Big Yellow Suspension Upgrades

[M&P15T]

Big Yellow got hooked up. Just sharing what I posted on my Mustang forum, for those that like automotive stuff. It's about having a massively upgraded suspension installed on my car, and my impressions of it.

I recently purchased Steeda Pro-Action adjustable shocks, struts, horizontal links, rear shock-mounts, and the Stop The Hop starter kit that comes with their subframe support braces, subframe bushing support kit, and subframe alignment kit. I then had it all installed by a member here that works at a local shop. Shocks and struts were set at one turn out of full-soft.

My first reaction, driving home, was of disorientation. The car looked the same from the driver's seat, the throttle, clutch and brakes felt the same, it smelled the same.

But.....

Every other sensory input was changed. What my butt, inner-ear, and hands on the steering wheel and shifter felt was totally different. This was disorienting at first, and created a situation where instead of being excited in a happy manner, I was excited in a very surprised manner. I was driving with my mouth open, completely surprised with the weird sensations I was getting, in a car I'd owned for 2+ years and was very used to. I called Peter while driving home (member here, did the work) and I'm sure I sounded retarded as I tried to explain what I was experiencing.

The steering is massively changed (more on that later), the ride is firmer, more controlled, and it absorbs road rash with a solid "thump" and almost 0 harshness. And when bumps/dips/expansion joints/etc. are encountered, the car doesn't squirm or need slight steering corrections, it just goes solidly straight ahead. All the rear-end wiggle and necessary steering corrections are gone. Hard acceleration requires no steering corrections, creates no nose-rise, the car just shoots ahead. Braking has almost 0 nose-dive, it just stops. Acceleration out of a corner requires no steering corrections......it's just......weird, like a go-kart.

Then there were other changes;

Driving home I noticed the shifting felt a bit better, but I didn't know if that was just because the trans was completely warmed up. But in this morning's crisp 38 degree weather, I started the car, waited 30 seconds or so, and put it into gear to head to work. ALL of the nibbling and sometimes crunching going into 2nd and 3rd when cold are gone. Completely gone. This is nothing I expected, and very surprising. I won't tell others to expect the same thing, but I'm guessing the subframe alignment kit got something lined-up better and caused the shifting improvement.

The there's the steering.

This was what I noticed first, as the Indy 500 tires do ruin the steering feel a bit. And suddenly the steering was much crisper. Then I checked my PSIs, and found Peter had increased the tire pressures by about 4 PSI all around. I hand't added air since it got cold, so they needed some. This really improved the steering feel, but also pressed home one interesting point;

The car now handles road-rash much better, even though the tires have 4psi more in them. That's a real testament to the quality of the suspension upgrades. Better ride, better body motion control, 0 rear-end wiggle, better shifting, all at the same time. The goal of budget-baller Aston/911/awesome car has been achieved.