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  1. #1
    FEP Power Member ccurtin's Avatar
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    Default Thoughts on the new LMR Coil over kit?

    Hi,

    https://lmr.com/item/SVE-47375KA/mus...-kit-sve-79-93

    Pretty unbelievable price. It looks different enough from the Eibach and Maximum Motorsports kits that I wonder if they cut corners or have come with a cost-effective but performance-minded way to produce these.

    Thoughts on this kit?
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  2. #2
    FEP Senior Member BMW Rider's Avatar
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    Default

    The fronts are coil overs, the rears in that kit are not. The rears are just adjustable springs. Looks decent enough to have adjustable ride height for a street car, but not going to give you the performance like the other kits.

  3. #3
    FEP Super Member erratic50's Avatar
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    You get what you pay for. The primary performance improvement will come from the lower ride height. You can accomplish the same level of improvement for less with a nice set of fresh shocks and struts and the right set of springs. Softer than factory GT in the rear is key to helping the rear not bind.

    Id buy a set of caster/camber plates, a panhard, and new shocks/struts for the money. Plates plus x2 ball joints will drop the front 1.5", then throw in 4 cyl LX springs out back and cut to ride height. WAY less expensive and trust me it will perform as well if not better. Look at the 1993 cobra before you add plates and panhard....... And drop it.

    Just my opinion ..... and what I did to my car.

    If you really want a kit, don't waste your time and money. There's a reason maximum motorsports are respected the way they are. It's guys like Jack that post here and obviously know what the hell they are doing. LMR - sorry but they don't strike a performance cord with the industry based upon their track performance
    Last edited by erratic50; 03-17-2017 at 07:20 PM.

  4. #4

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    Most of the SVE Stuff I have purchased is usually good quality, but sometimes they go cheap on the actual material used, so it may not hold up as well as the Factory stuff. As for the Coil overs, I would go with an MM kit and buy some Brillstein's from Summit and still be within 1k price.

    http://www.maximummotorsports.com/Mu...2004-P506.aspx
    https://www.summitracing.com/parts/bsn-35-041382/overview/year/1989/make/ford/model/mustang

    For items that hold the car up such as suspension, I find its much better to go with the best quality parts, not only for piece of mind, but the last thing you need is to be going down the road and the wheels fall off the car
    1985 Ford LTD LX
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  5. #5
    FEP Super Member erratic50's Avatar
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    Default

    Oh - and don't get me started on coil overs on a street car. I am HUGELY not a fan. Anyone else who has ever broke a strut tower on a Foxbody Mustang while driving it will also have some comments from experience on this.

    I hate to think what would have happened to me and my car if it would have had coil overs when the stock setup strut with stock hardware in a stock strut tower broke! My car had 100K miles, it was 9 years old, and it was not rusty in any way.

    Factory location coil spring were all that was holding the car up while the top of the wheel thrashed everywhere.

  6. #6

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    Quote Originally Posted by erratic50 View Post
    Oh - and don't get me started on coil overs on a street car. I am HUGELY not a fan. Anyone else who has ever broke a strut tower on a Foxbody Mustang while driving it will also have some comments from experience on this.

    I hate to think what would have happened to me and my car if it would have had coil overs when the stock setup strut with stock hardware in a stock strut tower broke! My car had 100K miles, it was 9 years old, and it was not rusty in any way.

    Factory location coil spring were all that was holding the car up while the top of the wheel thrashed everywhere.
    I am not a big fan of the coil overs either, mainly because of the Clearance issue, if you want to go to a wheel larger then 8in and 245 45 17. I also wonder about all the weight of the front end being held up with just the strut towers. Although the Strut towers are very strong, I don't believe Ford Designed the Strut towers to support all of the weight of the car.
    1985 Ford LTD LX
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  7. #7
    FEP Super Member erratic50's Avatar
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    Default

    Precisely my point - strut tower is not designed to be the load bearing point

  8. #8

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    The front suspension of a Fox Mustang has the bump stop located on the strut shaft. When the front suspension bottoms out, the majority of the load is going through the bumpstop into the strut tower. The bump loads are the highest loads used when designing the suspension. They are more than 5 times what the static load is. The strut tower is designed to accept this bump load. If it wasn't, Ford would not have installed the bumpstop on the strut shaft.

