Looking at installing a 4 link. Bolt in.

Looking at Qa1, Gerst, RMS, etc

Triangulated vs straight 4 link ? pros and cons of each ?

All seem to be in same price range.

Street car with 528 and 5spd. want a nice ride so any shock recommendations ?

Wont see any track use ?

ugh!
Next question, why?
Ever visit a Mustang forum and hear all the relentless complaining about their decades old triangulated 4 links?

None of the current offerings have very good specs.
Will the bolt in? Yes
Will they hold the back of the car up? Yes
Will they have a very limited range of motion and cause the car to shove in every corner like a plow? Absolutely.

I think I know what you're trying to do but not so sure you'll be happy. You'll need to post a bunch more information before you'll get any specific help.

If you want a nice ride and you won't be doing any track time then you might want to stay with a stock type suspension. Big rubber bushings and high quality shocks should give you what you want. Maybe add a stock anti-roll bar with rubber bushings for some extra control.

I agree you'll probably have more bang for your buck if you spend (some of) the money on your stock suspension.

The engineers at the factory were experts at making suspensions that drove and handled nice. Just read all the magazine roadtests of the era, comparing them to GM's and Ford's offerings.

Our cars may have out handled a Ford or Chevy at the time but a modern minivan will out handle it today. So upgrading is the thing to do. That being said I went with the Hotchkis TVS system as it looked like balanced system that will work together. and lots of bracing and welding of seams.
If I upgrade at a later date I would look at the Magnum Force rear suspension but it is weld in. It will also give you more tire clearance.

there isn't a bolt in 4 link for our rides that will outhandle updated stock.

Or stock for that matter

Bingo. I set up a Cuda with RMS front and Ridetech rear to the best of my abilities for a customer. The car handled well; but I let the owner take EMax (Full Hotchkis Equipped Challenger) out for a spin. He came back and said: "Wow. I could have saved a lot and time, money and effort If I had just stuck with Torsion Bars and Leafs"

I'm not going to say what is wrong with the other coilover and link systems since I'm not paid to help them out; but I will say that the geometry is less than ideal in any situation where the car is not moving in a straight line.

If the market would support it; a quality coil system could and would be developed; however it would not be a bolt on solution and would require several compromises to the chassis that most folks aren't willing to do with a moderate level of fabrication work. I'd do it to a Satellite or some other car but I'm not sure I'd be up for doing it to a car I cared about like my Road Runner; but I'm getting tempted on this go around and we've drafted up some really killer setups.

The only good 4 link suspension has 3 longitudinal links and a panhard bar. In the mid 90s when I was working for Delphi Chassis, the suspension engineers did not like the four link rear suspensions that where on the last generation Caprice, these where the guys that had to make this suspension work.

Sounds like you are talking about a torque arm suspension.

i only have a passing knowledge of the torque arm setup, but is/would there be any appreciable amount of binding if the front mount is too far from the u-joint pivot point ?

No, remember both of these joints are normally a slip design, only one is required to prevent bind. This assumes a perfect no friction slip.

A torque arm style is not in my mind what one considers when talking 3 links fwiw, but if you does not want to extension floor modifications and/or requires a back seat, its a well accepted productive design.

Look at the line drawing I posted, there is no slip joint for the torque arm.

You want both the pivot and the U joint to be as close to in line as possible. The point of the torque arm is to control axle wrap.

If there is a bit of movement the slip yoke in the driveshaft handles it.

Lot to unpack here.
I guess the first clarification is a "slip" joint in this context means a joint/connection with enough play to handle some of the kinematics involved here, as there is no need for constraint of the torque in more then one axis.
I am not sure that in every case both the u joint and torgue arm chassis connection need to be oriented close, as that location plays a part in deciding the desired instant center.
And everyone should remember "axle wrap" also includes braking forces.
It is possible to use another separate above the axle arm for braking forces only, and then decouple the torque arm discussed here in this scenario, but this is getting above my pay grade.

“If you can't explain it to a six year old, you don't understand it yourself.” ― Albert Einstein

Try it without the thesaurus.

OEM torque arm suspensions, much like OEM triangulated 4 links, use large bushings for NVH. That's noise, vibration and harshness.

In a handling setup, this is the handling forum isn't it, NVH is irrelevant. You'd use delrin for the bushing to minimise unwanted movement. To further minimize unwanted movement, the u joint and the pivot need to line up.

Do some research on torque arm suspensions.

We disagree.

A three link and a torque arm are different designs. The torque arm constrains the arm to the rear end in rotation. The three link has three longitudinal links that can use sperical joints on each end. See the following link for pictures. The general layout has two lower links outboard. The single upper link can be located in the middle or on either side.

http://www.chassisunlimited.com/product/link-suspension-kits/3-link-suspension-kit-e.html

We agree.

On a further note, the location of the upper 3rd link off center, has useful bearing on the end result handling characteristics, ie its location is not random.

Interesting read on a 3 link vs torque arm set up, in a mustang application, of course.

https://trackmustangsonline.com/threads/torque-arm-vs-3-link-imho.13639/

Interesting read, but not sure we are comparing apples to apples here, since the geometry is likely vastly different between the two set-ups, beyond just the hardware, and the 3 link might just be a better tune for this application, which also means it could be tuned for a much worse result. Also over my pay grade, but I suspect the real three link normally has a lot wider tune window then the TA set-up, if for any no other reason, then just space for adjustablity.