Ford quality is job number one... Actually, no, it isn't.

After investigating one problem on my car, a squeaking bearing or brake, I decided to investigate another while I had the car up in the air...

For quite some time now, the rear of my car has made an awful clanging sound when I hit a nice bump. I had dismissed it as a busted shock mount in the trunk of my car, but after looking under the car today, I shook my rear swaybar with my hand. It's not supposed to move. It did. Actually it more than moved: it moved out of its mounting location. The swaybar is broken.

Ford's OEM rear swaybar is a 3-piece design: One middle tubular bar welded to 2 flattened metal mounting bars. The passenger side weld broke.

UPGRADE TIME!

I purchased a Steeda rear swaybar this morning that is a 1-piece design and slightly stiffer than the stock swaybar of the same year's Cobra swaybar, so I will be able to dial in some extra oversteer.

Come to think of it, since the rear swaybar has been busted for some time, I will have a LOT more oversteer than I'm used to, so I'll have to be a little more careful entering turns until I get used to the new swaybar.

While I was in the shopping mood, I purchased some much-need lugnuts. The lugnuts I currently have are soft metal and aren't designed for the amount of abuse a nearly 2-ton car puts on huge rims with sticky tires. The lugs are McGard SplineDrive tuner lugs that will actually lower the chance of someone stealing my wheels because of the splinedrive socket pattern which requires a special tool proprietary to these lugs.

I'm praying for a large tax return, 600 dollars should do, but more would be better :)

I've ran out of patience on the driveway with my suspension upgrades, so I've decided to have Apex in Santa Clara take on the task of installing all my shocks, springs, caster/camber plates and possibly my offset rack bushings.

I'd do the bushings myself, but it would change my alignment's toe which would require a trip to the shop for alignment; the swap would add another 20-30 minutes of shop time, so it's well worth the extra labor, or I'll swap em in the day before I have the work performed.

Within a month my car should ride somewhat new-and-improved again so I can focus on saving for my new ENGINE!

More details on the new engine later, but I'm aiming for 400hp, which would require a stronger tranny (*COUGH*Tremec T56 six-speed*COUGH*)