Project S550 Mustang GT: Part 5 – Addressing Wheel Hop and Alignment Capabilities with BMR Suspension!
First off, we know most of you hate the “air’d out look”, but we are really liking the looks of it for a street car and liking the multi-function capabilities of the shocks. We know it’s been a few months since our last update, but rest assured we’ve been hard at work abusing the car and getting things sorted out. It's probably good to pick up where we last left off, and that’s with the suspension. Overall, the suspension has performed very well, but there are still two main areas that need some attention. The first is the slight wheel hop we’re encountering under very hard launches. The second is the limitation of the rear alignment capabilities due to the stock components. We plan to address both areas in this update.
Our first stop was to BMR Suspension. After talking to Kelly (the Mustang guru at BMR) and sharing our performance concerns and what we had already done to the car, he recommended their rear billet vertical links with upper and lower spherical bearings. The problem with the stock vertical links is they are made of rather thin stamped steel with extremely soft bushings. This combination provides for inconsistent handling characteristics and, is the one of the main culprits in that last bit of wheel hop we’ve been experiencing. BMR has a few different options, but we opted for the dual spherical version, as we liked the idea of keeping this component as bind-free as possible. This choice also made the installation a breeze, as you can swivel the bearings to slide the bolt in. Other owners have found high levels of frustration when trying to install vertical links with solid delrin bushings, as alignment must be perfect. Kelly also explained to us that he often finds that dust and debris can get caught between the washer and the delrin, causing an annoying squeak. Given that we’re in the desert and this project sees daily use, this was also an added benefit.
Here, you can see the stock vertical link installed.
The stock vertical link looks whimpy next to the BMR billet link.
A close up of the BMR components.Kelly had also recommended their rear toe rods. Much like the stock vertical links, these components are thin and are prone to flex under cornering loads and hard launches. Compounding on this, the stock rods use an alignment eccentric bolt to adjust the toe settings. BMR has found through their testing that the eccentric can slip under high loads causing toe change and deflection. Their units use a lockout plate to eliminate the eccentric, and all toe adjustments are handled on the toe rod’s center adjustment bolt.
The BMR rear toe rod kit includes new hardware and lockout plates to eliminate the stock eccentric bolts.
Since we could choose a color, we opted for their grey hammertone finish for the rear toe rod kit to complement our build’s color.
