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My long promised blog

Fantastic thanks @Karl. Both had a haircut so look very different. I could of cried with excitement when i saw my little mans.
I did ditch the car mid road for a cuddle or 2. And of course I took him in the passenger seat to park up. Its good to be home :)

@Clodo @MicraPRO thanks both of you I really appreciated you taking time out to help me. Its a shame I couldnt return the favour. Hopefully it'll be a quick turnaround and Millie will be back on the road
 
Belly93 said:
did you find the polybushed axle tie rods made a difference andy?
Click to expand...
With soooo many changes hitting my car at once its hard to depict.
I have noticed a difference in cornering speed and grip tolerances (less sideways g on the tyre)
Which indicates either a well setup up suspension (which it isn't as of yet) a stiffer chassis (not until the cage is in) or a stiffer rear axle. So in a way they do have a noticeable difference in high speed bends
Makes weight transfer more direct but less forgiving ie more prone to lift off oversteer
 
I did forget to mention that I went out on a night rally Friday night. Took my misses as my co-driver. It was her first time out and she guided me to 2nd place. And we only came 2nd as our scores were equal and it came down to engine size.
So a perfect score on the first outing :)
 
h701micra said:
I did forget to mention that I went out on a night rally Friday night. Took my misses as my co-driver. It was her first time out and she guided me to 2nd place. And we only came 2nd as our scores were equal and it came down to engine size.
So a perfect score on the first outing :)
Click to expand...


Congratulation mate ;)
 
Forgot this too
1379928074792.jpg

I got trophies :D
 
So I'm finally getting round to sorting out my handling properly.
So a list of things I need to do
1. Weigh it (with cage)
2. Set overall height
3. Corner weight it and test
4. Acquire suitable rated springs
5. Stick the coilover shocks and bilstein shocks on the shock dyno get me some data
6. Set my damper settings for gravel/tarmac use
7. Fettle wheel alignment such as camber, toe, SAI & caster
8. Final corner weight

Now one thing that irritates me as a chassis tuner the most is when people blame shocks for causing body roll and saying they need stiffer anti roll bars.
A. Shocks are NOT load bearing and have no effect on overall roll at all
B. Anti roll bars counter a wheels individual motions therefore adversely affecting grip (there's a reason individual setups were made and its not to be tied back together again by a bar or you may aswel have a a fixed rear axle such as the K10)

The one and ONLY true way to reduce body roll is stiffer springs. They are weight bearing. Shocks purely settle spring oscillations so the weight transition is smooth. Doesn't affect weight transfer values
I read it alot on many forums. Primarily vw forums being as I use vw polo equipment. (Sorry folks but vw suspension is just better made)
The tuning art coilovers get alot of stick for being too harsh yet allow roll because the damping is incorrect... how can you possibly know that without pots on and data? If they're harsh then the shocks are clearly stiff in their setup as the shocks you feel in the car are exactly what the shocks feel Unless you are a seasoned driver with shock knowledge to know what you're on about. Without blowing steam up my own ass I know this stuff and can tell if its a shock issue or a spring issue.

Tuning art coilovers look like this
1380968015462.jpg


I will go through my setting up process as and when I can on here to help you all out. I can't explain everything and what works for me will not work for you necessarily
 
Most people associate dyno's with rolling roads and hp a d torque etc.
My dyno is different it measures shock by calculating force and compression.
Here's my dyno print outs
1380977046917.jpg

The top left line is compression and the bottom right is rebound.
I used to use a 1 sided graph until recently where this just looks alot clearer to me :)

What it shows is force (lb) on the vertical axis in increments of 100
And shock velocity (in/s) measured in inches per second

I won't bore you with this too much as its not something everyone can work with
 
This is a dynamic graph from suspension pots attached to the shocks to get some real time data. This is the left side front and rear
1380977266253.jpg


My car isn't fancy enough for this kit. I pulled this chart off a readout from the evo on a mild tarmac setup

This wasn't taken on a track or in aggressive manner. It was a leisurely drive on a 'smooth' main A road. Apart from the bigger lines showing +/-3in/s where the speed increased

Again this shows movement as inches per second in relation to velocity

See why I say I hate people who blame their shocks for a bad ride... there's no way you can picture this in your gead to work out what's going on

The bottom 4 are line representing G in a 2D format.
 
1. Weigh it.
Well I didn't go couldn't be bothered
So I roughly weighed the cage and me... added it all up. And added a couple of extra bits to my last weigh figure.
So between 580-600kg... I've got to convert it to pounds (lbs) to make spring calculations easier for me. So say 1300lbs (589kg)
2. Set overall height
Technically "as low as possible is correct"... but as low as is practical for the setup. Bottoming out on a litttle divot @ 50mph isn't acceptable. That's too low.
Once you've found you lowest point. You can vary it to what you like the look of (corner weighting will vary it)...in my case lowest point for tarmac setup for now
You measure corner ride height from the top of the arch on the wing to wheel centre
Ground clearance is lowest point to floor

I'll update this post when I've done a bit more and got pictures and figures :)
 
Standard Bilstein replacements for a polo 6n. Obviously a little modification required but they are so worth it :)
 
Very... Green :p. Mine look a bit tattier, no idea how old they are even lol just know they ride well (apart from the de dampered one) and sit the car nicely down.
 
Its the spings that'll adjust your height ;)
Sounds like a good set :) those green things are smooth as butter on the front :)
 
Sounds good. Mine are adjustable ish, rears are siezed up so I've got maybe 15 mm play on the front before it looks silly being raked one way or the other Haha.
 

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