My daily driven 2013 ST1 has more than 42K miles, and the OEM shocks were getting tired. It was clearly time for new dampers.
This thread will document the installation and before/after results of installing the Mountune ClubSport suspension, which comprises pre-assembled Mountune Sport springs on Bilstein B8 front struts (new Ford strut bearing, top hat, bottom spring isolator and pinch bolt); and rear springs/struts.
We have an increasing number of suspension choices. My car is daily driven and I still work rallies, so I needed to retain as much ride height as practicable and didn't want to go too stiff. My choices settled down to FRPP springs with Bilstein B8s; Bilstein B14 coilovers, and this setup. I thought the B14s would be the best choice, but I didn't see myself realistically fussing with suspension height changes several times a year. Thanks to a Mountune Easter sale via an email invite (I've bought other stuff from them before), the ClubSport kit became less expensive than the FRPP springs and B8s, so I pulled the trigger.
Immediate Results:
Height
"Before"... Front fender lip height (on snow tires) = 25 3/4". Rear fender lip height = 26 3/4".
"After" some 15 miles of driving on a mix of smooth and bumpy roads: Front = 25 3/4" and rear 26 1/4".
"After" ~800 miles of mostly highway driving during the past week, no change in ride height.
IOW, no change at the front and 1/2" drop at the rear. To be fair, based on photos I have of the car from when it was new, it does appear that the front had settled down some over the past three years. Others with stock suspensions for example report here that they can drive right up on Rhino ramps, and I always needed to put a 1/2" board in front of the ramp to avoid scraping the underside of the bumper cover slightly.
The visual decrease in rake angle is noticeable.
I also expect this new suspension will settle down some over the coming weeks. I plan on taking off the snow tires next weekend so I'll take fresh measurements then and update the thread.
Driving Impressions - Updated!
I used to race rally cars so I knew that the stock dampers were tired. Road imperfections like pot hole repairs were causing some minor wheel hop and the nose was lifting quite a bit under acceleration for example. After the install, these imperfections were damped much better (shock absorbers BTW overseas are called "dampers" as the spring takes the shock of forced suspension movements and the damper damps the action of the spring...); the car didn't hop a little sideways in a curve over these and the nose no longer lifts on acceleration. Having said that, the car for a daily driver is quite comfortable on this kit.
Those of you looking to track your car will be happier with linear springs like those from Swift, but for a daily driver this combination is a nice incremental improvement over how I remembered the car driving when brand new -- and a big improvement over what it was before I changed things out.
Now having driven the car for more than month over smooth and broken pavement roads I can say that this setup is very much to my personal liking. Yes, the car is noticeably stiffer (the B8s have higher rates than the stock dampers and the Mountune springs are ~15% stiffer than stock according to Mountune) but even over broken pavement, the remains of frost heaves, and road construction, the car just feels much more planted than stock. Does it ride like a truck? No. Does it absorb road bumps like my wife's Fusion? No. If you live on really bad roads and bumps with the stock suspension bother you, probably the ST is not for you, regardless of the suspension you might fit to it.
UPDATE: Alignment
It's been a week since the install and I got the car aligned. Everything was in spec, except toe, which was -0.15 degrees. To be fair, I had suspected the car was toed out slightly even before this install, based on how the car was turning in. We set toe to +0.10 degrees and the car is much less darty now when getting on the brakes and doing initial turn ins.
Executive Summary
The install took about seven hours on my own. It would have taken closer to four if I wasn't taking pictures, if I didn't have a fitment issue with the Bilstein front dampers and if I had been able to find documentation for the rear spring orientation (see below for details). A second person is not required to do this job, but there is one point when installing the new front struts that a second person would have been handy. If your arms are not strong enough that you can't hold the new front strut assembly with one arm extended out in front of you for about two minutes, you'll want a second person.
Process Summary
Having lost an acquaintance to a car-fell-off-the-jacks incident many years ago, I am skittish about getting underneath cars and elected to do this install by doing the fronts first with the rear wheels still on the ground and the parking brake set, and then lowering the front and jacking up the rear to do that end. The rear lower control arm bolt and the front strut pinch bolt to loosen require you to push the breaker bar across the car laterally and have large break-free torque requirements; if you have bargain jack stands or the jack stands are not properly placed it's easier than you think to knock a car off the jack stands. Please be careful and if you have any hesitation get a good shop to do this work for you.