    In the rear of the Fox chassis, Ford put the bumpstop on the frame rail. In the rear of an SN95 chassis, they moved the bumpstop to the shock shaft. In over a decade of selling rear coilover kits for Fox Mustangs, we have seen exactly two which had problems with the rear shock tower. One was with an employee owned car. Once the seam sealer was scrapped off, only about 1/3 of the actual joint was welded. The welder had laid beads on the shock tower and missed the junction to the floorpan.

    I'm sure that you can always find one car where any given joint was not built to specification and it failed.

    I've personally assembled 20 plus Mustangs with 9" wide front wheels and had no interference issue between the wheel/tire and any part of the suspension. You just need to select the correct combination of parts.
    Jack Hidley
    Maximum Motorsports Tech Support

  9. #9
    FEP Super Member erratic50's Avatar
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    For a track car I don't disagree with your assessment. 5x load is ample for the number of miles they accumulate.

    For a street car having personally went for a bad ride due to a tower failure at highway speeds - trust me it's a BAD ride to go on. Try meeting a semi on a road with no shoulder while you're fighting to steer it and get it stopped. Never again for me!

    A very personal decision for sure, but I most certainly won't volunteer to try that trick again let alone with the spring load being at the failure point as well.

    I've since heavily reinforced and welded my towers. I am sure mine are now much stronger than factory but I personally still have no plans to tempt fate with a coilover setup on my street car. Not with the nasty potholes we get in the Midwest.

  10. #10

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    Don't the LMR ones look pretty much just like these?

    https://raceland.com/ford-coilovers/...1979-1993.html

    Jeremy
    83 T-Top coupe
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    Jeremy

    2016 Mustang PP GT
    1989 Mustang LX 5.0
    1983 Mustang L T-Top Coupe

  11. #11

    Default

    I looked at them and decided they were the same thing a while ago.

    Just an fyi, raceland is only about 20 miles from me. If anyone has any problems, I wouldn't mind helping out if I could.


    Seems like most sve stuff is just rebadged cheap junk with a higher price tacked on.
    2 1986 cougars (both 4 eyed and 5.0)
    1 1987 cougar

  12. #12

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    The LMR kit from above comes with knock off MM c/c plates. The Raceland kit from above doesn't come with c/c plates. They are an extra cost option. If you don't use them, I guarantee that your car's strut towers will crack and fail.

    From the LMR photo, the c/c plates look exactly the same as the knock off Raceland c/c plates that I've seen.
    Jack Hidley
    Maximum Motorsports Tech Support

  13. #13

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    Quote Originally Posted by Jack Hidley View Post
    I've personally assembled 20 plus Mustangs with 9" wide front wheels and had no interference issue between the wheel/tire and any part of the suspension. You just need to select the correct combination of parts.
    Imho, with Four-eyes , one of the biggest issue with tire fitment up front is with those of use who are not going to modify, in any way at all, the from the factory front quarter panels.


    When the Ford "quailty" is added in, see my from the factory hood fitment below, things get dicey with a 4-eye and front tires.
    Each car is different when we are talking about less than 0.1" clearance with tires. The tire make, the year made (there are differences) , the factory the tire was made at, and even the air pressure all come into play.

    My 245/45/17 extreme performance summer tires just kiss the bottom of my fender opening. However, my 245/45/17 Blizzak snow tires scrap the the bottom of my fender opening at full turn. I can't use my extreme performance summer tires in temps below ~45F (If I want to live :-)). Fwiw, extreme performance summer tires have very poor traction in cold temperatures.
    Fwiw, I've chosen the wheel spacers very carefully, after trying a bunch.


    For the OP, buy MM, or pass on putting 2nd quailty cr*p on your car.


