Tony
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Posts posted by Tony
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A bit busy moving house at the moment...spacers will be fitted soon!
Best of luck with the move.... 'stress' at the max!.... you realise the SR will need to be re-calculated after the spacers are fitted
....... Mike you are an ideal candidate for the ARIGO Geometry machine... it will save me hours 
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wow nice bit of information, makes a lot of sence, i must admit to not knowing this, i just thought the bands were for the factory use, although i do fit tyres with the bands on the outside purely for looks so i guess the result has been the same all along, never had a car with brand new tyres on coming back with a pull. i wonder how many centres have sent tyres back to the manufacturer as faulty.
Dan we have about 5 cars a month complain the car is pulling to one side after new tyres are fitted, and that's just one centre....... even i cannot Police the conduct and attitude of the fitters if they don't want to listen and respect the information.
In Research i have contacted other independent tyre companies and non of them knew what the markings meant. So it can be assumed that this problem is country wide........... oh by the way the bigger UK companies would not comment
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Jap Devil maybe you could advise me here.... next week i have two SW20 to set for track days. Neither owners have specific settings but both want the car to feel secure.. from the positions you now have is there any area that makes you or the car feel nervous. Your personal feed back would help me advise them since you drive a modified car and we have your Geo image already.
The handling is excellent! If anything needed to change I would say another 0.3-0.5 degree -ve camber on the rear and perhaps a slightly higher oversteer tendancy.
To add oversteer i would need to reduce conical camber or reduce lateral toe from your positions at the rear... or if it were possible on the SW20 i could increase the castor by a degree and provoke diagonal lifting.. as seen in TC on the bends.... i would love to add 30' on your cars castor just to see how much difference you could feel with such a solid modified construction.
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Jap Devil maybe you could advise me here.... next week i have two SW20 to set for track days. Neither owners have specific settings but both want the car to feel secure.. from the positions you now have is there any area that makes you or the car feel nervous. Your personal feed back would help me advise them since you drive a modified car and we have your Geo image already.
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It's going to be very difficult to get a picture of this - we only noticed it when the car was up on the ramp and we were able to inspect the wheels from below / inside.
I can try asking the guys a favour and see if they'll ramp the car up for me again to take a piccy.
How are things going with this project?
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Its lowered with Eibach ProKit and KONI Sport Shocks... all in all about 2 inches. The car sits there like a animal before jumping... very good look.
What can I do to the front left? How could I possibly "repair" it?
To Triangulate were the problem is i would need other information from the Geometry report... like KPI or SJI and the Castor positions
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Seems that the former owner damaged the left front.
The measurements we achieved were the best we culd get.
The rear toe was set to negative! But we also could not set it to +0*10' but we set it to positive +0*2'. That was the best we could get from the excentric.
The front left camber is above 1*neg... we couldn't get it lower over dead center (only higher!).
After 3 years of ownership the steering wheel point straight forward! What a pleasure!
The new settings (left/right)
Front
Camber (-0*25' to -0*15') is now -1*13' / -0*41' (best possible on the left)
Toe (+0*8' +/-0*2') is now +0*9' / +0*10'
Rear
Camber (-1*20' +/-0*10') is now -1*19' / -1*19'
Toe (+0*10' +/-0*2') ist +0*2' / +0*11' (best possible value on the left, but on the positive side)
Don't know if I should be happy or not.. me and the garage have no clue what to change to get better settings. There is no visible damage.
Perhaps I should go for some racing parts and change whole tie rods and look out for different excenters with bigger adjustable ranges.
Can somebody point me in the right direction?
Any further comments?
Has the car been lowered.......... if yes then the positions are fine since the coil rate would be higher, if not then the camber curve will wear the tyres on the front very fast on the insides. The shop has done a good job making the Geometry symmetrical though!
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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.
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.
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I liked the Goodyear F1's i had on the front of my old astra, much better than the standard michelins and cheaper too. The wet performance was so much better they made the car much safer in the wet if you ever had to emergancy brake or do an evasive manouvre. I will most likely get them for this car when they need changing or i get a new set of wheels and tyres for it.
Point to note though the F1 is not suitable for the rear of a FWD car, since most experience 'Heel and Toe' wear patination.
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From my own experience, setting up coilovers is not just a plug-and-play. After the initial installation they need to settle for a couple hundred miles, remeasured, adjusted and then settle again. After that you'll need to check the geometry and maybe even do some more adjusting until your right is right for you.
Wise words indeed Governor.... I had made deliberate attempts to 'map' the settling using donor cars in the hope this would deliver a true indication for other owners.... this involves
1: Lower, measure then recover
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500 miles later
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2: Measure, recover then calculate the change in the geometry positions
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1000 miles later
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3: Measure, recover and again calculate the change
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1000 miles later
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4: Measure..... and then their was no real recovery
5: Measure...... same
6: Measure...... same
7: ongoing
So born from this i could establish the settling period. But there is a problem. If you go from stage one and recover the geometry, but miss two and three then the tyres would definitely wear. The next consideration is that if you were to complete each stage then this would cost you money each time! The process shown here was for LOC and the 'mapping' was free.
In Business terms it would be wise to offer a settling fee, this would involve an initial higher cost but assume future corrections paid for until the car settles albeit five or ten measurements.
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So that's a BIG NO to Avons then. Thanks guys
Un-bias customer feed back has been the Goodyear F1.... not the dearest by far but have a high recommendation vote.
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Didnt realise, will do
Waiting on my panhard rod to come then will get it all set up. Im sure the panhard rod wont be a problem for them.
OK, got my panhard rod today.
When you say they setup coilovers, do they actually setup the damping and ride height etc? If I basically say "set me up for dast road use", will they set the damping, camber, toe etc?
