MacRS200

Posted this on LOC as well - the Tezza failed the MOT today on the OS lower ball joint, bloke reckons it is "dangerous" and that the NS is "on the way out", having said that I don't have any knocking from either side. Called my local motor factors and got a price for a ball joint and an arm, ball joint was £47 and the complete arm £93 so figured that at 100k miles the bushes are probably worn so may as well replace both arms. As the title, anyone (Tony) know the correct torque for the various nuts and bolts? TIA

Totally agree with Mark, would you fit slick tyres to a customers car because they wanted more grip in the dry?

My Tezza is about -50mm all round, the geo on the front is recoverable at that but not on the back. I am at 2 degrees neg camber on the rears with the adjusters maxed out. That causes wear on the insides but I still got 25k out of the last set of F1's which I think is reasonable and it handles great As for speed bumps some are a problem and there are some roads I avoid at that height.

When I set my coilovers up I did a very easy and probably not too accurate measure of the weight on each corner. Jack the car up and take any pre-load off the spring so that it is just "filling" the gap between to top and bottom seats. Measure from the top of the arch to the wheel centre, drop the car back down and measure the same distance again. Knowing that the spring rate is say 10Kg/mm on the rear you can work out the load on that corner. Bearing in mind the already mentioned fuel and "bodies" load could be anywhere between a driver + a near empty tank (85Kg) and five people and a full tank (470Kg), between 7% and 36% of my cars weight. Don't really see the point of doing things any more accurately for a raod car.

I stand to be corrected but I think the stock ARB's are hollow and the up-rated ones are solid hence the smalled dia. I though that the stock ARB's were fine with stiffer springs till I took to the track, you notice the body roll then Same went for the stock brakes till I found I had to brake earlier as time went by and was still going "deeper" into the corners. So next mods (when I get some dosh) is bars then brakes........or will it be brakes the bars?

Did the mechanic beat the driver up when he found out?....... all that work for a bottle! Had it been a Coke bottle he probably would, by as Irn Bru is a well known cure for "a bad head" he let him off

Bit off topic but once worked with a mechanic who told me that he had a lorry come in once that the driver complained made a "terrible screeching noise" going round corners. He had the brakes and sispension in bits and could find nothing wrong, so off the driver went and came straight back saying the noise was still there. Turned out to be an Irn Bru bottle wedged under the drivers seat, the noise was metal scrapeing on glass as the seat moved slightly.

My guess would be the top mount. Reason is the activation left and right involves diagonal shear from the cars parallelogram... more prominent probably on a right lock. If the mount is loose it may knock by transmitting compression to the upper body housing. I would say good guess Tony. I get that as well. Some "3 in 1" around the top mount from the inside does the trick

Very nice of you to say so Tony I am truly flattered. When we started it was a case of "The blind leading the blind" now I think it is more "In the valley of the blind the one eyed man is King" indeed... twas a day to remember when the 'Tezza' went arse up looking at each other with our faces set on stun Um.............Yeh, that I feel will be one of the great unsolved mysteries of the 21st Century. As bit of background for others, we jacked the car up, shortened the dampers 30mm, put the wheels back on and the back of the car was 30mm higher than when we started

Very nice of you to say so Tony I am truly flattered. When we started it was a case of "The blind leading the blind" now I think it is more "In the valley of the blind the one eyed man is King"

Your car will lend valuable information toward others that might follow the same path (when released)...... in view of how things evolved time and time again was you surprised how the coils affected the Geom. The answer is yes I was surprised and also at the variations we had between checks. BTW I need to come and see you again Doc, will call you in the week. Preload is where you compress the springs with no load (weight) on them, hence the term The effect depends on the spring type you have. If the spring rate is linear e.g. for every 10kg of load you put on the spring compresses 1mm and never varies, then preloading the spring will just lift the car and reduce the amount the spring can compress before going "solid". If you have progressive springs where the spring rate increases the more you compress it, preload will make the suspension stiffer as you are starting at a higher rate. Hope that makes sense. Also as a thought on the tyres part, if you run say 1000 miles on "part worn" tyres and the tyres have uneven wear would you not be putting loads on the suspension that are also uneven. In other words the suspension would not settle as it would with new tyres.

To add my little bit to the above. The set up will settle with time/miles as said above. The pre-load and damping settings are very much personal to the type of roads you drive on and how you drive.

This has now been also added ......... Top man, thanks Ahmet

Ok Mat First off how do you know "the car is knocking under compression". When I first had the coilovers fitted the springs were pre-compressed by 20mm, the car compresses the spring by 30mm so that left 10mm of travel before they "topped out". Having ridden off road bikes I know what topping out feels like. Mimimum and maximum height.......You have to stay within the manufacturers spec, yes course you do, but what are they. To allow a greater latitude in suspension travel for spring only adjustment the piston must be allowed a longer stroke, that means a longer cylinder, more damping oil and hence more un-sprung weight. Not good. A generic cylinder is Ok provided adjustment is allowed in other areas e.g. spring rate, total length of strut and damping. Using this you can get enough travel in both directions. Just takes a bit of time to set up, no "whack em in" and wind the spring down to get the height I want. The Apexi's do allow "full use of the available travel" provided you set them up correctly.

Is that bending the tape over the tyre or do you mean from the top of the arch

The Apexi's have a maximum travel of around 90mm. With the car jacked up the weight of the wheel should fully extend the damper, I measured the distance between the top of the damper cylinder and the bump stop, that equalled 90mm. The Apexi's have no maximum or minimum height for the coils, the bottom mount can be anywhere you want. The bottom mount is a ring that can be screwed from one end of the damper cylinder to the other. Put both of the above together you could easily position the piston such that there is insufficient travel in either direction, given that you only have 90mm to play with. The Apexi's bottom mount is effectively a threaded cylinder that screws onto the damper body, using this you can change the length of the entire damper cylinder and hence alter the ride height. Coilovers that don't have this must rely on the height of the spring and will be designed with longer travel to enable height adjustment. IMHO the setting of the spring height is critical on the Apexi's where as it is not on other coilovers. @ Mr Singh - I have Fargo's on the Tezza and they don't knock, the suspension "rattles" if seriously abused over a "rippled" surface but no more that I would expect from a hard suspension set up.

Think the problem that you had Mike, was that the springs on the Apexi's may have been too soft for the IS3. You had the same 10kg/mm springs as I have on the Tezza. Like you say, I thought the knocking was caused by the pistons probably topping out, bottoming out you know about with a hard thud. Even though you adjusted them using my method you could not get rid of the knocking, whereas mine are OK now. On ride height, there is an optimum spring position for suspension travel. IMHO height should be adjusted by changing the overall length of the whole damper assy and not by winding the spring up or down.

Hum.....Might be able to do something here

Would have thought that the method described would flush all fluid as the pipe being removed is the return to the reservoir. The fluid must circulate round the system and then into the catch tank.

Think you will be OK I can't get my hand flat on the tyre

Cut and paste mate Try it now mate ? Top man

Cut and paste mate

second that request Don't want to be pushy being a Newbie Also just noticed that if you use quote where someone has quoted an earlier post, only the later post is quoted if that makes sense. Not like above, when I tried I just got bazza's bit and not mine

Hi Ahmet Good to "hear" from you, and excellent job. One little request "view new posts" or "Todays active posts" at the bottom of each page would be good.

Do they not make the bike a bit difficult to corner though Seriously I'm with you Tony Eagle F1 GSD all round.