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Ok, I'll bite. That's correct, I don't post much here anymore. My experience here has been that while most people ask questions, they already "know" what they're talking about and only want to read replies that reinforce what they believe. If anyone contradicts what they believe, it turns into a firestorm - I love chatting about suspension in general, and a lively debate is fun, but plain ole' arguing is not for me, so I avoid it.




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Bill,

I don't like to argue either and have not posted about our Level II here in over a year. Perhaps I should have kept more closer to my chest and disclosed less. While you obviously are upset by this thread, I've been taken over the coals here previously and purposely not posted about our setup here at all, largely by customers of yours.

Your opinion and mine will obviously be different and I won't try and do a tit-for-tat point by point debate here, but I will make a few comments.

You mention the average guy. Well, the average guy doesn't have the time or the ability to dial in his setup and that is why we defined specific packages. If we're talking about real racers, yes they are a whole other breed in terms of what they do. However, I haven't come across any real hardcore racers running these cars. We've talked to many who run other platforms and thought about building a classic Mopar. For these guys we can offer any spring rate they want and shocks are already adjustable. For the average guy, I'm very comfortable offering packages that are setup already.

Reality is there is HUGE value in having matched components, tested to work together as a complete package - FRONT AND REAR. The typical guy has a hodge podge of parts from multiple vendors that bear no relation with one another.

It's easy to chalk it all up to hype, that's what was done here before: 'It's all hype, who needs the technology, no benefit in using engineers that have done this for F1, IRL, the OE's, etc., etc.'. If I thought your stuff was so great I wouldn't have spent the time or money to do what we did. We set out primarily to build cars. I wouldn't have wasted $1 if I thought your setup would get us where we wanted to be. I also have alot of seat time open road racing at over 200 MPH and I can tell you there's no way I'd risk my butt with your setup doing that - and that's the truth.

You're coming at this like you have all the answers, but I have to wonder if all these racers are tuning your setup so precisely, how is it they are all running leaf springs on the thousand plus setups you have out there. These are road racers?

All those tools are worthless? Yeah I guess that's why the top race teams use them and the OE's use them for their halo cars. But, you know everything about what can be done on a four post rig or what OE level suspension design software can do. Think it was all for show - easy to say that when you haven't seen it first hand or used it. Ask Rick Ehrenberg, we took him there so he could see first hand what it was and how it worked.

Chassis stiffening? If everyone had all the answers forever and knew, why hadn't anyone offered anything other than subs before? Testing was clearly a waste of time there on our part, to actually know what worked and what didn't - yeah we tried more than one combination. We saw crazy dash/cowl shake on four post rig that disappeared completely after the stiffening was done. Yeah all of this was known forever. This is reserved for racers? - it's needed on the street!

Stiffer K doesn't matter?

I wrote and deleted much as I don't want to go back and forth, on shocks, weld-in vs bolt in, brakes-LOL, rear design, bump-stops, etc., etc.

Steering columns - changing a connector is harder than fabricating brackets? We've never told anyone the connector would plug right in. We have connectors you can plug the existing wires into. The alternatives have no key on column for apps that need them and you need to fabricate all the brackets. Wiring - come on...

Alot of this stuff comes from big hassles we have building cars. Columns were a major PITA, especially with our Level II as there isn't adequate support on the bottom of the columns for a rack - you've addressed that since day one right? So we had columns made up to our spec that ARE bolt in and have roller bearings in the bottom of the column. Wiring connector? That would be a great way to drive the price up on them and how many combinations would we need to support.

Bill, say whatever you want, no way, no how is your setup at the level of ours. It's easy to chalk up all that we did as smoke and mirrors. As far as saying we never cared about the average guy, we have a Level I suspension that fits anyone's budget and that we'll soon offer as components. You're saying our attitude was that low buck didn't warrant our attention - Level I was targeted squarely at that market. However, to have a very big dollar setup and try to sell it to the guy on a budget would have been incredibly stupid - it's being realistic, rather than saying anyone is worthy or not. You think we just did a carb'd 5.7 HEMI kit for guys with unlimited budgets?

You've said it yourself, your setup is targeted to "the low-end customers we cater to". Well we've targeted that as well as real high end. I think what you're not willing to acknowledge and others here aren't fully aware of, is there are different levels of quality at the component level. You can tell me all day long Mustang II stuff is fine, but it has issues; maybe you aren't aware of them. It was never on our list of possible components to use.

If you're telling me that you can do the same thing as guys who do work for F1, ALMS, NASCAR, IRL, the OE's, campaigned cars at the 24 hours of LeMans, designed for Ford complete GrandAm (which won the championships) and complete GTP cars, then I think you need a reality check. No value in us benefitting from that at all? I still don't see how you address the handling of a car just by looking at one end of the vehicle - not like the back of these cars was something great to begin with.

You ARE ABSOLUTELY CORRECT that for many applications it may not make a difference for some of this stuff. But that does not mean it is the same and it does not mean it can perform at the same levels, epecially on a (road) race track. Does everyone need that, obviously not. It also doesn't mean that there are'nt people who do want it and do recognize differences.

Bill, irrespective of the foregoing I apologize if you think I stepped over the line and I have held back wildly on this response. I'll speak to my people here about what they communicate to people inquiring. However, we're not going to say it's just as good or there aren't material differences. You have happy customers and there is a place for your product, which is obviously much better than the MF setup. I've never said otherwise - but I didn', and wouldn't, buy it for what I was looking to do. Today the detemining factors are what people plan on doing with the car and their budget. Budget we'll start addressing now, but I know we'll largely still be more than you on the cost side because of the pieces we use. People want a more cost effective version of our stuff, happy to do what I can to deliver it.

You can say whatever you want, but no one has brought the level of product to this market segment that we have, and will continue to do. We've launched more new products in the past year and a half for Mopars than anyone, and that isn't ending any time soon either as there are always multiple projects going on here. If we're able to make more of our higher end products within the reach of more people and offer more options, I'm happy to do it, not what you want to hear, but it's clear that many want us to and my goal is to meet the needs of markets as best we can.

Again, sorry if you think I went too far, but there's also alot we have done with this and very little not for specific reasons.