Anybody got any experience with deleting the rear spring insulators? I've seen that it's common over on the Mustang forums for guys to get rid of the insulators just to get a little more drop at the rear and none of them seem to be noticing any problems. I'm mainly concerned with damaging the chassis or perches without the rubber there. NVH is not a concern for me. I'm looking into this from a standpoint of ever so slightly firmer suspension and a very small ride height decrease. I'm running the Tein springs and shocks in the rear and I've been debating about cutting a quarter of a coil off the springs but I'm very hesitant to do so.

Its marginal

I rather cut springs then run without insulators

I run two coils cut on trd still not low enough

I like it on the low low

Have you run without the insulators before?

Optional. I run upper with no lower.

Andrew

I don't run either of them. Upper is probably a good idea, since you can wear away the paint and get rust on the body that way.

How long have you been running without them? Do you prefer it for any specific reasons over running the insulators?

Mine were all crusty and rotted out, so I didn't bother trying to find new ones. My car is mostly a track car, doesn't get driven on the street much and almost never in the rain. It also lives in a garage, so I am not that worried about the extra noise or rust like most people would be.

i've ran with mine in and out, I cant tell any difference with noise or anything.

they are so thin, any height change will be extremely marginal.

In my opinion, if you have them and they are in decent shape, might as well use them. If yours are in bad shape and need replacing, IMO i wouldnt bother spending money to replace them and would just leave them out.

I'm also just talking about the top, i wasnt even aware of there being ones for the bottom, never seen any in my life.

Good to know, thank you. I keep reading on the Mustang forums that no one can tell a difference between with and without in terms of NVH. Of course there are always the individuals chiming in who claim the ride will be god awful without them but they never say whether or not they've tried it.

SInce I'm rolling the track car style 86 that only comes out to play on sunny days I'm going to delete them since mine have seen better days. Mustang guys who delete them are all about wrapping the ends in electrical tape in an effort to avoid metal on metal contact so I'm going to go ahead and do that while I'm at it.

Seems like a like heat shrink tubing might work better

^Good idea! Self fusing silicone tape would probably also do the trick.

The insulators were beneficial to me in a way that I didn't expect. They seemed to help hold short stroke springs (e.g. TRD/Swift) in place with the suspension at full droop, in other words, the springs stayed stuck to the body/axle even though the spring's free length was shorter than the space between the body/axle. However, if I physically grabbed and pulled on the spring with a little force it would break free and fall out.