The Best Explorer ST Suspension Upgrades

The Explorer ST is a strange and excellent thing. Three rows, room for the whole family and the dog, and a twin-turbo 3.0L V6 that will embarrass a lot of cars costing twice as much. Ford built a genuinely quick SUV.

What Ford did not build is a chassis tuned to use all of it. The factory suspension is set up for comfort, which is the right call for most buyers and the wrong call the moment you start driving it like the badge suggests. Body roll shows up early in a corner, the rear end moves around under power, and the whole thing feels a size larger than it needs to.

These are the six upgrades we recommend, in the order we would install them. The DX Suspension parts are built in the USA and available exclusively through Lethal Performance and our authorized dealers.

Strut Tower Brace

A strut tower brace does exactly what the name says: it ties the two front strut towers together so the chassis stops flexing between them. When you load up the front end in a corner, that load gets distributed across both sides instead of twisting the unibody. The payoff is steering that responds when you ask rather than a beat later.

The Explorer ST does come with a factory brace, and it is fine. The DX Suspension version is stiffer and stronger, and it looks considerably better when you open the hood.

Front & Rear Sway Bars

A sway bar, or anti-roll bar, ties the left and right sides of the suspension together so the outside wheel cannot compress on its own during a corner. Less body roll, flatter attitude, more grip where it counts. It is the single most effective handling change you can make to a tall vehicle.

The DX Suspension bars are three-way adjustable, so you can dial in how much stiffness you actually want rather than accepting whatever a fixed bar gives you. The front is a 1-3/8 inch solid steel bar, over 30 percent stronger than OEM. The rear is a 1 inch solid bar and roughly four times stiffer than stock, with CNC-machined billet steel ends on both. They are powder coated in Lethal Blue, which does not hurt.

There is a practical bonus on the rear bar. If you tow with your ST, it distributes weight between the rear wheels through turns, which keeps the truck level and cuts down trailer sway with a heavy load on the hitch.

Front & Rear End Links

End links are the parts nobody thinks about until they lower the truck. Drop the ride height and your sway bars end up angled away from where the factory intended, which costs you travel and control, and can occasionally put a bar somewhere it should not be.

The DX Suspension end links are double adjustable, so you can put the sway bars back at their proper angle after lowering. You keep the handling and the stance instead of trading one for the other. They are CNC machined from aerospace grade aluminum with case hardened ball studs, and the grease fittings mean they stay quiet instead of developing a rattle a year in.

Lowering Springs

Lowering an Explorer ST does two things at once. It drops the center of gravity, which directly reduces how much the body wants to roll, and it closes up the wheel gap that makes a stock ST look like a rental.

The DX Suspension springs bring the front down roughly 1.8 to 1.9 inches and the rear roughly 2.0 to 2.1 inches. That is a meaningful drop that still rides well day to day, which is the hard part to get right on a vehicle this heavy.

Differential Brace

The factory differential mount hangs on a single bolt. On a stock ST that is adequate. On a tuned one, that single point lets the diff move under load, which wastes power, upsets the rear end on launch, and slowly beats up the mounting points.

The DX Suspension brace replaces that with six points of contact. The differential stays where it belongs, power transfer improves, launches get more consistent, and stress spreads out instead of concentrating on one bolt hole. It is machined from 6061 T6 billet aluminum with a billet steel locating sleeve, hard coat black anodized, using Grade 10.9 and 12.9 hardware and an 80 durometer bushing that splits the difference between stiffness and vibration damping.

Usefully, it also retains easy access for differential fluid changes, so maintenance does not become a wrestling match.

Wheel Spacers

Spacers are the cheapest way to fix the Explorer ST's biggest visual problem, which is wheels that sit too far inside the fenders. Push them out and the whole truck looks planted instead of tucked.

The Lethal Performance spacers are forged T6 6061 aluminum, hub centric, and bolt directly to the stock hub. They use a 114.3 x 5 pattern with M14 x 1.5 thread and a 70.5mm hub centric diameter to match the ST exactly, with 12.9 grade hardware and a black hard coat anodized finish.

Or Do It All at Once

If you would rather not buy this in pieces, the handling package bundles the DX Suspension components together. It is the setup we would build ourselves, and it means every part is matched to the others from day one instead of you chasing balance across three separate orders.

Also worth adding before or alongside any of this: the Steeda subframe bushing support kit. Wheel hop on the ST starts at the subframe, and locking that down first means everything else here works properly.

Frequently Asked Questions