UPDATED: Replacing Rear Shocks: Reducing the rear end bounce.

[kennethjk]

I was going to make this point as well.

I am willing to bet the final solution will be significantly more expensive than the shocks Ford put on the car. Even if they are slightly more expensive, every little thing that adds cost to the car bumps up the MSRP. Ford released an excellent car at a market beating price, and to do that, they had to make compromises.

All true

In the olden days(1970’s) American car companies had literally hundreds of options. Became too unwieldy and very inefficient . (Foreign car company only in trim levels.)

Then you could really decide what individual things you wanted (suspension etc), not like today in expensive packages. Progress I guess but definitely more efficient and more money to the car company

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[Mach1E]

I was going to make this point as well.

I am willing to bet the final solution will be significantly more expensive than the shocks Ford put on the car. Even if they are slightly more expensive, every little thing that adds cost to the car bumps up the MSRP. Ford released an excellent car at a market beating price, and to do that, they had to make compromises.

They don’t have to be more expensive.

Only reason the aftermarket solution may be more is because they have to get adjustable shocks to use trial and error to dial things in.

The Ford shocks wouldn’t need to be adjustable if they had the right settings to begin with.

 

[kennethjk]

Oh yeah. They dropped the ball on the other non-magnaride cars.
I thought you were saying that they dropped the ball on the magna ride. That thing has three maps for different suspension settings and that’s it. They clearly dropped the ball on that.
I’m sure the engineer that said ‘put a 2.5 ton spring in the back’ was met by the suspension engineer huge sigh. I’d assume they did it to keep the car from getting too unruly when driving winding roads and hitting a pot hole. I haven’t dug into the spring rates that others are using on the MME. IT’s be amazing if someone made an actual progressive spring for the rear.



Plus there’s what, 20 people reading this thread? Out of the number of MME’s out there only a handful will ever get something other than factory shocks.
Until Steeda sells whatever we come up with for shocks, very few will even know something other than factory shocks exist.

it’s Fords approach to selling cars mass market, compared to say, Porsche and BMW.

I guess the feel they know their market and buyers but when you use your last remaining car marquee nameplate they could have done better because even non car people notice how deficient the suspension is.

My grandson said , while sitting in the back, grandpa , this is great just like a roller coaster.

Says it all

 

[CAL465]

Sorry for the stupid question. Aside from having someone install the new shocks they need to know how to update the FDRS software too? Not allot of auto shops know much about working on the Mach-e.

 

[HuntingPudel]

Sorry for the stupid question. Aside from having someone install the new shocks they need to know how to update the FDRS software too? Not allot of auto shops know much about working on the Mach-e.

Only if the car has Magneride (i.e. it’s a GT-PE) since the Magneride cars have computer-controlled shocks. ??

 

[CAL465]

Only if the car has Magneride (i.e. it’s a GT-PE) since the Magneride cars have computer-controlled shocks. ??

Oh okay. Thanks

 

[markboris]

Yesterday, I went over to Anton's to try out the Bilstein's. He's been running the Koni's for the past week and is really enjoying them. We did a better, more consistent test with his g-force app this time. I sat in the back seat and we placed the phone on the cargo mat in the center directly above the center of the rear wheels. This way we could monitor the most movement of the rear shocks with the least movement of the front shocks. Prior to this, we were placing the phone in the center console which picks up more of the front shocks than rears. I had the phone taped down to the cargo floor so there was no chance of it to move. I started and stopped the app as Anton instructed me as he drove. We tested the OEM, Koni and Bilstein shocks. We drove on two separate roads which both had expansion joints, bumps and bridge entrances and exits with the cruise control set to 74mph on all tests. He will post the results from his phone when he gets the chance.

Much of what I am going to mention here, I have posted before in this thread but I'm going to recap. I had 4 Bilstein's to test out. One B6 and three B8's. None of the B8's would work as they all have a firm compression and weak rebound. This is the opposite of what we want in a shock for the Mach-E. This has been confirmed by both Erik and I in our testing. The B6 has a 50/50 firmness on both the compression and rebound so figured to give it a shot. The Koni has an adjustable rebound.

