I have the same 88. Yours is the lsc,right? What did you do to enhance the ride performance?
I did several things to my 1991 LSC, not all of which I have done to the 88 LSC. The very first thing is to make sure you have the largest diameter stabilizer bars. You can get the front one from a site that hot rods the T-birds of the era. I think it was 1 3/8 inches. However, the rear stabilizer for the T-bird is of a different design.
I got the rear bar for both cars from ADDCO. For the 91 I picked the only one they had at the time which was 1 inch. Now they have a slightly smaller one that is intermediate between stock and one inch. For some reason the 88 is naturally much looser in the rear end then the 91 - in a good way. so I selected the intermediate. Unless you have done some auto crossing or track days and know about roll-stiffness I would stick with the full one inch.
The upper strut mounts on my 91 were soft and fancy and very much sloshed up the steering feel. The 88 does not do that. Either because it has a more basic design or the rubber just got hard in the last couple of decades. You can tell easily enough by simply driving briskly on a back road a legal speed of say, 40mph. Choose a rather tight curve where you need perhaps 1/4 lock or so.
In the 91 the steering wheel would find a point at which there was about at least 0ne inch of movement that did not turn the tires at all. What seems to have been happening is the upper strut bushing met its cushy limit and started to deform and then stopped started to turn the wheels again.. The upper strut mount for the 91 was an exact swap for a simple T-bird mount from 1988. The Lincoln has a bit more
suspension travel and some of these mounts have a metal bushing for compensation but I don't think that matters.Perhaps even a Mustang might work, but make measurements in that case.
Auxiliary to the upper strut mount I firmed up the steering rack mounts as well. It is held on by two bolts and the bolts go through four identical bushings. One inserted on each side of the mount, one set for each mounting bolt. I simply cut a couple of shock absorber upper bushings in half and installed one half in the middle like a sandwich and simply thightened the bolt down to normal final tightness. Never needed to mess with it again.. But you can get polly.
Speaking of bushings. There is a large selection of front stabilizer end link bushings but standard poly is the best. However, some people provide poly for the front stabilizer to frame mount as well. Back in the old days I had three to choose from. Stock MKII, 88 T-bird super coupe, and poly. The poly seriously harshend the ride and I used the one from Pep Boys super coupe. All the bushings sent along with the recent T-bird front bar were just fine.
You MIght be able to get the larger front bar from a bone yard but they were rare. Super coupe, of course, and also the handling package on some of the v-8 models which is where I found mine. Took a caliper to the bone yard and did a half day sweep and found it!
I never had any complaints about the air
suspension. I believe the ride hight sensors can be moved to adjust the ground clearance. On the 91 they were intermediate, but with the big stabilizer bars I never felt overly soft. The 88 is jacked up quite high which means much firmer air bag inflation. In my case it is almost uncomfortable on some roads. But the car looks better with its high stance.
Normally you LOWER the
suspension for better handling but I like the 88 as it is. The big stabilizer bars keep it flat. You can also install a wide variety of coil springs. At the very end of my ownership of the 91 I did this and regretted it greatly since I chose lowered and stiffened units that were hell. If I buy that car back again I might reinstall bags, or switch to T-bird springs from the era.
The rear
suspension pieces can be boxed. For the 91 I did this [and I am not making this up] setting short thin black water pipe pieces directly from home depot with no cutting, and set them into the U section and packed them top and bottom with high quality epoxy. For for safty, just incase they ever got loose, I used cable ties going around the whole thing, or you could use very small through bolts.
However, I ran that Mark VII at full max around every sort of curve and switch back for about 15 years and nothing even cracked. I did both upper and lower trailing arms.
One caution. There are advantages to leaving the softer Lincoln rear
suspension bushings in place. The entire geometry of these arms depends on deformation since the system is trapezoid shaped. I have heard that Mustangs with poly bushings, for instance, can reach the high end of their deformation in a hard turn, or especially in a slide recovery. They more or less lock up the movement and can, I have heard, cause snap over steer.
This was discussed widely on the old Ford v Chevy forums and the Mark VII guys always insisted a prepped LSC always handled the best of all the Fox platforms. Problem was they also weigh at least 500 lb more.
Feel free to ask anything at all about Mark VII. Its one of my favorite cars of all time.
That's one of my dream sleepers.