Preparation Work
Two weeks before you plan to do the work, remove the wheels and spray WD-40 on both ends of the front strut pinch bolts and the rear lower control arm outer bolts. Also spray the top of the front uprights where the bottom of the front strut is inserted and the two rear shock upper mounting nuts. Be careful in all cases not to get WD-40 on your brake discs.
Be sure you have all the tools you will need:
Torque Specs
The front strut pinch bolts get torqued to 80Nm and then turned 180 degrees more. Scary. The front strut top hat bolts get torqued to 35Nm and the stabilizer nut on the strut tang gets torqued to 2Nm.
The rear lower shock bolt and the outer lower trailing arm bolt both get torqued to 115Nm. The rear upper shock nuts get torqued to 25Nm. The rear lower trailing arm inner bolt gets torqued to 48Nm. I did not loosen this bolt but if you choose to do the same you must be careful not to over-rotate the lower arm when removing/replacing the rear spring, else you risk tearing the bushing. The manual says to loosen it BTW.
***Big Cautionary Note***
The printed directions from Mountune were... incomplete at best. Less than obvious was a note that the bolt at the top of the front strut holding the whole assembly together needs to be torqued to the Mountune-provided spec. Huh? I thought these were preassembled? As it turned out, the nuts were not loose, but they weren't torqued to spec either. From the comments below, others have found Mountune did not torque these nuts properly either. I have some cutout sockets specifically for cases like this where I need to use a standard torque wrench and need to retain the shaft. The nuts wound up getting turned ~3/4 of a turn to get to spec. If you don't have these sockets you'll need to get a shop to do this for you, else you risk the assembly coming loose over time. To tighten that nut you can remove the strut assembly from the car or you can remove/relocate the top strut-to-strut lateral brace to get access to the strut top bolt while the strut is still in the car (thanks @Focus McJokus for the tip!). It's a pain either way so best to torque the strut top nut before you install the strut assembly in the car. I do not include directions for this here because it requires special sockets; you might need to take the Mountune strut to the store to ensure whatever socket you are going to use clears the top hat and allows you access to keep the shaft from turning. The other issue with Mountune's directions involved the rear spring orientation, but I'll get to that later.
Removing The Front Struts:
Open the hood and pop off the interior vent covers by pulling up on the rear lip and pushing the cover to the front of the car.
Use the 1/4" 10mm socket and the 1/4" T-30 Torx to remove the bottom windshield facia retaining bolts and set aside in a magnetic cup or elsewhere safe:
Now you can peel up the facia enough to get the 13mm combination wrench on the front two top hat mounting bolts; use the 3/8" 13mm socket to access the rear top hat mounting bolt through the vent hole. Don't remove the bolts, just break them free and loosen them ~ 2 full turns so that we have a little more free play to move the strut later:
Now you can put the front of the car up on jack stands and remove the front wheels. Here's where I like to place the front jack stands under the front subframe:
Unplug the wheel speed sensor on the hub (no pic): Use your fingernail to press in the release tang and then you can pull the connector free. Use the 8mm combination wrench to remove the brake line retaining bolt and then use the 15mm pass-through socket wrench and the 5mm allen wrench (anchored by the combination wrench) to remove the sway bar upper end link mount:
Put some fresh WD-40 on the upright where the strut is inserted, and get the bad-boy 1/2" breaker bar with the 15mm socket out and loosen the pinch bolt; once loose you can use a 1/2" ratchet wrench to remove the bolt entirely:
Use a wire brush to clean up the threads on the old pinch bolts, blow out the pinch bolt hole and feel free to take a bio break to let the WD-40 have some extra time to do its magic. I'll see you when you get back on the next post...
This thread will document the installation and before/after results of installing the Mountune ClubSport suspension, which comprises pre-assembled Mountune Sport springs on Bilstein B8 front struts (new Ford strut bearing, top hat, bottom spring isolator and pinch bolt); and rear springs/struts.
