Garry Bopp
06-10-2014, 04:14 PM
Mark Dougherty is well known for his traveling all over the USA, as well as Europe, to help people with their Factory Five projects. Well, I did it differently ... I traveled to Mark's place, Stone Mill Performance in beautiful Annville, PA! It's not as unusual as it sounds because I was in Carlisle for the All Ford Show over the weekend and Mark is just 45 minutes east of Carlisle. Mark, Brendan, Matt and myself pulled a 14 hour day on Monday at the shop. Plan A was to do a general lookover of the suspension and "corner weighting". Then we went on to plans B,C,D ...
The rear IRS had all kinds of play in pretty much every direction. This was probably a result of improperly installed components and the wear and tear of 17,000+ miles. Mark just happened to have a set of rear control arms so the whole IRS was rebuilt. Then we moved to the front. He pulled the shocks to check freedom of movement on the front control arms. Driver side was great, passenger side was frozen solid on the forward part of the upper control arm. OK, Mark also had a set of the new, improved control arms that have bushings on the pivot points. So we ended up replacing 6 of the 8 control arms, $$$. Then, it was time to do a 4 wheel alignment. Set front camber to -1.0, caster to 6.0, toe in to 1/8". Rear camber to -1.5, toe in to 3/16". This is the first time that I have ever seen/participated in an alignment with none of the laser stuff! Mark is a great teacher and is able to explain things in laymen's terms ... and makes sure that you participate! Finally, at about 9:00 pm, it was time to do the corner weighting. Took about 15 minutes to end up at 49.5 % cross weighting. Weight came in at 2,517 #. Front 47% Rear 53%.
Took it for a short ride and to say that it drove like a new car was an understatement. Can't wait to feel the difference on track! Oops forgot about plan E ... we also bled the brakes!
It was a long and demanding day but I had an absolute blast working with Mark and his sons. Huge thanks to Mark and all his family, including Wanda, the tireless scheduler!
Finally hit the road at 10:00 pm and drove for an hour to find the nearest hotel! Today, on to Wareham as I have a 9:00 am appt. on Wednesday to test fit a glass hatch to replace my lexan one that developed cracks around one of the screw heads.
Garry
The rear IRS had all kinds of play in pretty much every direction. This was probably a result of improperly installed components and the wear and tear of 17,000+ miles. Mark just happened to have a set of rear control arms so the whole IRS was rebuilt. Then we moved to the front. He pulled the shocks to check freedom of movement on the front control arms. Driver side was great, passenger side was frozen solid on the forward part of the upper control arm. OK, Mark also had a set of the new, improved control arms that have bushings on the pivot points. So we ended up replacing 6 of the 8 control arms, $$$. Then, it was time to do a 4 wheel alignment. Set front camber to -1.0, caster to 6.0, toe in to 1/8". Rear camber to -1.5, toe in to 3/16". This is the first time that I have ever seen/participated in an alignment with none of the laser stuff! Mark is a great teacher and is able to explain things in laymen's terms ... and makes sure that you participate! Finally, at about 9:00 pm, it was time to do the corner weighting. Took about 15 minutes to end up at 49.5 % cross weighting. Weight came in at 2,517 #. Front 47% Rear 53%.
Took it for a short ride and to say that it drove like a new car was an understatement. Can't wait to feel the difference on track! Oops forgot about plan E ... we also bled the brakes!
It was a long and demanding day but I had an absolute blast working with Mark and his sons. Huge thanks to Mark and all his family, including Wanda, the tireless scheduler!
Finally hit the road at 10:00 pm and drove for an hour to find the nearest hotel! Today, on to Wareham as I have a 9:00 am appt. on Wednesday to test fit a glass hatch to replace my lexan one that developed cracks around one of the screw heads.
Garry