What we determined was the Koni's still give us the least bounce since we can dial in a more firm rebound compared to the compression. The OEM shocks rode terrible with a lot of bounce and the Bilstein's were right in the middle between the two. They gave a little smoother ride than the Koni's did but they also still had some bounce to them and going over the large bumps at speed, would send me up in the air almost as much as the OEM shocks did.

I left Anton with the Koni's as he is going to start messing with the adjustment on them. We originally tested them at the least, middle and most rebound firmness and left it at the most firm setting because that virtually eliminated the bounce. However, at that setting, the ride could be a little harsh going over irregular road surfaces. Anton is going to start backing off on the firmness of the rebound setting a 1/4 turn at a time until the bounce starts coming back. We did not spend a lot of time on tweaking the Koni's but he will. Also to note, Anton was running the stock Premium Michelin tires to give a fair evaluation since most have those on the car but he's now going to put his Pirelli Scorpion Zero All Season Plus tires back on. They give a much less harsh ride than the OEM Michelins and it might be he can keep the Koni's at the full firm setting but he's still going to tweak the adjustment to see if he can get it any better.

Now, there is one more shock that needs to be tested and I feel it might be the best way to go. It is the Viking dual adjustable (both compression and rebound) shocks. The problem is I am going to be gone for the next 10 days or so and want this project to keep going so I sent a set of these Vikings after I modded them to fit the Mach-E, to Erik. He will be testing the out and post here what he finds. When he has them adjusted to his liking, I will test them on Anton's car (I have two sets of the Vikings) to see if they will be better than the Koni's and I think they will be. It is basically going to be down to the Koni and the Vikings.

We ran out of time to test my Magneride suspension to compare it against these three shocks but we will do this after I return in a week or so. I can say though, the Koni's have slightly less bounce on the section of freeway we have been testing and also less over the large bumps than the Magnerides have.

Stay tuned for Anton's charts on the OEM, Bilstein and Koni's and Erik's evaluation of the Vikings.

 

[Joetz]

Have you guys thought about trying the 2012-2013 mustang boss 302 shocks? I believe they were made by tokico (not sure if they are still in business or not), valved to ford spec and were adjustable with a screw on top. They are absolutely brilliant and, with some other go-fast pieces, helped the mustang boss 302 leguna seca beat the best sports cars (evora s and cayman r) from Europe at the time at virginia international raceway This was an astonishing achievement for a solid axle equipped car. Ford was even able to take down the e92 m3 at the leguna seca track…something that probably had the Germans choking on their bratwurst back in 2012

 

[markboris]

Have you guys thought about trying the 2012-2013 mustang boss 302 shocks? I believe they were made by tokico (not sure if they are still in business or not), valved to ford spec and were adjustable with a screw on top. They are absolutely brilliant and, with some other go-fast pieces, helped the mustang boss 302 leguna seca beat the best sports cars (evora s and cayman r) from Europe at the time at virginia international raceway This was an astonishing achievement for a solid axle equipped car. Ford was even able to take down the e92 m3 at the leguna seca track…something that probably had the Germans choking on their bratwurst back in 2012

Hi Joe, no I'm trying to stick with shocks that are not outrageous in price. As it is, the shocks that seem to work the best so far will run $400-$450 a pair. That is not cheap but what you have to pay if you want good adjustable shocks.

Tokico shocks are really good. I used them many years ago on a Toyota MR2 (first gen) and Mazda RX-7. The 2012-2013 Boss 302 came with shocks made by Multimatic. Ford uses them for most of their race cars like the GT. I can only imagine how much those shocks are! The thing is, they are built for a car that weighs much less and I'm sure has a much lower spring rate so I wouldn't be testing them out.

 

[leeman]

It's funny because in my regular gas powered mustang, the rear end fit some of the same behavior especially high speeds it does not handle bumps well and I've actually had the rear tires come off the ground several times especially if you're hitting bumps around 40 miles an hour very scary

 

[Joetz]

It's funny because in my regular gas powered mustang, the rear end fit some of the same behavior especially high speeds it does not handle bumps well and I've actually had the rear tires come off the ground several times especially if you're hitting bumps around 40 miles an hour very scary

Is it a 2015 or newer mustang? Boss 302 is vastly better behaved than the MME and it's a solid axle! If you drove them back to back you would think the Mach-E has the solid rear axle and the Boss has independent rear suspension ?