    Yup, gotta love Ford's factory finish on body panels for Foxes.

  14. #14
    FEP Senior Member Patrick Olsen's Avatar
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    I would only recommend coil-overs for a street car if you want to improve ride quality, improve handling, and have the ability to set ride height where you want it. If you don't want any of those things, then don't go for coil-overs.

    I've been on Mustang forums since forever, with Lord knows how many people running coil-overs, and erratic50's experience with breaking a strut tower is the first (and only) I've ever read about.
    Last edited by Patrick Olsen; 10-05-2017 at 08:56 AM.

  15. #15
    FEP Senior Member BMW Rider's Avatar
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    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Jack Hidley View Post
    I've personally assembled 20 plus Mustangs with 9" wide front wheels and had no interference issue between the wheel/tire and any part of the suspension. You just need to select the correct combination of parts.
    I'd be interested in hearing what combos work in your experience. I have the MM coilovers all round (and everything else from Mm too) I'm using spindles from a 2000 (giving the wider track width) and have chosen to go with 17x8 35mm offset wheels up front and am just trying to decide on a tire size. I had initially fitted a set of 17x9 37mm offset wheels with 255/40 17s and used 1/2" spacers to gain clearance on the back side to the coilovers. I found though that they were a bit too proud to the outside to give adequate clearance to the fender lip

    I'd like to go with 245/45-17s up front. The fenders are not flared or stretched out, but have been modified to remove the lip and strengthened with a steel rod so they have the same effect as a rolled lip. I did modify the wheel opening to account for the 1.5" forward offset and am using the 91-93 fenders as well. I'm quite sure the wheels and tires are fine to clear on the back side, but hope to avoid any fender contact. I could go down another size in width if I had to to a 235/40 17.

  16. #16
    FEP Super Member erratic50's Avatar
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    My 245/45/17's clear on my 86GT just fine.

    I jacked my fenderwells up out of the way and screwed them in with pan head self drilling sheet metal screws.

    I'm running low mileage stock 93 GT springs up front, SN95 spindles, 1995 tribar 8" rims (30 mm offset), 1999 GT calipers, slightly thicker than stock Baer drilled/slotted rotors, X2 balljoints, MM sn95 to fox bumpsteer kit, 86 2.5 turn rack, stock a arms, stock K member, HPM caster/camber plates set to maximize positive caster, and camber bolts to dial in negative camber when my struts are centered in the strut opening then shoved back towards the windshield.

    i should mention I have tubular control arms and 4 cyl springs cut to the target ride height and an SN95 8.8 out back. The car sits low and level. Compared to my sons bone stock 1986 GT parked right next to mine, my frontend is dropped right at 1.5" due to the X2 and the caster/camber plates. (I plan to change my rear - I don't like the tribar rims with SN95 axles under a fox - it's a bit wide)

    i had very slight rubbing at lock before I connected the sway bar. Now it only rubs at lock if I am extremely aggressive with speed while at lock. 1/8th turn less and it won't rub at any speed with or without the factory 86 sway bar connected.

    Depending upon offset there is little reason a 9" rim with a 245/45 (or even a 255/40) would have trouble with fit. One of my really good friends has an 86 with 9" rims up front and a similar 5 lug conversion. His did not make use of camber bolts and rubbed quite bad without rack limiters but he has since went back and pushed his struts out and added camber bolts to fix this. I do not remember his wheel offset or tire size anymore off the top of my head.

    Anyway - SN95 spindles are the foundation for nice setup up front IMO. If you play with other stuff you get really odd offset requirements that quickly reduce the amount of rim and tire width you can use without visible modifications.

    I had the 245/45/17 up front with Ranger rotors at one point. They didn't fit nearly as well - rubbed, etc.

    The bonus is a well modded car handles and stops vastly better than stock. There is absolutely NO way a stock 86 mustang could ever begin to even try to keep up.
    Last edited by erratic50; 03-20-2017 at 06:05 PM.

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