We have an increasing number of suspension choices. My car is daily driven and I still work rallies, so I needed to retain as much ride height as practicable and didn't want to go too stiff. My choices settled down to FRPP springs with Bilstein B8s; Bilstein B14 coilovers, and this setup. I thought the B14s would be the best choice, but I didn't see myself realistically fussing with suspension height changes several times a year. Thanks to a Mountune Easter sale via an email invite (I've bought other stuff from them before), the ClubSport kit became less expensive than the FRPP springs and B8s, so I pulled the trigger.
Immediate Results:
Height
"Before"... Front fender lip height (on snow tires) = 25 3/4". Rear fender lip height = 26 3/4".
"After" some 15 miles of driving on a mix of smooth and bumpy roads: Front = 25 3/4" and rear 26 1/4".
"After" ~800 miles of mostly highway driving during the past week, no change in ride height.
IOW, no change at the front and 1/2" drop at the rear. To be fair, based on photos I have of the car from when it was new, it does appear that the front had settled down some over the past three years. Others with stock suspensions for example report here that they can drive right up on Rhino ramps, and I always needed to put a 1/2" board in front of the ramp to avoid scraping the underside of the bumper cover slightly.
The visual decrease in rake angle is noticeable.
I also expect this new suspension will settle down some over the coming weeks. I plan on taking off the snow tires next weekend so I'll take fresh measurements then and update the thread.
Driving Impressions - Updated!
I used to race rally cars so I knew that the stock dampers were tired. Road imperfections like pot hole repairs were causing some minor wheel hop and the nose was lifting quite a bit under acceleration for example. After the install, these imperfections were damped much better (shock absorbers BTW overseas are called "dampers" as the spring takes the shock of forced suspension movements and the damper damps the action of the spring...); the car didn't hop a little sideways in a curve over these and the nose no longer lifts on acceleration. Having said that, the car for a daily driver is quite comfortable on this kit.
Those of you looking to track your car will be happier with linear springs like those from Swift, but for a daily driver this combination is a nice incremental improvement over how I remembered the car driving when brand new -- and a big improvement over what it was before I changed things out.
Now having driven the car for more than month over smooth and broken pavement roads I can say that this setup is very much to my personal liking. Yes, the car is noticeably stiffer (the B8s have higher rates than the stock dampers and the Mountune springs are ~15% stiffer than stock according to Mountune) but even over broken pavement, the remains of frost heaves, and road construction, the car just feels much more planted than stock. Does it ride like a truck? No. Does it absorb road bumps like my wife's Fusion? No. If you live on really bad roads and bumps with the stock suspension bother you, probably the ST is not for you, regardless of the suspension you might fit to it.
UPDATE: Alignment
It's been a week since the install and I got the car aligned. Everything was in spec, except toe, which was -0.15 degrees. To be fair, I had suspected the car was toed out slightly even before this install, based on how the car was turning in. We set toe to +0.10 degrees and the car is much less darty now when getting on the brakes and doing initial turn ins.
Executive Summary
The install took about seven hours on my own. It would have taken closer to four if I wasn't taking pictures, if I didn't have a fitment issue with the Bilstein front dampers and if I had been able to find documentation for the rear spring orientation (see below for details). A second person is not required to do this job, but there is one point when installing the new front struts that a second person would have been handy. If your arms are not strong enough that you can't hold the new front strut assembly with one arm extended out in front of you for about two minutes, you'll want a second person.
Process Summary
Having lost an acquaintance to a car-fell-off-the-jacks incident many years ago, I am skittish about getting underneath cars and elected to do this install by doing the fronts first with the rear wheels still on the ground and the parking brake set, and then lowering the front and jacking up the rear to do that end. The rear lower control arm bolt and the front strut pinch bolt to loosen require you to push the breaker bar across the car laterally and have large break-free torque requirements; if you have bargain jack stands or the jack stands are not properly placed it's easier than you think to knock a car off the jack stands. Please be careful and if you have any hesitation get a good shop to do this work for you.
Preparation Work
Two weeks before you plan to do the work, remove the wheels and spray WD-40 on both ends of the front strut pinch bolts and the rear lower control arm outer bolts. Also spray the top of the front uprights where the bottom of the front strut is inserted and the two rear shock upper mounting nuts. Be careful in all cases not to get WD-40 on your brake discs.
