continued from above
The Whiteline Watts kit is a 100% bolt-on affair, but it is still lightweight. Instead of being a
giant stepladder bolted to the car, it is a slick, simple, beefy Watts unit that attaches in all the right places and uses the right materials. Because it is made with their well developed poly bushings it is SILENT in use, and it fit around our custom dual 3" exhaust with plenty of clearance. Will this bolt-on design hold up to the lateral forces of 315mm R compound tires? I was a bit skeptical, but these parts made it through roughly a year of autocross events (12 events x 4 runs) in a single day on 315 Rs, so I've got some confidence in their stuff now.
The front swaybar was a pretty straight forward upgrade, and we went with this new "4 hole" adjustable solid 33.5mm diameter Whiteline bar over the old "3 hole" adjustable hollow 35.5mm Eibach swaybar (the stock 2011 front bar was also 35.5mm hollow non-adjustable, at 12.7 lbs). Sure, there was a bit of a weight hit with the WL front bar, but I'm sure they had a reason for going with the solid bar, so we went with it. It doesn't have a dip in the middle like the other two, looking at the picture below.
Removing Suspension Noises
I haven't really spoken up about this but the last few months of street driving in the Mustang have
sucked. After extensive testing, removing parts one at a time and replacing them with stock, we have finally isolated the noises to two components: the Spohn panhard and UCA parts + the UPR chassis mount we had on the Mustang have been making a lot of noise, starting just a couple of months after they were installed. Every bump was a rattle or bang, and it was not at all what I would consider streetable. It didn't happen right away, which was the mystery - they started off dead silent. We have re-tightened the UCA mount 5 or 6 times, which would quiet things down for a day or two, only to return and worsen with each iteration. The "Del-Sphere" joints that were supposed to be quiet were the opposite of that, at least on our car. The holes in the chassis mount did not match the holes in the Del-Sphere joints or bolt size, either, but even making custom bushings to fix that mismatch won't help. It seems to be in the joints.
In early August I had asked Ryan to pull the Spohn UCA to see if the noises would subside. The stock UCA with rubber bushing and the factory upper mounting bracket went back on and 50% of the noises went away. We still had the Del-Sphere equipped Panhard rod on - only wanting to change one variable at the time. My wife's daily commute in the Mustang is driven on super smooth concrete roads, but it was still banging and clanking over the tiniest ripple or seam, just not as loudly as before. When the Whiteline Watts link kit arrived (the Watts was delayed a bit but we kept hounding them and got an early release part - the first one outside of their own test car!) the Mustang got into our shop for that install + their rear swaybar.
Viola! With the last of the Del-Sphere joints removed ALL of the rear suspension noises were now gone. She street drove it like this last week and was very happy. Then one day this week the stock UCA with rubber bushing and the stock chassis bracket came back off and the Whiteline rear adjustable UCA + bracket and front swaybar went on. Again, it was 100% silent over bumps and articulation, which is exactly what you want on a street driven car.
So how do these parts work? So far the only thing I can say is "perfectly". We've pounded street miles on them for a week and then used all of it on the car at an autocross test yesterday with
38 laps of abuse. The new Watts Link kit came with a beautiful cast aluminum rear diff cover, which was a unique part to Whiteline kit. The bracket that holds Watts link "football" bolts to this new rear cover (which also has holes plumbed for a
differential cooler), and the football mount can be adjusted up/down with 2 settings for rear roll center adjustment. Some kits have more settings, but I liked the compact nature of their kit.
With the new routing of the Whiteline rear swaybar installed the 18x12" Forgestar wheels can finally tuck inboard another 1/2" on each side and now we have no more tire rubbing swaybar.
Woot! The swaybar is a big win in my book, because it lets us run bigger wheels. And this big car needs all the rubber on the road it can get.
Next up - Testing!
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