• Welcome to the Contour Enthusiasts Group, the best resource for the Ford Contour and Mercury Mystique.

    You can register to join the community.

Ground Controls since 2001.......

blu_fuz

blu_fuz

New Member Classroom vulture
Joined
Sep 25, 2002
Messages
16,028
Location
Waupun, WI
EGPLNT has been riding on ground controls since 2001 and its time to mix things up. I need to know what it feels like to ride on a nice aftermarket setup. Thanks to a few members here for steering me towards H&R springs and working out a deal for a set.

After my new clutch is back in I will be buttoning up the suspension. I'm very excited to have something different.
 
Wow have you been on the same GC kit sense 01? I had h&r's but did not really care for the raked look they gave the car. I have always loved the pro kit for these cars. except the occasional rear spring sag witch I never really had a problem with. I got a brand new GC kit sitting next to me can't wait to install mine. Well anyways good luck with you're setup. What strut are you going to be running?
 
Just going with some cheapy struts for now to see how I like it.

Don't worry John I have a brand new boxed set of ground controls and rear koni shocks here if I don't like the H&Rs. I needed a spring kit that is raked so when I tow the trailer it won't get saggy ass.
 
My first car had eibach prokit on it and although it handled great, I hated the stance. Rear sat about 3/4" lower than the front. I ended up finding a set of intrax fronts from a member and loved the stance. Was actually very even drop with the eibach rear and intrax front. Sold the front eibachs to 95_mystique and they made for a level stance with his stock rear springs.
Cant wait to try out the koni/gc's along with all my other suspension upgrades. Going from a 13 year old stock suspension to what im doing is going to make it feel like a totally new car.

Hopefully the h&r's give you what your looking for compared to the g/c's.
 
^ thanks solo ;). You will LOVE the go-kart feel of the gcs and konis for sure. Nothing compares to them and you might never go back to anything else. Who knows maybe I will end up back to gc/koni but I have to atleast try something different. :cool:
 
ive been searching for the last hour for about the best prices i can find on the koni/gc setup i can find and found the gc's for 373.xx shipped, and koni's for 722.xx shipped, puts the setup in-between the price of the D2s and K-sports. damn the decisions.

Good luck on your near future choices Joe, hopefully you can give good feedback from both sides of the fence on the coilover vs standard strut/coil drop to add to our info bank.
 
How do thoughts about spring rates factor into this?

Reason I ask is that I occasionally drag this around with the CSVT.
DSC02861.jpg


It's entirely Aluminum, about 350 pounds empty, and I try to keep the loaded tongue weight at 100 pounds or less, but it still overwhelms the stock CSVT rear suspension. Hell, two small stature adults in the back seat overwhelms the rear suspension on this car, it's woefully undersprung.

I've been unable to find numbers on CSVT OEM spring rates. When I did a strut swap recently, I carefully measured the diameter, coil count, wire size, etc. for the rear springs, but they're taper wound, and variable coil spaced, so the rate calculation is less than straight forward, in fact, it's damn complicated.

Does anyone know the rates of the CSVT factory springs? How do the H&R springs compare?

Blu, do you know what spring rate your rear GC's are? I wonder if things get worse towing-wise for you with a shorter, lower rate spring like the H&R?

My plan is to fix my car with a rear Koni coilover of my own design with 300 pounds/inch to start, we'll see how that works. Will probably just get my anti-roll with the wheel springs, as the sway bar brackets are broken and the bar is off the car anyway.
 
Standard GC kit is as follows:

Front: GC150.64.92 6" @ 525lbs 2.5" ID (GC spec'd Eibach ERS Spring)
Back: GC230.64.49 9" @ 280lbs 2.5" ID (GC spec'd Eibach ERS Spring)
 
TourEnvy said:
Standard GC kit is as follows:

Front: GC150.64.92 6" @ 525lbs 2.5" ID (GC spec'd Eibach ERS Spring)
Back: GC230.64.49 9" @ 280lbs 2.5" ID (GC spec'd Eibach ERS Spring)
Click to expand...

Thanks, that's good to know, as I plan to use a Hypercoil 10" @ 300 pound spring in the rear, as I want stock ride height.
 
Pulled out the last of the gc/koni suspension yesterday and installed a H&R setup.


Can't wait to feel a different suspension. Just waiting on my clutch parts to get here to put the car back together.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top