Originally Posted By: Mykl
Originally Posted By: itguy08
I dono - the latest Mustang, with the solid axle out handles the Camaro, Challenger, and many other cars with IRS setups. On both the road and track. I guess that's the advantages of nearly 50 years of R&D.
Most reviews and such say they can't believe how well the solid axle handles.
It's not the first time IRS was on the Mustang - it was there in, I think the 99-02 Cobras.
And I like it - looks really cool. The interesting thing will be to see how the 2.3 Turbo performs - I suspect that will be a blast to drive. It would have also been cool to see them pop an Ecoboost 3.5 with the power dialed up to 11....
I want to separate two terms, handling and grip. Grip is obvious, how well the car sticks to the pavement. Handling is less obvious, it's the ease with which you can take advantage of the maximum grip a car is capable of.
The handling of the latest round of Mustangs has been great, no doubt. But most of the time when people make that statement they add "...great for a stick axle car." But the geometric limitations of a live axle linked to a panhard rod mean that its handling is always going to be less predictable than a similar quality independent setup.
You can bandaid it with stiffer springs and lower ride height, because the less you ask the suspension to articulate the less you're going to notice the odd handling characteristics.... but when you get down to it those traits are still there.
As far as grip goes, the Mustang is going to hang with the Camaro because of wide and sticky tires. The stick axle is less relevant here, especially in the environments they're testing these cars in... sterile race tracks without the same issues you'd see on your drive to work.
You can easily research this for yourself. Find some Mustang forums and read up on their preceived impact of the addition of a watts link. Most feel that it completely transforms how the car handles in a very positive way because it forces the rear suspension to articulate the same way in both left and right turns. As good as that setup is for current Mustangs, it still doesn't address the fact that a bump felt on one side of the car impacts grip on the other side.
So yeah, Ford has made it work well, but it's time for it to go.
+1
I think its telling that Ford hasn't run an official time for a solid axle mustang on the Nurburgring. Its not an ideal surface and would show the difference independent suspension makes. Not that it really matters for driving on the street or even most tracks, but the IRS will make the ride a bit more composed over a railway crossing or even pushing a little on a highway and finding some patched pavement mid corner.
I like the rest of the car too, I wonder what trans they will have with which engines?
