SR Performance V2 Height and Damping Adjustable Coil-Over Kit (79-93 Mustang)

Video Review & Installation

Justin: If you're looking for the versatility of a coilover, but maybe prefer to keep things as budget-friendly as possible, well, then the SR Performance V2 coilovers that we have here today for the '79 to '93 Foxbody Mustang would certainly be worth a look. Now, the V2s are gonna pack that monotube design along with 16-way damping adjustment offer right around 900 bucks. Now, when installed, these coilovers will allow you to lower the car anywhere from one to three inches, which is basically gonna give prospective owners the ability to fine-tune their ideal ride height, or just simply slam the car to the ground if that's what you're after. But first up, let's talk about that height adjustability, which I do think is the biggest plus when considering a coilover setup, as opposed to going with a more traditional aftermarket static spring setup that doesn't allow for any adjustability.Now, the V2 coils here from SR are again gonna offer that drop anywhere from one to three inches, depending on just how low you wanna go. Now, again, this will be enough to allow you to go a little bit lower than stock or basically slam the car to the ground if you wanted and really anything in between. Now, a great way to get a feel for the different ride height possibilities with these installed is to browse the dozens of customer submitted images back on the product page at AM if you haven't done so already because again, you'll see a bunch of Foxbody guys and owners out there demonstrating their different ride heights with the V2s installed. So, again, check that out if you haven't done so already. But in addition to the height adjustability here with the V2s from SR Performance, you are also getting that 16-way dampening adjustment as well. Meaning you can soften or stiffen the ride depending on your personal preference or your driving style. To do so, very simple stuff, guys, you have a knob here up top that you're gonna turn either counterclockwise to soften things up or turn them clockwise to stiffen the damping rate on the shock itself.So, again, this is a nice thing to point out because if you're a drag strip regular and you'd like to play with your suspension settings to maybe improve your launch or your 60-foot times, you can definitely mess with it in that regard, or if you're just a casual owner and prefer one ride to another. For instance, I like the ride a little bit firmer in my car, you can do so here with the SR Performance V2 coils, do so quickly and easily. And it's nice that you do get that option here on an entry-level coilover such as this, which is not something you're always gonna see at coilovers or on coilovers at this price point. Another nice feature to point out here with the SR V2 coilover setup is the monotube damper design, which I know you can't see right now. It is an internal design, but it is rare to find, again, on such a budget-friendly option. If you guys didn't know, a monotube shock or a strut typically is found on higher-end level dampers or coilover kits, and it's a design that's gonna offer more consistent performance, less cavitation. And for that reason again, it is very popular with performance applications.Now, it's also known that the monotube is a little bit more durable in the long run compared to a more traditional twin-tube design. So, again, for all these reasons, certainly worth pointing out here with the SR V2 coils. But as far as what's actually included here with this particular kit, well, again, you are getting four monotube dampers, four springs. The front spring rate is gonna be 448 pounds up here, while your rear spring rate is 280 pounds. Now, the collars are adjustable down here. This is gonna give you your adjustable ride height. And these guys are controlled by the included wrenches or spanner wrenches that are used to turn the collars themselves and adjust your ride height once everything has been installed. Now, another nice addition here will be the aluminum top hats included on the fronts. These guys are basically just a built-in caster camber plate, which is a nice feature and again will make adjustment and alignment much easier once everything's been installed.But now we wanna talk about the installation process on your Fox. And again, the benefit of going with a coilover like this is that you're just simply gonna yank out the entire front strut and spring assembly in one piece and replace it with a preassembled coilover. There's no need to mess with spring compressors or anything like that. But even with that being the case, the site is still gonna go full pool, three out of three wrenches on the difficulty meter here, and at least four hours or so to get everything knocked out from start to finish. You're gonna need a good chunk of the toolbox here for this one, gang, including a number of sockets and wrenches. But regardless, to give you a better idea of exactly how this one will go down, check out a detailed walkthrough by an AM customer now.Man: Okay. Now, our factory Foxbody is what you would expect to see, a four-lug disk brake front setup for your shock or strut here, and your divorced spring there. Now, when working around this, it's imperative that you have the car safely supported. Now, we have jack stands holding the car all the way up around because there's a front and rear kit. But you'll also need an extra jack to put underneath the lower control arm because this divorced spring is still hiding back up in here can be very dangerous. So, you want to take utmost care when removing it. So, we're gonna go ahead and show you how to do that. Okay. So, we're gonna go ahead and start by removing the brake caliper, which is a torque setup. And on this particular '83 Mustang, is a T45.So, we're gonna go ahead and pull our pins out. They're a little stiff in this older car. Sometimes spinning them with an impact or a socket will help loosen them up. There we go. And with a crowbar or a pry bar, we're gonna go ahead and loosen