better car. Still have the 86 - going on 26 years now.

[Supersonic G.T.350]

Way back in the day I simply lowered my car with good springs and swapped out wheels and tires. It felt like it handled like it was on rails. Such a great improvement. I can't wait for it to go back together this time with all my mods.

[xctasy]

Dynamically, handling is a function of chassis rigidity primarily in tons force per degree of bending . If you've got less stiffness, your steering won't be communicative and amenable to correction. GM cars have poorly placed steering boxes, a GM Research Pontiac era George Roberts idea of increasing under-steer for stabilities sake. Generally stiffer GM uni-bodies have better steering due to a lack of chassis bending. The early rear steering box (shared with the 65-73 Mustang ) created roll instability, so GM shifted it forward for 82 . The German GM cars always suffered roll over steer due to rear steering box placement (including the V car based Catera and Holden based GTO).


The Fox missed out on Bishops style variable ratio steering, but had better steering gear location. A lack of Watts or Panhard Rod then added the waywardness of the Fox GT and RS era.

Potentially, the Fox has the edge over the F car, but it needed a GTO style variable ratio rack, a 64 Galaxie style 4 link, a five or six link live axle, or IRS, along with the Battle Box chassis stiffening girders to make it turn with alacrity. And it sits taller, always, even with the changes to make the Fairmont a Mustang by lowering the roof, raising the cowl, and even the 82's deep floor dish. Adding 3" of body width and turning it into the stiffer Fox 4/SN95 with out the huge hatch robbing the body strength.

For the Eagle , Yes definitely the Talon TSI. AWD Turbo 4, yes please. The tech of mitsu and engineering of dodge. Sold under 5 star motors.

Down here, the platform came out as the super competent 4th Generation Mirage or Sixth generation Mitsubishi Lancer. The FTO was a 100% Eclipse under the skin. The EVO's were based on a cut down Galant platform, so three very good chassis iterations came together in one beachhead.


The E cars cars had Mopar like performance, Volvo T5 like chassis (Mitsubishi and Volvo shared the body sub structure engineering and some turbo and hardware content) but suffered typical low volume problems for parts supply and turret punched components were hard to rework in a smash. Unlike, say, the much less competent Toyotas/Scions and rear drive and very competent Nissan S13/15'S (a rear drive six cylinder Cefiro/Larual/Stagea/Skyline/Medalist base that begat the R32 GTR), these co-op cars ended up being crass in appearance, but simply stunning in engineering terms.


Key comparison with the Foxes and F cars, were the high hip line sedan verses low hip line specialty coupe part which GM espoused. Even the Novas copied the low hip line F car chassis; GM realized that the true ethos of a Pony car was the low build. Ford created low build by making the halo Mustangs slammed down sedans. Look at the 69 Boss 302, and any BOSS 429...or the 93 Cobra. It was those cars that were slammed down, with huge tires and pushing the sedan base within an inch of its life.

Holman Moody gave birth to the Mustang idea, where a sedan body became copped and channeled to become a Mustang Coupe.



The Challenger III of Holman Moody fame



When Ford raced the Falcon Sprint, it had no real cat walk area, like this





By 1969, it copied the lowered hood, sectioned, tall spring tower look.



The excreta really hit the fan when FIA found in early 69 that Fords Holman Moody had truncated and cropped another 2 inches off the cat walk area for the 1969 TRANSAM Mustangs.





The car was clearly a radicaly chopped from stock, with the nose of the car brought right down to the engine with the 2" chop evident.

And that is why the Fox misses some stiffness.


Deemed illegal by the FIA, the others got re-purposed, and one went to Australia to become the Alan Moffit 69 BOSS Mustang


And the Foxes right till the last of 2004 used this same kind of ultra trim upper structure, but with a Pinto/Mustang II/Cortina TC/TD/TE/TF Taunus lower IFS. The track rods were gone, reversed from the front track rod Square Tbird and Falcon/65-73 Stang set up that caused such bad steering.



The 1969 body engineering was done in 1962 by Holman Moody in the three incarnations of the Challenger modified Sprints...as such was the first unibody to control body proportion by chopping, channeling and playing with the cat walk to hood area. Any X shell (the XK 200 Falcon project) and the Fox, shared part of the later the Pinto/Mustang II/Cortina TC/TD/TE/TF Taunus TC/TE/TF narrow hood, wide fender top, but X-sheels and Foxes had struts and an internal turret cat walk area which reverted to the Holman Moody style of stiffener. As such, the strength was in the shape of the spring tower to cat walk, very much like the 1951-1970 English Zephyr 6, 69-87 UK/German Capri, 1951-1970 English Zodiac, 1951-1969 Counsel and 1962 Corsair, and the uni-body Mc Namara Thunderbird four seat. Hence X's, Foxes, all of the strut uni-bodies, suffer from a lack on strength in bending unless the cat walk is stiffened like the old Monte Carlo brace or Saleen triangular brace. In a modern crash, that part is supposed to be yielding and frangible. GM always put some straight through strength into the front to make the cars steer well. Foxes, it was all in the fender cat walk.


Like this:-







The Camaro and Firebird were always very competent chassis wise, more so than the X shell 65-73's, or any Fox; they had Bishops Kirby power steering with reverse gearing off lock, and proper IFS upper and lower link suspensions with a great, stiff sub-frame, (that straight through area in the lower part of the chassis) and very well sorted out rear suspension, even the old leaf spring.


Foxes were basically a knock off of the 1978 V car Holden Commodore, a rack and pinion steering car with the same dimensions, but missed out on the F car rear discs, Panhard rod. German versions had ZF Recirculating ball steering. In all versions, the German V car and US F cars were better steering wise, chassis rigidity, and braking.

The Fox was just a Cortina/Pinto firewall, and steering rack with an Opel Commodore B style size up grade, and the blessed Holman Moody rusticated cat walk for strength.

The whole Fox car line blended the old hard points from 93, 96.2 and 101.6" wheel base Pinto, Mustang II and TD Cortina/ TE Taunus, and pumped it with a really GOOD modified McPherson strut front end that used the Pinto/Mustang II/Cortina lower structure. As such, it always was missing the torsional rigidity that the platform never got...it died in 2004 because you couldn't dial in stiffness with an X shell catwalk.

Have a look at the former Holman Moody man Ken Thompson's 62 Falcon.




Same SN95 narrow hood, wide fender top, and an attempt to cut the sedan based body down into a Camaro style low slung specialty coupe. In side, the hip line is still sedan, and that's why the Fox Mustang was missing some rigidity...it was a pretzel with slender front section.

This idea came from Jack Telenac, from the years he was placed over seas in Australia and Europe.

[cb84capri]

I am just under 6' 2", but I have a long torso so I sit very tall in the seat. I actually have more headroom in a F body than I do most of the time in a Fox. Actually one of the reasons I hate a sunroof Fox is because the additional structure for the sunroof causes my head to actually touch the headliner in my normal seating position. For the same reasons, I love a T-top car!

I'm about 6'1" and this reminds me of something I have discovered in 3rd gen Camaros. the older dash (82-89) is better if you have long legs. I have driven a 91 Z28 and my knees are in the bottom side of the dash where I want to sit driving a stick shift. In an accident though, you'd probably want the 90-92 dash.

Cale