 

[azerik]

It's funny because in my regular gas powered mustang, the rear end fit some of the same behavior especially high speeds it does not handle bumps well and I've actually had the rear tires come off the ground several times especially if you're hitting bumps around 40 miles an hour very scary

It's not that uncommon really. And depending on how much rebound restriction this requires it'd be possible for the tires to skip over tight washboard (think chicane) or AZ's all to famous 2 inch lip of asphalt in front of a 1 inch lower concrete overpass expansion joints. We have, seriously, cracks. Cracks everywhere in our roads that I can stick a finger in. I'll try to get pics safely but it's almost funny the way they come and paint a crack with tar to fix it. They do that when the crack is just forming, but over the next few years the thing gets bigger. I've nearly eaten it on my electric board enough times I'd consider a 1 wheel.

I know I'll get the skip over these expansion joints. I have my FFE which I can't touch the brakes while going over them or it freaks the ABS out. (17 inch 225's with 60 series tires) and it skips hard.

The weight of the MME should help keep the tires planted really. We'll see.

 

[Anton]

We have a problem. The data does not resemble the very noticeable difference that was felt between these 3 shocks. Here's the data loaded to google sheets. Feel free to download / make a copy and analyze, or make a new tab for a graph (edit is turned on). All data was collected going 73 mph southbound, then northbound on a section of road near my house @ 39psi on OEM Premium wheels. There are 10 tabs total:

1. oem-s : oem shocks going southbound
2. oem-n : oem shocks northbouind
3. blst-s : bilsteins south
4. blst-n : bilsteins north
5. koni-s : koni (most aggressive setting) southbound
6. koni-n : koni (most aggresive setting) southboard
7. oem-v-koni-s-10k-20k : graph of oem-s vs. koni-s gFz on data points 10k-20k.
8. oem-v-koni-n-10k-20k : graph of oem-n vs. koni-n gFz on data points 10k-20k.
9. oem-v-koni-n-20k-30k
10. oem-v-koni-n-30k-35k

Graph of #7 (blue oem, orange koni):

Graph of #8:

Graph of #9:

Graph of #10:

Any ideas why the data does not match up the feel? Wrong kind of test? Not sensitive enough? I'm graphing the wrong thing?

If somebody has some more time on their hands please take a look at the data.

 

[Mach-Lee]

We have a problem. The data does not resemble the very noticeable difference that was felt between these 3 shocks. Here's the data loaded to google sheets. Feel free to download / make a copy and analyze, or make a new tab for a graph (edit is turned on). All data was collected going 73 mph southbound, then northbound on a section of road near my house @ 39psi on OEM Premium wheels. There are 10 tabs total:

1. oem-s : oem shocks going southbound
2. oem-n : oem shocks northbouind
3. blst-s : bilsteins south
4. blst-n : bilsteins north
5. koni-s : koni (most aggressive setting) southbound
6. koni-n : koni (most aggresive setting) southboard
7. oem-v-koni-s-10k-20k : graph of oem-s vs. koni-s gFz on data points 10k-20k.
8. oem-v-koni-n-10k-20k : graph of oem-n vs. koni-n gFz on data points 10k-20k.
9. oem-v-koni-n-20k-30k
10. oem-v-koni-n-30k-35k

Graph of #7 (blue oem, orange koni):

Graph of #8:

Graph of #9:

Graph of #10:

Any ideas why the data does not match up the feel? Wrong kind of test? Not sensitive enough? I'm graphing the wrong thing?

If somebody has some more time on their hands please take a look at the data.

Is that accelerometer data or gyro data? You want accelerometer Z axis data.

 

[Anton]

Is that accelerometer data or gyro data? You want accelerometer Z axis data.

G-Force meter z-axis - gFz. Graphs look similar to "Total g-Force" - tFz.

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