It all depends on what
you are willing to live with in terms of harshness while on the road.
Some FACTS:
1) The Ford engineers know a zillion times more info on the Stang
suspension than ANY other company.
2)
ALL suspension setup are compromises.
3) For street use and best overall handling FORD went to 600lb springs with the max possible
intelligent drop - ~1/2" (Mach) or ~3/4" (bullet). (while using the stock kframe, FCAs, etc)
4) For pure full
race only car, Ford STILL kept the the max possible
intelligent drop ~3/4" (95 Cobra R) with 850 springs. (while using the stock kframe, FCAs, etc)
Doing anything more requires non trivial and expensive
suspension mods. Also, IMHO,
none those mods will have the operating lifespan of the Ford OEM setup. But, I also doubt that anyone is looking at driving a Fox 8K-12K miles/year.
Still, there are also time-based degradation issues in components. And, don't expect any handling mod/upgrade to last as long as your OEM '89 parts did (
now 20+ years! :-O).
Below is my car. In waiting, I also have battle boxes, stiffer rear springs, and MM adj rear
control arms. But, this winter has been so snowy and cold, I'm not going to have time to put them in during this winter like I planned. Oh well, there's always next winter's down time.
Mustang 86 - Mach1 Springs
My Stang is my late-spring/summer/early-fall daily driver (assuming no snow, etc).
BTW: Measure your fender height
now. Then, when you get the tons of pure BS advice about lowering your car more than 1" (
without an MM K-frame, FCAs, etc), ask "what's your fender height, what rim width are you running, what size tire, what model, what's the tire's height when mounted and properly inflated".
You'll find that most people don't have a clue on how much their POS car is really lowered. Nor, do they have any clue on how much jounce they have left in their front
suspension, nor the amount of force required to cause their car to go to full jounce. When talking about
driving a car on real life streets, those are very basic considerations in a car's
suspension.
Good Luck!
Go AF!
It's not Science Fiction,
It's what we do it every day.