shock setup 91 escort

[ronald j wills]

Anyone out there using an escort or protege, and what shock setup are you using ?It appears if you drop the current (o.e or replacement shock to the 5 inch limit you will take too much travel out of the strut.Also what spring rates are in the range I might want to use?My biggest limitation is my budget but its not going to keep me from competing.also are portioning valves of the lever type worth the bother. Thanks for any help.

[joeg]

Ron--There are many cars that will suffer the same fate if lowered too much.

You can either shorten the strut(cut/weld and find an appropriate insert), or raise its top mounting point via a camber plate --assuming you have sufficient room under the hood.

I'm not sure if any one sells an "off the shelf" short strut for this application--I doubt it.

Good Luck.

[whenry]

Ron, I have been racing '91 EGT for 4 yrs. What you can start with is the R struts from the ZX2 trunk kit. Probably the best deal in racing: $190 or less for full set.
I started out with GAB's and "blew" them out in less than 2 seasons. Maybe the type of tracks that we race on ie Road Atlanta and VIR; maybe the # of springs.
Contact me direct for more info [email protected]
Wayne Henry 865-986-1390

[Brad GT]

Originally posted by ronald j wills:
Anyone out there using an escort or protege, and what shock setup are you using ?It appears if you drop the current (o.e or replacement shock to the 5 inch limit you will take too much travel out of the strut.Also what spring rates are in the range I might want to use?My biggest limitation is my budget but its not going to keep me from competing.also are portioning valves of the lever type worth the bother. Thanks for any help.

[Brad GT]

Ronald I race a 91 escort gt (IT) in Canada. I have been working on my spring/shock set-up for over 2years. As a good starting point I used the ground-control coil over kit with tokico struts. Added sus.tech sway bars front and back which helped. This year I have increased the front/rear spring rates matched with koni adjustable struts, haven't had it on the track yet, you know that thing called snow. If you want to discuss, my email is [email protected] had the

Originally posted by ronald j wills:
Anyone out there using an escort or protege, and what shock setup are you using ?It appears if you drop the current (o.e or replacement shock to the 5 inch limit you will take too much travel out of the strut.Also what spring rates are in the range I might want to use?My biggest limitation is my budget but its not going to keep me from competing.also are portioning valves of the lever type worth the bother. Thanks for any help.

[whenry]

Join the EscortGT egroup at Yahoo. There are several other EGT racers either autoX or SCCA road racing and we all face the same issues with our "bastard child" car from Ford or Mazda. Some of the posts deal with clear corner lights and similar stuff but for the most part, the posts are folks seeking better performance out of EGT. Including a number of folks who have GTX or GTR implants.
Mazda Comp will sell some parts to us but not the stock stuff(?) and some of the stuff developed for the ZX2 will also fit.
There are maybe 5 IT prepared EGT's out there in varying states of prep.

[ronald j wills]

Thanks everyone for the help. I am picking up the ford motorsports catalog monday.According to the counter guy the ZX2 trunk kit consists of 4 tokico struts and at 200.00 you cant get them for anywhere near that price.What sounds even more interesting is the ZX2 race suspension setup that includes 4 coil-overs,sway bars and bushings(for racing only or so he says) and even though 1100.00 is a big chunk of change that would seem to me to be another bargain.It would seem that with the possible exception of the rear sway bar everything should bolt in.Anybody out there tried this?

[Diane]

I thought the ZX2 kit had non-IT legal threaded bodies? I saw this in another thread on this board.


Diane

Originally posted by ronald j wills:
Thanks everyone for the help. I am picking up the ford motorsports catalog monday.According to the counter guy the ZX2 trunk kit consists of 4 tokico struts and at 200.00 you cant get them for anywhere near that price.What sounds even more interesting is the ZX2 race suspension setup that includes 4 coil-overs,sway bars and bushings(for racing only or so he says) and even though 1100.00 is a big chunk of change that would seem to me to be another bargain.It would seem that with the possible exception of the rear sway bar everything should bolt in.Anybody out there tried this?

[whenry]

The Dynamic Motion or Systems susp kit is not IT legal(don't ask; it would be hard to explain in this forum) due to threaded body shocks. You could probably machine out the threads or I once discussed with Tim T placing a sleeve over the body and then using the IT legal system on top.
I was waiting on the Koni kit but got impatient. So I went with the R's. They are made for shorter than stock and heavier than stock springs. I have been very satisfied. I do have another set on the shelf as replacements.
GC does pretty good stuff but they were about 175# less than what I felt like was needed. I use 500# springs all the way around and started with the ST bars. I now have the ST front, Corksport front tie bar and Compass 1" rear bar. Car is very balanced and the only change that I make from RA to VIR is less camber at VIR on the front due to the wavy pavement in the braking zones and humps on the back straight.
I just need to be in "B"

[whenry]

Upon reading your original post, I thought of something else:
Don't try to lower EGT to IT limit. It cannot be done mainly due to rear fender cut and 7" rims. If I set up the car to drop the body on the tires I have interference issue with the inside(R struts are somewhat thicker). If I push the tire out with spacers or offset, then the fender cut is in the way. I could go with shorter springs to get the seat up higher on strut but am concerned about getting too high on strut and snapping it.
Food for thought.

[HiRcc#19]

hey h0w r you . it's juan egt#19 how is the escort going . iam racing this weekend at moros. so when are you coming to fl. like to hear from you.

[stroubelan]

Originally posted by ronald j wills:
Anyone out there using an escort or protege, and what shock setup are you using ?It appears if you drop the current (o.e or replacement shock to the 5 inch limit you will take too much travel out of the strut.Also what spring rates are in the range I might want to use?My biggest limitation is my budget but its not going to keep me from competing.also are portioning valves of the lever type worth the bother. Thanks for any help.

Bilsteen weld on mod Eilerbock? springs 500-600# heaved durt (7/8) swaybar. 1000# in the back 6 in (hard to come by) and big sway bar. I got mine from a guy No. of West Palm Beach, Fl.