the caliper from the spindle. And on this particular car, none of this is gonna be reused, but on your car, if you are just installing the kit, you need to make sure that you safely support the brake caliper. We're gonna use a clip hanger because it's steel. You can use a bungee cord or pretty much anything that will support the caliper so it's not just hanging on the breakers. So, now with that out of the way, you need to remove the sway bar end link, which is this dirty guy here. And we'll show you how to do that in a second. Okay. So, we're gonna go ahead and remove this sway bar end link. And on this particular car, it is a 9/16 on top and the bottom is also a 9/16.Okay. So, we've removed the nut on the bottom, but there is a significant amount of stress still on this. There's a couple of ways you can do this. You can try to pry the bar up and out. Remove the sway bar end link the same way by prying it up and out. Again, in this car, we're installing aftermarket Eibach sway bar kit on our front and rear. So, it will have all new parts. So, we're not gonna be reusing this, but if you are, there's another easier way to do this. If it's with a nut off the bottom, make sure you have it completely off. When we get to lower this whole assembly down, our lower control arm, it will pull the bushings in the lower parts off the sway bar end link. So, we don't have to worry about it.So, we're about to do the most important part of this job, which is safely putting a jack under the lower control arm. So, we already have an extra jack slid underneath the car. And all we're trying to do here is support the lower control arm. You don't want jack it too much to upset the jack stands, but you do wanna fix somewhere where the jack has some leverage. So, it's July 4th and you may hear some fireworks during this. So, as I was saying, you wanna put the jack somewhere we have some leverage. I like the bottom of the screen cup as you can see down there just because it allows the jack to grab on to something because it is gonna be under a lot of pressure. So, once you get the jack, you don't want to jack it up, you just want to put some pressure underneath the control arm. And once you get that in place, then we can actually start to remove the strut.Okay. So, now we're at the lower part of the strut assembly and we're gonna go ahead and take these bolts out. Now, again, you know, it's very important to have the jack under here because once you take these bolts out, that spring is gonna be pushing pretty hard on this control arm. So, it's up to you which side you wanna work on. If you use an impact on the back, it makes it a lot easier. And in your car, if you leave the steering wheel unlocked, you can move the wheel left and right. On this car, since we're going to replace the lower control arms, I've removed the tie rod. You don't need to do that per se to do this setup. But since we're removing the lower control arm, we went ahead and did that.Okay. With the lower control arm...sorry, the lower strut nuts, the bolts and nuts removed, we're gonna go ahead and fully take off the bolts we loosened earlier to get this shock out of the way. Okay. Now, as you can see here, sometimes if someone's already working on your Mustang, these older cars go through a few owners usually, these studs will be pretty tight in there. Now, if it's a factory car, you usually want to give it much persuasion, but in this car, we're gonna have to get these out of here. And since we're not reusing it, we can be a little less delicate than normal. And same for you, if you're removing your factory stuff you don't need anymore, a few taps with a hammer on the edge of these while you have a friend either reaching under or reaching under yourself to support this and instead of crashing down can go a long way. So, we're gonna go ahead and work this out of here. Few taps with the hammer and we'll catch you in just a second.So, we went ahead and tapped these down. As you can tell, they're almost all the way out. But a little tip here, once you get them low enough, you'll hit them with a hammer. And you don't wanna damage your car's paint by wailing away. So, if you just use a punch like this and turn the hammer sideways to care for your hood, you can just go ahead and tap it out just like that. Okay. So, once we tapped it out, the strut just came right down. And we can go ahead and carefully remove this. And now we're at the point where this spring right now is only being held up by this jack. So, again, it's very important to place this jack in a very safe spot. And we're about to show you this thing being unloaded. And sounds quite a bit like those fireworks sometimes if you're not careful.Okay. So, we got our lower control arm fully down. The spring does still have all the attention on, so sometimes you have to give it a little shove. But you need to be really careful. I'm using a crowbar and standing out of the way. You can see here the spring is fully tension, but you just got to be careful. And there you go. Okay. So, this is how you get the strut all assembled. The coilover assemblies are all assembled when you get it. You'll see there's four bolt holes that hold the top plate to the actual strut and this J-plate underneath held on by a 19-millimeter. So, you get this in the car. This top plate and spacers are all gonna be up top and the J-plate with the welded-on studs is gonna come from the bottom. So, to make this all go in the car, we have to disassemble the top piece of this to get these mounting plates off. Now, I wanna hit with a paint pen and mark where these are. This is just for reference till we get it installed where it came. And once you get this installed, you need to get an alignment anyway. But this is just to help us get a baseline for it. Now, take care not to lose these, of course.Okay. So, now we can go ahead and remove these spacers from the J-plate. And then what I do is we're gonna fish these up in there at the same time. Okay. So, we're up here at the top, we've got our strut held in by this little