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The 1.3 Turbo Battle####

Its an extremely complex process in reality Chris. I've yet to get Paul on my scales and spend a good day showing him how it all works.

I'm glad you've realised the importance of a good suspension setup. Your car can now react. Softer the better allows the car to react faster, but we need it firmer to stop rapid body roll. That's where the dark art of damping plays a part
Anti roll bars have a deceitful name. They should be called roll limit bars to keep the car within it expected travel range.
As for suspension kit itself. Regardless how it fits, thats just engineering/fabrication and can apply to anything I still have polo coilovers inv.monotube converted and external gas reservoir (research continues), mk2 escort steering rack, 306 anti roll bar etc. What counts is the damping inside primarily and cheaper kits are always over dampened. Hence crashy ride
I remember our phone call a while back and I'm glad its all coming together, you'll have to tag onto mine n pauls track day excursion next time we head out :)

Corner weighting anyway.. I did a small writeup about it in my blog a long while ago. I'll find a link to that. I never finished it so we can go from there
 
Yes I have been doing some reading and it appears to be possibly out of my understanding. Have a go anyway.

Yes completely understand now, I was a fool. Yeah fair enough the dampening, the arbs as far as my knowledge aid in keeping her steady I'm corner.

Oh yeah true the fab can make anything fit. But this kit is made specifically for the car and is a perfect fit thats all I am saying. Anything can be made to fit, but I and many others won't be putting the same amount of time and money that matt has into his research. He has gotten it right and I get the benefits from it. Yeah man ur stuff is good, wish i could come up with the wild concoction you have with making bits fit. I am still venturing and learning. I bought this setup which just works lol, I am a cheater haha! I just love that every attribute of the suspension, dampening, camber, caster, height and all that Gubbins can be changed with this stuff on the car. Tonnes of flexibility.

Yeah can't wait, my car will no doubt blow up lol, no doubt jinxed myself as I said every time Paul takes his car on track something bad happens. It will be me next time lol! May have to get you and other Andy to place nice too. Would be great to see a **** load of Micra's playing.
 
It's not cheating its the way to go. I've only done what I've done in one of my "because I can" movements. If you can't buy it build it and all that

We can get you even more flexibility yet. So much more you can do as a bolt on. But the key to it all is understanding it. Change one thing. Go for a drive and make notes. You'll end up with a large book of what does what to refer to. That's where you wanna start. Reading up about it tells you what you 'should' feel for.. which isn't personal enough for me.

Me and Paul say that its because we put too much time into details that the car just doesn't wanna bother. I personally have had constant failures of worn out parts. The old king lead was giving me grief all track day
So my new super engine is going in to give it a fair chance :)
Track days a good place to really stick it down and get a proper feel for it
 
On a awesome note... I can pretty much hit all corners I have grown used to about 15-20 mph faster. The linking corners is the best part. Just being able to load a corner up and feel the grip is amazing. Can't wait to get some footage.
 
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This is not how the car is at the moment but not far off. I think we pulled out 30 odd kg of stuff, wires, dash and all stuff which is not needed.
 
good progress chris :cool:

incase ur interested, here's a POV vid of how I balanced mine roughly



I'm abit busy at the mo but I think I once wrote a list of what my methods were (prob on me blog).

but as andy says it's quite complicated, detailed, labourious and black art. with more patience, resources, knowledge & experience of how things work, what does what, logic and detailed measurements, U get more accurate consistant results.

corner balancing is a nice baseline to start from but setting up all the dampers n ARB n camber etc on track to tune how the car "feels" confident to the driver is a whole new area complication and personal.
 
curious... I think I can do this. Polly its a shame you aint got anyone to give you a hand. means you could get ur arse in it whilst some one adjusts on your order.
 
SirChris said:
lol @pollyp all I can think whilst watching this video is... jesus this man is crazy... he is working in a shirt :D
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lol yea I have a bad habit of working in my nice clothes but tis what I'm comfy with, twas also a warm day at the time. if I'm laying on floor then I'll wear my warm rough coat.
 
