christophe

Its independant like the mondeo with an upper and lower lateral link but instead of having a cast hub and a trailing link, the link and hub are a once piece pressed steel job. Theres only one adjustable bolt on the inboard end of the lower laterl link. Thanks for the advice Tony, as you say without more info its difficult to pinpoint the problem, I can try and contact the place to get hold of the info but to be honest I think its something of a long shot. For now I guess theres not alot more I can do, I still intend to get my road car checked out just to see how the measurements compare even if they are somewhat basic. Oh and I recently moved to Oxford so maybe a trip over to your palce at sometime may be possible?

I forgot to say I fitted a new rear beam to the car as I wanted the disk brake setup with standard springs so just swapped the whole thing. In which case the alignment isn't bad! Looking under it tonight the lateral links do have eccentric washer but they and the bolts are very rusted up and probably not worth the hassle to try and correct. (For me, the garage should really have tried I guess). Anyway as you say I dont think there is an issue with the rear. What do you think could cause the difference in caster? I didn't remove the subframe or lower arm at all, but did remove the shock and fitted new springs and top mounts. Also how does the camber compare to similar vehicles?

When I queried it he said 'Yes it is out but only just and we cant do anything about it anyway....' I dont know about the rear being adjustable? I guess it must have eccentric washers if it is?

Hi everyone, my first post here and it may be a little long so please bear with me! Around a year ago I bought a Mk1 Ford Focus 1.8 as a road car and the handling is excellent, plenty of grip at the front, great traction rides well etc etc. It was so good that when 6 months later I was looking for a rally car when my mk6 escort succomed to rust I decided to buy another focus. Therefore I bought another Mk1 focus again 1.8 but this time a 3 door instead of 5. Then went about sorting out the rally car related parts, roll cage and seats etc. Now the road car had done 160k miles and was completly standard and drove superbly, the rally car was standard bar some koni shocks and springs that came with it, I decided to keep the shocks but it was to low for rallying so swapped the rears back to standard with 2nd hand springs and the fronts back to standard with NEW springs. Now after finally getting it running and taking it for a drive im a little dissapointed with it, the handling is just not quite right. To start with the steering feels noticeably lighter and traction in general is not as good, be it braking or in a straight line. Turn in is ok and mid-corner grip is good but traction exiting a bend is awful, as soon as you touch the throttle with some steering still apllied the inside wheel is spinning up (bear in mind the car has 115bhp!). As a starting point i swapped the front tyres between the two cars and this made a slight different but the underlying issues are still there. My first port of call was then to compare the cars and first thing I notice is the ride height on the rally car is approx. 20mm higher at the front (I guess due to the new springs) I was expecting it to settle and come down abit but have now done approx. 300 miles and it still sits the same. I then went to have the geometry checked on the rally car and these are the results below (only front toe was adjusted, this is the after settings) Can anyone give any insight to the problem? to me the camber seems rather on the low side? I guess this could be caused by the increased ride height? I'm now wondering if the springs will settle but I would have though 300 miles would be enough? As a comparison I think i'll now go get the geometry checked on the road car to see how it compares. Again apologies for the long post, hope some of you can help