Reply to "Directional Instability Topic (Split-Off from Sticky #7)"

The car's laden ride height is difficult to measure by the factory method since they check to ground at the lower a-arm mount bolt centers, way under the car. This is because there are no perfectly horizontal surfaces for easy reference on the curvy DeTomaso Pantera body. The rather confusing stock ride height figures are in the Ford TSBs at the end of BULLETIN 4, ARTICLE 27: 7.28" frt & 6.39" rear and likely include the U.S. DOT headlight/bumper height spring-spacers which we all discarded decades past.

Note also that ride heights will depend quite a bit on the ODs of your current front and rear tires. And after 45 years of driving on public roads with a spot-welded monococque chassis, the two sides of the car will likely be at slightly different heights. The rear suspension in particular is well known to collapse a little over time and needs a far better upper rear bay brace with adjustment device.

The desirable nose-down rake of about 2 degrees is an estimate and is not a hard-and-fast measurement, for the same reason that the car has no easy horizontal reference surfaces. I use adjustable spring-perch Koni shocks to adjust ride height or small individually sized spacers on all 4 non-adjustable shocks. Sometimes it's just easier to go and do it than it is to laboriously calculate things like this, what with all the various modifiers.