I forget sometime and start working on the car in my work clothes... Bad move lol. Overalls are the way forward. I have learnt to work smart.. Saves on washing up. The bonus is with using gloves and what not, I don't get my industrial Dermatitis flaring up. Plus whip it all off and you can go in for tea without getting everything messy lol
 
SirChris said:
curious... I think I can do this. Polly its a shame you aint got anyone to give you a hand. means you could get ur arse in it whilst some one adjusts on your order.
Click to expand...

I had some ballast sand to put in the drivers seat one time but a limiting factor of my balancing rig is that the 300kg digital scales almost max out at the front end without driver weight and adding my weight will overshoot it. so it ain't a perfect rig but will do for balancing up the cars dry weight DIY on my budget.
 
pollyp said:
I had some ballast sand to put in the drivers seat one time but a limiting factor of my balancing rig is that the 300kg digital scales almost max out at the front end without driver weight and adding my weight will overshoot it. so it ain't a perfect rig but will do for balancing up the cars dry weight DIY on my budget.
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Cleveer move batman. I will need to look in to scales at some point
 
SirChris said:
I forget sometime and start working on the car is my work clothes... Bad move lol. Overalls are they forward. I have learnt to work smart.. Saves on washing up. The bonus is with using gloves and what not, I don't get my industrial Dermatitis flaring up.
Click to expand...

if I'm gonna be welding or grinding or know I'll get mucky then yeah I'll put on my blue overalls (and if it's a nice day and not gonna get dirty then I'll wear me nice special clean rolls royce overall that enuo gave me at JAE)
but most the time I just get on with it in my normal clothes for convenience. also I find overalls quite constrictive when say crouching down beside a hub or bending over.

I try to wear vinyls gloves when I can but tends to rip up and end up washing anyway. washing powder ftw.
there's something nice bout working on engine bits or gearbox bits with baby oily fingers:D
 
h701micra said:
So when I tell someone how important and complicated suspension is I can count on your backing ;)
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complicated n important indeed.

The whole point of a fully adjustable coilover is to allow ppl to tweak & tune it perfectly to one's unique vehicle setup to get the best compromise out of em.
ignoring the importance of tuning them could lead to ending up with the worse compromises of the setup (like running hard slick cold racing tyres on an icy rally stage n say that'll do)

if ppl don't have the patience, resources, knowledge or motivation for setting up suspension, best to get a ready made pre-set one thats roughly configured for their car by specialists.
 
pollyp said:
complicated n important indeed.

The whole point of a fully adjustable coilover is to allow ppl to tweak & tune it perfectly to one's unique vehicle setup to get the best compromise out of em.
ignoring the importance of tuning them could lead to ending up with the worse compromises of the setup (like running hard slick cold racing tyres on an icy rally stage n say that'll do)

if ppl don't have the patience, resources, knowledge or motivation for setting up suspension, best to get a ready made pre-set one thats roughly configured for their car by specialists.
Click to expand...
Alot of it these days is bought for the "I've got this" factor
Adjustable damping when messed with can cause serous issues.

Anyway. Next track day April?
 
Skinner_87 said:
What's setting are you running the front dampers at Chris?

Iv the same rate front springs but find there's still too much roll
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6 at back and around 18 up front. This was recommended to me. This ratio is good dry and wet. Just remove the rear arb and let dangle when wet
what do you run dude?
http://
 
h701micra said:
Go up a rate Paul :)
6kg/mm or 280lb/in is my recommendations for you :)
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I considered this, but I think my demands are similar to paul atm and this was my reasoning, tell me if i am wrong. we run on undesirable road conditions and the softer spring allows the weigh transfer. perfect for wet and **** conditions. going harder risks loosing that. I would think upping to a stiffer rate would be more suited to track?
 
pollyp said:
if I'm gonna be welding or grinding or know I'll get mucky then yeah I'll put on my blue overalls (and if it's a nice day and not gonna get dirty then I'll wear me nice special clean rolls royce overall that enuo gave me at JAE)
but most the time I just get on with it in my normal clothes for convenience. also I find overalls quite constrictive when say crouching down beside a hub or bending over.

