markff

Fitted some bilsteins b14 suspension and replaced the track rod ends recently as i wanted a smoother ride compared to the KW coilovers. Car had developed abit of a tendency to wander on uneven roads and i was still on the original track rod ends. They weren't knocking but they were very floppy inside the joints. Anyway i booked the car into today along with my brothers R53 mini. Have to say Joe did a top job, the car is spot on and the wheel is dead centre. My brother has always struggled to find a decent place to get his car set up and he says the work that Joe has done has made the car much better. His car is a Cooper S but converted from supercharger to turbo charger and is putting about 400bhp to the front wheels. Getting the front wheels all pointing in the right direction has made putting the power down alot easier. He says the torque steer is alot better now. I know you guys are quite expensive but you definitely get what you pay for. There are too many places that just take the money and don't even bother to get the basics right. Make sure you give Joe a pat on the back Tony, job well done

Thanks for the great explanation. I'm just relieved that everything lined up correctly after pulling so much apart. I was going to take it to a local place and assist them in doing the alignment but i very much doubt they would of known the amount of detail as you guys. Plus you never know whether the vast majority of garages actually bother to get their equipment checked and calibrated. It was well worth making the trip round the m25

Hi Tony, Just got back from a trouble free visit to your place. I opted for the fast road set up in the end and im well impressed. The rear of the car seems so much more stable than it did when i have had it done by other places. Maybe its the because im running alot less camber than previously on the rear? I just need to invest in some new fronts as my federal 595 rsr's are feeling their age. As you can see the alignment was abit of a mess and driving it to your place it was quite a handful when going over any bumps. The trip down gave a good chance for the polybushes to settle down

To be honest tony i expected it to be a pain but it was an absolute slog cutting, burning, pressing. Luckily i done it over the course of about a month doing a few hours here and there which meant i could walk away from it when it became a pain! The joys of having a garage i guess. Pretty much every bolt or adjuster was like this, even an air hammer couldnt shift it. Its not one of those jobs i would ever want to do again. I made sure everything was lubricated so hopefully it wont need to be done for a good few years. This is the setup i have ran for the last few years with pretty decent tyre wear and no real issues. I will probably opt for something like this. At the moment i have pushed both caster adjusters to their max and i quite like it with alot of caster. I wont be doing any more trackdays in the car as its too big a risk if i bin it. Too much money tied into it.

Wow abit of a thread revival here. I still own this car and its now supercharged with about 400bhp. A hefty mortgage put paid to the trackdays but access to a decent sized garage means the car gets looked after. I decided for my sins to rebush the suspension knowing that at least one caster adjuster was seized. Cutting a long story short most of the camber adjusters were seized as well as both caster adjusters. I cut them all out and replaced with new and greased them with marine grease. Everything is assembled and ready for the wheel alignment to be set up. So far i have taken the car for a test drive and not had any issues and everythings been checked and double checked. I'm booked in next Wednesday and hoping all my hardwork was worth it. It seems to be getting harder and harder to find places nearby that actually know what they are doing in terms of set up. Even if i give them the settings i want they dont really inspire much confidence that they will do the basics right. Glad that wheels in motion is still around!

Cheers Tony, They aren't going to get used much over the spring and the only time i really drive fast or push the car now is in the summer when things are dry. On the track assuming its dry then getting them up to temperature shouldn't be a problem. I will get them fitted in 3 weeks or so time and rack some miles up on them and then bring it in to be aligned. I will probably go with similar as last time alignment wise but abit more rear toe. It will be abit of an unknown handling wise as the last trackday was a washout with the wet track so i couldn't learn anything about the the KW suspension. I will be happy if i get a middle of the road set up with a tiny bit less oversteer.

Right abit of progress in terms of parts, I got my new OEM toe arms and bolts etc. from http://www.hondapartsonline.net/. Saved loads of money ie Rear toe arms from Honda UK are £240 for two. In the USA they are $80 for the two. Even when you add shipping and tax i still saved over £150 on parts. The adjuster bolts are massively cheaper in the US then they are over here. Its a poor show from Honda really. Fully Assembled arm with new fasteners adjusters etc. I will be making sure i put alot of grease on the shanked part of the bolts to prevent seizure to the inner ring of the bushes. These are tough old items compared to what i have fitted at the moment so i will be glad to swap them over. Baffled Sump ready to be fitted as oil surge is something i dont really want especially as im going to stickier rubber. Kumho V70A tyres from camskill, new with 4.8mm of tread so i dont expect them to last much past the summer at most but should bring alot of fun! Tony im after abit of advice regarding the tyres, do you think i should scrub them in with the current alignment settings WIM set me up with for a few miles before alignment? I was thinking of fitting them and getting 100 or so miles on them and then changing the rear toe arms which will put all the alignment out of bonk and then driving it to WIM to get it corrected. I know one thing for sure i have a busy month as i also have a leaking rocker cover gasket which i need to do and also brakes and other things to bleed. Its good thou i enjoy the work when its not p**sing down!