collar. Just be careful your fingers when you're feeding it up in there. The J-plate again is held in just by tension. So, we're gonna go ahead and install this. Once you put your spacers on first, then your plate, then your washers, then your nuts. Now, I'm using a magnetic tray here and this car is carbureted to slow the air clean on a nice flat work surface. If you have the fuel-injected intake, these magnetic trays are even more important. There are a couple of areas in the bay that you can use.So, now that we have our plate on here, we're gonna go ahead and try to install these cool Allen wrenches. You're gonna have to pick up on the strut from underneath or if you have a buddy, they can do it as well. You don't want to get it really tight at all because you definitely don't want the whole strut held by one little tiny bolt. And it's a pretty light setup, so it's no stress at all to really pull it in one hand from underneath of the fender well while you do this. You could, of course, disassemble the strut rather than fishing it up in there with the plate like I did, but this is just my preferred way of doing it and it's easier, I think. So, in a crisscross pattern, I'm tightening these Allen bolts. We're not getting real tight, just snugging them up.Okay. So, now we have our top set up, this is how you would set your caster moving it back and forth like so. And we're gonna go ahead with it. Well, these are a bit loose. We're gonna go ahead and put the bolts in on the bottom. Okay. So, actually, before we go down below, we need to go ahead and tighten these up a bit. And they are 19-millimeter. Again, just give them a little power. And this little gesture casting camera, like I said, which all needs to be set once the car is done and assembled. So, once you're down here, you wanna go ahead and put a jack underneath your control arm. We went ahead and installed some tubular control arms along with a five-load spindle and got new wheel bearings to go on to get all done. And we're gonna use that jack to make these two pieces together.Okay. Now, supplies in this kit are two spacers that go in and they match the strut body. You'll see here there's an angle piece and a curved bottom, and you wanna get all these lined up. Okay. So, it takes a little finagling to get this all lined up. Well, once you do it, you wanna make sure you have your spacer on each side of the knuckle, the spindle rather, and get these lined up and wiggle them through, [inaudible 00:20:05] turn them a bit, get the nut on the other side, which is a 15/16 on this car and then use your 13/16 or 29-millimeter, depending on your year and go ahead and tighten them up.Okay. So, once we have our two strut mounting bolts tight, we're gonna go ahead and install the sway bar end link. Now, this car is going to eventually get new links because it's getting a new sway bar setup. So, what you wanna do is start off with a link like this and with your washer and your bushing and pull it up through here like this. And you want to install a little bit like a shish kebab. So, you got a bushing and washer. And once you get those on there, you've got your sleeve and come around behind here and press it through the sleeve. And again, we're gonna go shish kebab. So, you got our washer and our bushing and you line it up. Push the bolt down through it. And we're gonna go the bushing and washer, and then we've got our nut. And on this car, these are both 9/16 at the top and bottom. And you gotta get this together. Like I said, this car is gonna be getting new ones, so we're not gonna tighten this one down. But once you get to this stage, you got your sway bar on, you have your strut, you wanna make sure these locking collars are tight, so with the included tools.Now, keep in mind when you're adjusting your height on this, you don't wanna be messing with the spring. You actually turn the strut body in and out of the lower mount. It's a little different in some coilovers, so just keep that in mind. And these cars are gonna be getting Cobra breaks that we don't have the parts for yet. But at this point, you could go ahead and put your rotor back on and install your caliper or your pads, and you're good to go. And of course, at that point, once you get the whole car assembled, you're gonna wanna get an alignment because everything's going to be off in your caster and camber department and that'll really affect your handling. And the whole point of installing these is to really help the handling of your Mustang. So, thanks for watching, and stay tuned for the back part.Okay. So, now with the front suspension done, we're gonna move on to the back. The first part of the back is removing those wheels. On this particular car, they're 13/16 lug nuts. Your car may vary depending on your wheel type. So, now with the wheel, either way, we can access our suspension. And the first thing you wanna make sure is we have the rear axle supported by a jack. Of course, the car itself is safely up on jack stands. You wanna be careful about where you put them. Subframe connectors and that kind of thing can change where they should be. We're trying to have a good sturdy spot on the subframe. So, with the jack supporting the rear axle, we're gonna go ahead and take out the lower mount for the shock. On this early car, we have a Torx style or star socket bolt holding it up. And on the later cars with 8.8 axle, it's sideways and you have a bolt and nut. But we're gonna go ahead and take this lower mount off right here.Okay. So, now our axle is pretty loose to take the spring out, but first, we're gonna get the shock out of the way and go up in the car. And this particular car is a convertible, so it's a little different. On a hatch or a coupe car, you'd have to remove some trim out of the way here in the trunk or inside the car. But on this convertible, it's a little more difficult and so we'll show you that in just a second. Okay. So, we're inside the car attempting to take the top shock man off. Now, on some cars, you may have to grab this top piece here and use a wrench