[Shotimes] Struts & Springs

[George Fourchy]

On Fri, 21 Mar 2003 16:13:10 EST, BOB6867@aol.com wrote:

>Local Tire dealer 
>wants to sale me top of the line Monroe Struts and Spicer Springs. Any 
>comments would be greatly appreciated.

Whether you want to build your car to get handling improvements or just standard
family car duty, you want to use NAPA or CargoCoil replacement rear (and front)
springs.  If you are really lucky you can find a decent set of springs off a SLO
Taurus in a wrecking yard (I did), but you won't know if they are good or not until
you install them, and that is a lot of work.  It's better to just replace with the
aftermarket replacements.  They cost about 80 bucks a pair.  Get the ones that are
for Taurus LX....they're a little stronger.

Struts.....stay away from Monroe.  Everyone on the list who has tried them has been
dissatisfied.  For performance, you can go to Tokiko or Koni.  Tokiko struts bolt
in.... Konis are cartridges which go into drilled and cut stock housings.  Not hard
to do.... takes about 20 more minutes per corner to install Konis.  They are
expensive.... about 125 each.  Tokikos go anywhere from 100 to 110 each.  Konis are
adjustable in ONE direction....not that much better, in my opinion.... others
disagree.  Tikikos also seem to last longer over the long haul.  They are fairly
stiff, but make the car a lot of fun to drive.  They will work with any spring.

There are replacement struts that approximate the ones your car came with from the
factory.....I have not tried them yet, but I will be later (that doesn't help you
now!).  They are made by a company called Sachs, and are available from shox.com . 
They cost about 275 or so a set of 4.  The other struts are available there, too. 
They are also available from SHONut Performance....go to the SHOClub website to get
the link.

Go to shotimes.com and go to care and feeding...suspension mods or something like
that, and read the various inputs folks have added over the years regarding working
on struts and springs.  Many folks want to lower their cars, and I discuss that
there.

If you have any more questions, ask us...we know more about these cars than anyone
at Ford ever dreamed.

George and the Lowrider