The suspension or "ride" of the car can be very tricky. It's tough to design a ride for comfort, yet have the cornering capabilities that make driving fun. It seems the more comfortable of ride the less stability you have in corners, If you firm it up for corners, it rides too hard for comfort. We believe that we have found the best of both worlds. Let's start with the XKE. The rear suspension is an IRS type. (Independent rear suspension). Which means each wheel is allowed to move up and down without affecting the other side. There are three areas that work with the "up and down" movement. (1) The shocks allow for the rate of movement up and down. In other words, the shocks don't affect the height of the car, just the speed of the motion up and down. Our shocks are fully adjustable, so we can adjust them to your liking. (Softer or harder).
(2) The springs that surround the shocks control the height of the rear of the car. With our spring/ shock package, the springs are adjustable which allow us to adjust for perfect rear ride height to balance with the front end height.
(3) There is a sway bar attached to the rear. The sway bar is connected to the body at (2) points and either end is connected via a link to the rear radius arms. The sway bar or properly called the "anti-sway" bar does just that. It controls the sway from side to side as the car leans or goes around a corner. We don't believe that increasing the size of the sway bar adds much to the "regularly" driven car. A heavy sway bar makes the car handle better, no doubt, but during regular driving it makes the car too rigid and awkward. We reuse the standard sway bar, but we insert urethane bushings to make sure we have full motion or travel throughout the entire range of the shocks. This way we have more stability and increase the travel of the suspension. In other words, we create a full motion suspension and adjust the shocks and springs to work together.
The MK II and the XK's have a solid rear end design. That's when one wheel moves up or down so does the other. A lot less complicated than the XKE's "IRS" design. The shocks and springs work the same as XKE in terms of their function, but the MK II's and XK's have leafs prings. There is one leaf spring on either side of the car. This holds the car at a specific level and flexes up and down over bumps and while cornering. We always replace or rebuild the leaf springs and we can shim them to achieve the proper ride height. No "anti-sway bar" is fitted with this style.
The front suspension on the XKE utilizes the double wishbone style suspension system with (2) torsion bars. There are (2) wishbone shaped arms that pivot from the front sub-frame. When they move up and down, the shocks control the speed of that movement.
Ever wonder why some cars while going through a turn, feel like you're hopping on one leg and others speed through smoothly? When your car feels like it's hopping, it's because you have gone past the range that the bushings are allowed to move. You're actually fighting with your suspension around the turn. With rubber or Neoprene bushings, they have a motion limit and when you exceed that limit, you start to tear and destroy those bushings. That's why they wear out so fast, and actually negatively affect your control and steer ability. With urethane bushings, there are no limits. Your suspension moves with your car, free floating, and secure, through the entire range of motion. The torsion bars adjust the height of the front of the car. We use an upgraded torsion bar for tighter response. We reuse the front sway bar and again fit it with urethane bushings to allow for full range movement.
CENTER LACED WIRE WHEELS (XKE'S)
To compliment our performance handling packages, we use the 15"x 6" center laced wire wheels. They actually widen the tracking of your car by 1 ¾". Then we increase tire size from 185-15 to 195-75-15 or even 205-70-15. The cornering capabilities are greatly improved especially when combined with the urethane bushing kits and performance shocks. The cars never feel that "roll" on tight turns again. What a fabulous addition to your cars safety level also. The MK II front suspension does not have torsion bars, they use coil springs.
(Same principles just different design.) Using the same urethane bushing concept, we allow freer, easier movement of the suspension and control the movement with the shocks.
REAR CAGE MOUNTS - (XKE'S only)
The entire rear suspension is removable as a unit. It is attached to the body by (4) mounts which are under constant stress as well as being exposed to all weather conditions. These mounts need to be secured firmly to achieve rear wheel control especially around turns or upon acceleration. The original rubber compounds seem to be problematic. We use urethane mounts to assure good control and long life. With our higher performance engines we custom modify these mounts to accept the extra power without failure and fatigue.
RADIUS ARM - BUSHINGS - (XKE'S only)
With our high performance engines and 5 speed transmissions we've found that by rotating the forward radius arm mount 90 degrees, we have eliminated the wheel hop often associated with those quick starts. It stabilizes the radius arm to achieve better traction and response time therefore getting the horsepower to the ground faster and more efficiently.