to loosen it like I did. And then once that happens, you can take this top nut off. So, we're actually gonna zip this one off. Okay. So, now with the top bolt off, or sorry, top nut off, we're gonna go ahead and take the retaining nut off that [inaudible 00:25:14] in the shock to the car. Okay. And now our shock has less to do.Okay. So, with the shock removed, the axle is now free to come down and we can move this spring. This is an early car, you know it's an '83, so it doesn't have an 8.8 in it yet, but it's very similar to what you would see on any Foxbody '79 to '93. And so I'm gonna lower the jack down, lower the axle, and we'll be able to take that spring out. This is your spring isolator. This is a good time if these are worn out to get new ones, either polyurethane or factory rubber, is up to you. But since it's out anyway, it's a good idea to replace it. So, with the spring out, we're gonna go ahead and work on installing our new coilover adjustable shock and spring. Okay. So, we have our adjustable spring here. This is how the piece is gonna be looking like. So, you have your adjustments here, we're gonna start out about in the middle, and work our way down from there. You wanna count your turns though so you can set the other side up at the same time at the same height.So, this goes in with this factory plastic isolator, and then you have either your stock one if you're keeping it or your new isolator on the bottom, and your larger isolator at the top. And we've chosen to replace these while we're in here. So, you set the bottom end first on the raised portion lower control arm. And what we're gonna do here is use the jack to jack this up against the bottom of the car. Now, you'll see it's easier to have two people so you can hold it into place. But all we're gonna do here is get it loosely setting up against the bottom of the car. Okay. So, now I have the spring loosely resting in position. So, we're gonna use this to set our shock height, which is next, which is gonna require us to install the new shock right here. And we're gonna feed that up in there. But before you get to do that, you're gonna receive the shock like this and you wanna do a little disassembly. So, go ahead and take your adjustment knob off here, your nut off, and then this washer, and just this top rubber bushing.And then once that's done, you can go ahead and feed the shock up into the car. Now, there's a couple of ways to hold this. Luckily, I have someone helping me. If you don't, you can use a bungee cord or a bolt, wedge in the axle to hold it up. But like I said, luckily, I have someone helping me. So, we're gonna go in the car here in a minute and put the nut on top. Okay. So, we've tightened our lock nut down, we've got a good squish on our little bushing. So, you don't wanna tighten it too much because you can damage the bushings. As you can see here, we have a good amount of squish. It's not gonna rattle around, but not enough to really go crazy on the bushing. So, once we have that done, we're gonna take our adjustment knob here, set it down in there, and you turning only the threaded part of the bottom, you're gonna turn it till it stops. And we're good.Now, it's up to you where you wanna start off with setting these. But especially in a convertible, it's a good idea to just go ahead and set them where you want them right now since we're up on the top of the car. So, we have ours set all the way to hard, so we're gonna start off with and work our way back soft. And we've done that in the front as well. So, all four corners, you wanna have even. It's up to you if you do want them different, maybe, you know, the front of the car harder, the back of the car softer, or vice versa, depending on what you wanna do with the car. But we're gonna go ahead and button up inside and move down to the bottom of the car again. Back down underneath the car, we've got our shock...I mean, our spring loosely resting against the top and lower spring perches. Now, we're gonna take our adjustable shock here. And with the spring in place sitting here loosely and our jack holding up the axle, we're going to tighten this lower mount of the shock until our bolt holes line up.Now, on an 8.8 car, you'd have it this way with your bracket coming out. On this older Mustang with an earlier rear axle, we're going to have it turned this way. So, we've got our eye lined up here. I'm gonna take our bolt and I'm gonna put it through the hole here. Now, we don't want to tighten this just yet, we wanna get a load on the car. So, make sure you have both sides done. And once you do, you can load the car up with the jack and tighten this bolt down. But before that, you wanna make sure you get your lock collar down on here. And provided with this coilover kit is a coilover adjustment key for both the front and rear and you'll see. So, it looks like a big jaw with a hook on it. And you can use that to tighten and loosen these. And you'll also find there the lock nuts for these. They come in the same bag if that's what you're looking for.And once you get to this step, you know you're ready to load the car up. And we're gonna go ahead and tighten these down in a second. So, I'll show you how to do it, but then you'll be done. Okay. So, we have our lower spring under tension, and we have our shock under tension. The jack is holding up the rear of the car with the rear axle, so that's how we know it's under load. It's not quite as much as you would have going down the road, but it's enough for us to get everything tightened. Okay. So, now we have our shock in place, and we're gonna lock our collars down here and as well as this spring right here. And as long as you do this to both sides at the same time, we'll start off with our collars in the middle and work our way down from there.Justin: So, wrapping things up here, guys, if you are looking for an affordable set of coilovers that will offer features typically found on more expensive hardware, well, then you'll wanna check out the V2s from SR Performance right here at americanmuscle.com.