Uncle Meat said:
Funny how so many people state the IRS will out handle a straight axle even when both are heavily modified. If you look under ANY of the current or past Mustangs that professionally road race they ALL use a form of modified straight axle...
U.M.
I would argue that is mainly for A) weight savings, B) reliability/access to parts, C) ease of tearing apart, and D) strength. All of the other cars in the classes with the mustangs in the past had IRS
suspension, and as you probably know a few years ago the mustangs were getting absolutely destroyed by the Vipers and Vettes.
Fact is the Cobra IRS was a retrofit to the mustang body. Some have great success with a modified CIRS platform, others do not. For roadrace, the Kenny Brown IRS subframe was a great peice...though it's also incredibly hard to find now.... Also KB made tubular upper and
lower control arms, which saved weight (also removed sprung weight).
Personally I liked the IRS equally to the solid axle, and I've had both, twice lol...and both reasonably modified (IRS w/ bushings and coilovers, solid with bushings, coilovers, and
panhard bar).
I have plenty of friends who's terminators do great with the IRS at the track, the IRS-->solid swap craze was IMO really a hasty "easy fix" solution, for most I believe. For me, going back to a solid was more of a financial thing - nobody wants to buy a modified GT, and ESPECIALLY a modified GT with a
suspension from an entirely different car.