Be sure you have all the tools you will need:
- Genric oil and anti-sieze compound.
- Ball peen hammer; chisel optional but may be needed.
- Three flat blade screw drivers of increasing size and length.
- 1/2", 3/8" and 1/4" ratchet drives and the extensions shown.
- 1/4" Torx T-30 and 10mm sockets; 3/8" 13mm socket; 1/2" 15mm socket.
- Breaker bar.
- 8mm, 13mm and 15mm combination wrenches (15mm not shown).
- Brass drift and magnetic cups.
- "Pass through" 15mm socket, 5mm allen wrench and medium cresent wrench.
- At least two sacrificial quarters (the results can be seen just below the ball peen hammer to the left of the old pinch bolt).
- 1/2" drive torque wrench (not shown).
- BraKleen (not shown) in case you get schmutz on the rotors.
Torque Specs
The front strut pinch bolts get torqued to 80Nm and then turned 180 degrees more. Scary. The front strut top hat bolts get torqued to 35Nm and the stabilizer nut on the strut tang gets torqued to 2Nm.
The rear lower shock bolt and the outer lower trailing arm bolt both get torqued to 115Nm. The rear upper shock nuts get torqued to 25Nm. The rear lower trailing arm inner bolt gets torqued to 48Nm. I did not loosen this bolt but if you choose to do the same you must be careful not to over-rotate the lower arm when removing/replacing the rear spring, else you risk tearing the bushing. The manual says to loosen it BTW.
***Big Cautionary Note***
The printed directions from Mountune were... incomplete at best. Less than obvious was a note that the bolt at the top of the front strut holding the whole assembly together needs to be torqued to the Mountune-provided spec. Huh? I thought these were preassembled? As it turned out, the nuts were not loose, but they weren't torqued to spec either. From the comments below, others have found Mountune did not torque these nuts properly either. I have some cutout sockets specifically for cases like this where I need to use a standard torque wrench and need to retain the shaft. The nuts wound up getting turned ~3/4 of a turn to get to spec. If you don't have these sockets you'll need to get a shop to do this for you, else you risk the assembly coming loose over time. To tighten that nut you can remove the strut assembly from the car or you can remove/relocate the top strut-to-strut lateral brace to get access to the strut top bolt while the strut is still in the car (thanks @Focus McJokus for the tip!). It's a pain either way so best to torque the strut top nut before you install the strut assembly in the car. I do not include directions for this here because it requires special sockets; you might need to take the Mountune strut to the store to ensure whatever socket you are going to use clears the top hat and allows you access to keep the shaft from turning. The other issue with Mountune's directions involved the rear spring orientation, but I'll get to that later.
Removing The Front Struts:
Open the hood and pop off the interior vent covers by pulling up on the rear lip and pushing the cover to the front of the car.
Use the 1/4" 10mm socket and the 1/4" T-30 Torx to remove the bottom windshield facia retaining bolts and set aside in a magnetic cup or elsewhere safe:
Now you can peel up the facia enough to get the 13mm combination wrench on the front two top hat mounting bolts; use the 3/8" 13mm socket to access the rear top hat mounting bolt through the vent hole. Don't remove the bolts, just break them free and loosen them ~ 2 full turns so that we have a little more free play to move the strut later:
Now you can put the front of the car up on jack stands and remove the front wheels. Here's where I like to place the front jack stands under the front subframe:
Unplug the wheel speed sensor on the hub (no pic): Use your fingernail to press in the release tang and then you can pull the connector free. Use the 8mm combination wrench to remove the brake line retaining bolt and then use the 15mm pass-through socket wrench and the 5mm allen wrench (anchored by the combination wrench) to remove the sway bar upper end link mount:
Put some fresh WD-40 on the upright where the strut is inserted, and get the bad-boy 1/2" breaker bar with the 15mm socket out and loosen the pinch bolt; once loose you can use a 1/2" ratchet wrench to remove the bolt entirely:
Use a wire brush to clean up the threads on the old pinch bolts, blow out the pinch bolt hole and feel free to take a bio break to let the WD-40 have some extra time to do its magic. I'll see you when you get back on the next post...