I also what the preload set to '0', would they do this?
Yes.......... explain what you want, where you found the point of contact and they will deliver all. Drury are no1 on my 'Trusted centres' for good reason....... i would not recommend without 100% trust and Drury are 100% able.
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get the bbs's refurbed.. i love them wheels
mmmmmmm
And luckily apart from a scuff on one of them (wasn't me
) Who did the deed..... name and shame Twinkle
Hehe...Whoever owned it in Japan before I got it
That 'Whera ishthekerba' has no sence of direction........
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get the bbs's refurbed.. i love them wheels
mmmmmmm
And luckily apart from a scuff on one of them (wasn't me
) Who did the deed..... name and shame Twinkle
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Anybody heard of Avon tyres? I think its avon. Some bloke was telling me that he had been reading up on tyres as he was after a set himself and said the Avon zzz 3 (something like that) came out tops on all polls....
The Avon has one of the wost records for customer complaints... in fact for many years STS stopped selling them since the complaint always is reflected toward the company that sold the product.
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It would seem that due to new 'pedestrian' impact legislation, there are 'low limits' placed on the likes of Mazda and so on.... the new NC has to be raised to comply for import... once in the UK many owners have the car lowered to the original height.... no data i can find supports the original geometry...... some snippets from the US look to aggressive so i am worried about using them. Autodata has informed me that the NB positions are overlapped directly to the NC.... again this worries me since the frame is very different.
If anyone has the time to research the figures wim and the MX5OC would appreciate it.
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..... still i don't understand, but hay you know me
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Gee, thanks Tony, all these snippets of info will make me look at tyre fitters in a new light, and to make sure that they do their job correctly.
I gave my car 4 new Pilots for Christmas, and find them quieter than the Bridgestones, with no less grip
This type of information i hope in time will make the wim forum a place to go when seeking 'advice or knowledge' .... similar to the wim web site but active.... and re-active, this i feel is good for everyone.
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Thanks for the answers guys
So in reality if I want width I need to go for bigger inches too.....now where have I heard that before
Hehe Melin, you can thank Tony for the story behind the signature, I'm glad your little 'un appreciates a good nursery rhyme,
Germany was wicked, wish I'd taken my Roadster too now
(although I may have ended up in the armco ) The company was excellent I haven't laughed so much in years (well since JAE anyway) TTE's hospitality showed no bounds, and the hotel was tops for actually ordering take out pizza for us and happily watching while we sat in the bar & ate it.
There are so many funny stories to tell, like the tale of "crikey",& the one about "Faz, Taz, Raz, Daz, John from Croydon & his dog (possibly called Dorothy)"....don't ask
Can't wait for next year to come round
reads like a memorable experience 'Twinkle'..... with anticipation i have been watching the posts in LOC waiting for the picy's..... any chance you could give us a sneak preview ..... this dog 'Dorothy'?..... i have to ask?......... is this human or animal -
Some of the stuff that Tony has been posting - Over/understeer, scrub deserves to be put into a knowledgebase - how about creating one?
I second this
As honoured as i am toward your thoughts regarding my posts. I hope over time the whole wim forum will be considered a knowledgebase.... i just need to shake the cage a little to make you guys realise here is were you express your knowledge......you have more than you think!...
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Ok ....yes I am probably extremely thick, but then I am just a mere girly
My wheels are 14 x 6JJ H2ET 45, the tyres I have on at the mo (thanks Tony
) are 185-60-14's.My question is...can I fit wider tyres on this size wheel, if so what ??
195-55/14 has the same RR but the cost belays any real benefit....... anyway.... off topic how was Germany
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All new tyres have visible coloured markings forming a radial band on the tyre. Several of these markings represent destination between the manufacture and the recipient.... Cars like Lexus require specific compounds so the radial markings do indeed allow the process to become visible and act like a bar code.
But there is also important information held within those lines that most consumers and tyre centres are not aware of, in particular the position of the outer line (colour does vary).....
Depending on how the belts are positioned during construction imperfections will allow the casing and the tyre tread to 'run out'. This disparity allows the compression to steer the tyre laterally regardless of any actions taken by the driver thus generate a pull.
The manufacture measures the degree of run out and marks the severity onto the tyre by the position of the outer band, typically the colour is Red or Blue, if the colour band is central then the run out is considered 0, if the band is toward the outer edge the tyre will need a 'reactive' partner to belay any pull. So the positions are vital to you and your car.... example
Realising this problem then it's easy to conclude if the tyres are symmetrical in tread construction, if the tyres are asymmetrical or directional then the centre will need to find a suitable match with an opposite reactive lateral partner....... Their problem not yours......
So next time you buy tyres have a look for the banding and decide what match you want..... remember most centres will have no idea of your request due to misunderstanding and lack of knowledge so you need to be wise.
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Some of the stuff that Tony has been posting - Over/understeer, scrub deserves to be put into a knowledgebase - how about creating one?
Of even more value how about explaining the evolution of your cars, the when why and how much? many people would use this valuable information as part of the overall plan for their own car... the ups and Downs, what went right.......... or wrong?, Coilovers up and down, and why did you decide for a particular make? The Modifications to the engine displays very important (silent) consideration toward the Geometry. loads of stuff to evolve here 'Governor'
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rear wheel drive + wet weather + heavy boots = fun
Sadly Dan only for the educated.... after that the barrier is the next test for some
Geometry And Coilover Set Up
in General Problems / Discussions
Posted
You just need to consider the fact that when the coils a fitted the Geo will be wrong.... after a 1000ish miles the coils would be near to settled, but in between the tyres could wear. At the end of the day it would be worth it!