Factory Five issued an official update recently that informed GTM owners that we need to flip our front shocks from their inverted state, to running ‘body down’. I’m not sure why FFR’s manual had us install the front shocks upside-down to begin with, but it turns out that the Koni shocks provided with the kit must be installed body-down. Failing to do so can cause them to, over time, operate as if there was no oil in the shock cylinders. I think this explains why the front of the GTM is so sensitive.

After removing the shocks I had to disassemble them so I could do a ‘reset’. This involved holding the shock upside down, compressing the shock, then flipping it over and manually extending the shock. This was repeated until the shock offered resistance through the whole range of motion. The first 4-5 times doing this the shock would compress half way, then suddenly snap to the top/bottom of its range of motion. Essentially, the shock, while running inverted, was offering no dampening once it got around half-way compressed. Not good.

Now I just have to wait for spring to arrive to see how much the ride handling will be improved.

I recently ordered a Koni spanner wrench in hopes that I could get the rear coilovers adjusted further to increase the rear ride height.  Despite the coilovers being Konis, the spanner didn’t fit ‘as is’ so I had to modify it quite a bit to make it suitable.  With the spanner usable I was able, with the use of a lot of elbow grease and a strap wrench, to get the coils dialed up a handful of turns, raising the ride height 1/2″ further. After settling the front height is now at 4 3/8″ and the rear is at 4 5/8″.

Driving feel is much improved; it’s amazing how much of a difference 1/2″ can make. I would say the improvement with this adjustment is as great as when I adjusted the height earlier this year. Handling and stability is excellent and the car doesn’t react to the road surface nearly as much.

I recently got around to working on the rear suspension a bit – this included tweaking the ride height further, and installing FFR’s rear shock mount support braces to prevent cracking issues some had with the shock mount brackets.

Ride height is now set at 4.5″ on the drivers side, a hair under that on the pass side. I want to get both sides to 4.75 or 5″, but the pass side coilover is at its max adjustment (spring needs to be compressed to get more turns out of the spring perch collar). As a result I will probably be upgrading the rear springs to 800# springs to get a few more turns out of the pass side. The same coilover ‘height’ with the stiffer springs should allow the rear to sit a bit higher…we’ll see.

The FFR shock mount brace is a straightforward install. Unbolt the shock, unbolt the rear shock mount bolt, slip on the brace, rebolt it up.

For quite a while there has been concern in the GTM community over the rear shock mounts, as there have been a handful of incidents where the mounts have started to crack, both under racing and street conditions. FFR has been pretty quiet about this issue, but today I received shock mount support brackets from them in the mail. I would assume that all other customers will be receiving these as well, as I never contacted FFR about the shock mount issue, etc. Here are some pics. The brackets are designed to slip over the top of the shock mount and lend some support.

I finally got the backordered front coilover mounts in the mail so tonight I installed the front coilovers.  Afterwards the rear tie-rods were installed, but still need to be torqued to spec, as I am lacking a very large wrench to hold the tie-rod end in place to torque the frame bolt down. I also wrapped the hard-line coolant tubes with Thermo-Tec heat wrap, available from Summit.

After getting the steering setup the rear suspension was installed. This was a real bear, as the brackets on the frame are very tight. After much pounding, swearing, and prying, the arms went in and were bolted. Th e-brake cables were then connected to the main e-brake bracket.

The fuel tank aluminum panels were also riveted into place as well.