Cheers for that, didn't realise it had been about so long. Would be interesting to see a video of it actually trying to deal with a transformer fire.

No problem Tony, i thought it was a crazy idea when i first saw it. Like putting water on a chip pan fire!. We have had the fire equipment go off by accident before but it is designed in such a way that it shouldn't cause the transformer any problems whilst it is going off. Was an impressive sight thou!

Its a refined mineral oil, once it has been used on transformers it gets reused in cosmetic products believe it or not! Alot of the older oil contains PCB's which were added to prevent fires but is very bad for humans. The PCB's get in your skin and once its got in your system your body cant get rid of it. Over the years the levels will build up and up if you don't use the correct protection. Luckily most equipment has had the PCB's removed from the oil making it alot safer. Transformers are efficient but only to a certain extent. Say a transformer was 99% efficient then most of the 1% loss would be through heat which is why most transformers have some sort of cooling on them. Sound would be one of the energy losses through the transformer. The forces on the two sets of winding causes a vibration of the internal components which is why you get the humming. In my experience the harder the transformer is working the worse the humming gets. I can often remember as a kid going into lee valley park just down the road from me and hearing the supergrid transformers at waltham cross substation humming away. The substation was over a mile away but you couldn't mistake the humming. Never thought i would end up working there thou! Those transformers were replaced in the late 90's because during there 30 year life they had taken an absolute battering trying to supply london. The newer transformers were uprated and the noise massively reduced. As for the water as the means of fire fighting, if you see the video i posted there is red pipe work everywhere, that is the fire deluge system which is designed to prevent a major transformer fire. It uses 1000's of litres of water but is sprayed as a fine mist which suffocates the fire rather than making it worse. The video of the transformer on fire, well that could be anyones guess because i doubt the equipment was even isolated which just adds the danger. You would assume they knew what they were doing but i wouldn't be that close to the fire. This is one of ours that expired last year http://www.hulldailymail.co.uk/Huge-electricity-substation-Cottingham-Beverley/story-18814388-detail/story.html

Thought you might be interested in this Tony, one of our super grid transformers on load in north london. The only part of the job that un nerves me is standing next to a tank full of 100,000 litres of transformer oil with 275kv inside it. And what one looks like when it goes bang!

I would be tempted to take it to another garage where they have a hunter wheel alignment machine but also offer a free vehicle check. I took my car to STS tyre pro's and they put the car on the machine and measured all the angles. They admitted that they weren't the experts when it came to setting up the S2000 and pointed me in the direction of Wheels in motion. Didn't charge me a penny. At least that way they can give you a printout and even if you have no intention of getting them to adjust it you know where you stand.

Cheers Tony, all useful information. I appreciate you spending time on the subject I know when the car was at this height before and set up on a hunter machine the operator set 2.3 degree negative camber and 0.30 total toe with the OEM arms. I run alot less than that nowdays so fingers crossed i should be fine when i bring it to WIM. I have ordered the new arms from the states for peanuts compared to the UK price, brand new Honda original parts with new bushes and balljoint for the hub. When they arrive i will book some time off work and get them fitted up. Will keep the thread updated and i will take some proper photos of the adjustable arms to see any signs of wear tear etc. Chances are they are fine but worth having a once over. Thanks for the help!

Hi Tony, That photo wasn't of my car, just an example of what i have fitted. Grab a photo outside earlier this is what mine looks like with all 4 wheels on the ground. Not the best angle but the arm looks quite square to me. Quite surprised at the amount of corrosion on the adjuster nuts, as well as the bottom of the car. Will need to get under the car in the summer with a drill and wire brush and get everything cleaned up and painted. From looking at the angle of the rear toe arm it looks correct. It be as horizontal as possible when the car is at rest? I know that as the suspension compress the angle of the arm changes and thus the toe changes with it. Am i right in thinking that if you took a unmodified S2000 then the original toe arm should be horizontal but if you then lower the car thats where you cause the arms angle to change and the bumpsteer issue becomes worse. With stiffer suspension then this should be less of an issue? As the suspension wont move as much thus not effecting the toe to such a large extent? On a smooth track with stiff suspension settings you probably wouldn't suffer any problems unless you started bumping the car up alot of curbs. Sorry if im talking crap here Tony, I know its irrelevant really as im going to get the OEM items fitted anyway but it interests me. I might stop being lazy and fit the new OEM toe arms myself and then drive it up to get aligned, i have ordered all new bolts washers etc. I cant imagine its a massive job unless everythings seized which is unlikely seeing as they were fitted in March.

Looking at the lower photo the most worrying part for me is how far the arm is spaced off on the section that goes through the hub. It must put alot of stress on the threaded balljoint type section. I know its there to correct the angle of the toe arm to fix the bump steer but it just doesnt look right from a mechanical point of view.