You've probably read in this magazine and others about the Hotchkis Track Day that took place back in May. Hotchkis has been staging these events for several years, but this was the first time it produced a separate Media Challenge as part of the event. Naturally, the idea was to lure magazine editors out to defend their egos by competing against each other in their project cars. The event proved to be a blast, but it also seems to have sparked interest among participants to improve the performance of their cars beyond running in a straight line.
In the case of Mark Takahashi, art director for sister pub Chevy High Performance magazine, the event did more to illustrate the weaknesses of his car. Takahashi is an enthusiast of high-performance driving, with a penchant for road racing and autocrossing. In fact, he's attended several performance driving/racing schools over the past few years and occasionally finds time to do some amateur open-wheel racing in formula cars. His own ride is a '97 Ford SVT Cobra Mustang, a fairly capable ride off the showroom floor, although since the Mustang serves as daily transport, that's exactly how Takahashi has left it. But during the Hotchkis event, the Cobra's braking and handling shortcomings became painfully clear. Most of the blame rests heavily on six years' worth of abuse on the mean streets of L.A.
After seeing the black Cobra pitching wildly during the braking and slalom portions of the event, the Hotchkis guys hipped Takahashi to the Mustang section of the company's catalog, and the team formulated a plan to resurrect the Cobra's handling heritage. Hotchkis now offers complete suspension packages under its Total Vehicle System (TVS) line, usually consisting of antisway bars, springs, urethane bushings, and control arms, depending on the application. Although these pieces have traditionally been offered from Hotchkis individually, most were developed as part of a package, so it only makes sense to offer them that way to yield the full benefits of the engineering that went into the development program. Takahashi also added a set of Koni dampers to complement the TVS package.
With stock baseline data from the Hotchkis event for comparison, we retested after the improvements were complete. The change in performance is dramatic, particularly when you consider that the TVS is a bolt-on deal that could be completed in a day in your driveway with fairly basic tools. But the pleasant surprise is that the car is still a comfortable daily mule, even on L.A.'s ravaged thoroughfares. Next year's Track Day is going to be interesting.
No photo retouching here. This is the "before" braking test shot of the tired stock Cobra--the nosedive really is this dramatic, which doesn't help rear braking performance... | 
...With the TVS system and the Koni struts and shocks swapped in, hard braking is hardly detectable in the "after" photo, and the brakes are now able to do their thing much more effectively. |
The Hotchkis Total Vehicle System is just that--a complete package designed as a unit to improve handling without sacrificing street manners. The TVS for the Cobra includes front and rear springs and sway bars, urethane sway-bar bushings, upper and lower rear control arms (the uppers are adjustable), front adjustable caster/camber plates, plus urethane spring isolators and control-arm bushings. Although a lot of parts swapping is required, the process is relatively simple. | |