I try to wear vinyls gloves when I can but tends to rip up and end up washing anyway. washing powder ftw.
there's something nice bout working on engine bits or gearbox bits with baby oily fingers:D
Click to expand...
yeah I get a bit like that with overalls, chokes u when you bend down. oversized overalls ftw! yeah i miss working with no gloves, nothing better, but i cannot anymore.
 
pollyp said:
complicated n important indeed.

The whole point of a fully adjustable coilover is to allow ppl to tweak & tune it perfectly to one's unique vehicle setup to get the best compromise out of em.
ignoring the importance of tuning them could lead to ending up with the worse compromises of the setup (like running hard slick cold racing tyres on an icy rally stage n say that'll do)

if ppl don't have the patience, resources, knowledge or motivation for setting up suspension, best to get a ready made pre-set one thats roughly configured for their car by specialists.
Click to expand...

lol exactly what I did, but I think I have a whole load of room to move with this setup. probs not a huge amount compaired to other setups. But a good place to start and learn from.
 
Skinner_87 said:
What's setting are you running the front dampers at Chris?

Iv the same rate front springs but find there's still too much roll
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you not worried about the lack of grip when losing the roll? Biggest sin in my head is not getting that weight to the corners. espcially as you are road racing n all that.
 
SirChris said:
you not worried about the lack of grip when losing the roll? Biggest sin in my head is not getting that weight to the corners. espcially as you are road racing n all that.
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Weight transfer is good, but it's not the best way of generating grip.
When a car has body roll on a right turn the front right tyre might lose 30kg of weight but the front left tyre will only gain 25kg (just approximate numbers) so your overall grip levels are reduced :)

Atleast that's what I said in my coursework, probably gonna fail haha
 
Huggy444 said:
Weight transfer is good, but it's not the best way of generating grip.
When a car has body roll on a right turn the front right tyre might lose 30kg of weight but the front left tyre will only gain 25kg (just approximate numbers) so your overall grip levels are reduced :)

Atleast that's what I said in my coursework, probably gonna fail haha
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See. I need this stuff. Never would have thought of that! I need to get reading. Ta for the input.
 
SirChris said:
I considered this, but I think my demands are similar to paul atm and this was my reasoning, tell me if i am wrong. we run on undesirable road conditions and the softer spring allows the weigh transfer. perfect for wet and #### conditions. going harder risks loosing that. I would think upping to a stiffer rate would be more suited to track?
Click to expand...
For road use its a tad stiff and it will bobble about. But as a whole still quite a soft spring.

Body roll isn't a bad thing it proves its working. Excessive body roll is the problem. If you're looking for a flat driving car as a daily too you'd be classed as dilusional

Rallycross cars gave it setup best in my opinion
 
SirChris said:
you not worried about the lack of grip when losing the roll? Biggest sin in my head is not getting that weight to the corners. espcially as you are road racing n all that.
Click to expand...

That's the problem Chris the rear constantly cocks a wheel.

Weight transfers a bit much left to right etc but moving to a 280 as Andys suggested might be best.

Your right about the roads we are using, I'm lucky that the hillclimbs on the TT Course so it's race track smooth for that
 
SirChris said:
you not worried about the lack of grip when losing the roll? Biggest sin in my head is not getting that weight to the corners. espcially as you are road racing n all that.
Click to expand...
You're confusing weight transfer and load transfer
You can still transfer load onto tyres without roll.
There's alot more to it than simply dynamically shifting corner weights to load a tyre through roll.
G force has a big part to play with every motion. Roll centres and your roll axis in respect to the centre of gravity is another big thing too
Harder springs in general transfer more load to tyres. Where softer ones absorb energy hence roll and 'weight transfer'. Thats before you consider tyres anyway
Wider tyres spread that load and lower pressure and contact patch strength. Often mistaken as "grip"
Grip is a fictional word really.
 
Skinner_87 said:
That's the problem Chris the rear constantly cocks a wheel.

Weight transfers a bit much left to right etc but moving to a 280 as Andys suggested might be best.

Your right about the roads we are using, I'm lucky that the hillclimbs on the TT Course so it's race track smooth for that
Click to expand...
A stiff chassis, shorter shocks and an uprated ARB will do that :)
 

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