steve b

Interesting, but I don't follow it. Fuel lowdown and centrally mounted, 40 litre tank ~ 38kg. Driver off to one side 80kg, higher and more forward.

1pm is great see you on the 5th. Reason I was thinking corner weighting was that I get more locking up of the front passenger side under braking as its myself alone in the car and weight shift, my body weight gives grip to the driver side but not so much to the passenger side. I will aim to get the car level myself this week before coming over with my weight in the driver seat. I assume you add ballast to simulate a driver on board for geometry setup. I admit my last car post MX5 was a lotus that ended up being looked after by Track Group and they added driver equivalent ballast for setup, cannot remember from my last visit to WiM?

Hi Tony, yes book me in for the earliest free slot on the 5th. Regards corner weighting, I know you'd never get 50/50 front rear, more like 40/60 but weighting side to side would surely help braking stability?

Tony, Been a while since I have visited - you setup my old mx5 several years ago and I was very happy. I now have a Toyota MR2 roadster which is extensively modified and only really used on track days, 2ZZGE Celica engine, battery relocated to the front, lot of general weight loss etc. I had to replace the rear subframe due to localised rust from exhaust heat, at the same time I thought why not fit some coil overs (BC) with camber adjusting top mounts as recommended by MR2 Championship, also fitted some adjustable toe links. Result of course are wheels pointing all over the place. Last time I visited you didn't have the facility to corner weight I wondered if you do now to get the most out of the new suspension? Geometry wise my car had previously been setup to factory standard advised settings, but with max neg front camber crash bolts allowed, from tyre wear I can see I need more neg front camber which with the coil overs will now be possible as they have slotted bolt holes plus adjustable top mounts. I'd like to get over to you on Saturday 5th 1st thing if possible?

Tyres have only been used with currrent alignment, do hotter areas correlate to more worn areas normally?

Had my alignment done a little while ago (cars only used on track) and I've now come to the point of new tyres. The rears have worn the insides, the fronts the outsides. Does this indicate I should have more front camber, less rear? Its my MX5 / P5 Pure drive suspension, WIM alignment. p.s. Its not a lot of difference in ware, maybe 1mm. I swapped fronts to rears etc to get a bit more out of them.

Thanks for the advice. I'm wondering about going for the AVO springs & a set of new OEM dampers, all AVO could say was 10mm drop & 25% "uprated" designed direct replacement for UK cars, which sounds almost ideal 2mm drop would be spot on I think, they are however very cheap at £98. I found some Koni adjustable struts and springs from an ebay company that look good value at £475, but i'm a bit concerned as every other parts supplier says koni only supply strut inserts for rebuildable units (only found on 1989MY cars).

Owners clubs not much good as the cars seem firmly split into different types of owner, those that almost exclusively use them on track so want stiff un-compromising setup & those that race in the championship so all on 20% uprated yellow bilsteins & very short (so very low) hard Tein springs. Then the town centre and dual cariageway hero's that just want the slammed look. Only a handfull seem to use the car as an all weather, cross country daily driver (too many horror stories they'll throw you through a hedge in the rain).

cheers Tony, I'd be getting the car to you as soon as I find some acceptable spings, I figure I've got to get the car riding properly before having the geometry setup.

I'm looking for the perfect fast B road suspension setup for my normally aspirated UK MR2. At present its on old 78,000mile struts & unknown lowering springs that are too low, as big bumps bottom out the front. All the coilovers available (Tein range, D2, K-Sport) from spec appear to be much harder than even the 20% stiffer turbo import bilstein suspension so I doubt would be much good on anything but track. The import bilstein struts are double the price of the OEM UK toyota struts so I think i may purchase a new set of the OEM toyota ones. The question of Springs then arise, half the manufactures I have contacted don't even know their own spring rates or if the "drop" on them is based on early or late cars (that ride at different heights). I have spoken an owners of Eibach/UK Toyota struts = He said "better than stock, virtually no drop" but also another owner with Eibach/Bilstein he said "really bouncy ride".... Now this bothers me as surely a 20% "uprated" damper should give a less bouncy ride than a standard one with the same springs? Anyone recommend any particular springs for my application?

I wondered if you could advise on a fast road occasional track day setup for my daily driver (38 miles of empty fast B roads a day) MR2? The car has EZ camber bolts all round that offer +/-1.75 degrees adjustment. It also has Tein Tension rods so ?caster also becomes adjustable.

Don't happen to know of any suggestions? I have posted on the MR2 forum but these days owners seem more concerned with looks than handling so all the answer you get are "slam it".

Rather than start a new thread I though I'd add my question to this one. Is there an optimal ride height for the Mk2 MR2? I know there is a point on the MX5 where you go from a beneficial amount of lowering to a point where the effect is negative, I don't know the technicalities but it was to do with roll centres and these being adversely effected if wishbones went past horizontal due to lowering. Does such a point in ride height exist for the MR2? My MR2 is too low as far as i'm concerned for "best handling" as on the average B-Road I can bottom out the front suspension with a big clonk and the feeling that all travel has been used far too easily. Stock ride height other than looking far to high i'm sure is a little excessive and aimed at practicallity of driving up kerbs and vicious speed humps, a "perfect / optimal" height must be somewhere? A figure measured from centre of hub to edge of arch would be good?

Initially I had a bit of understeer on power and what I felt too much body roll from the rear but I stiffened the rear dampers up one click from the suggested settings and left the front alone and this balanced it nicely. I was suprised how early I could get on the power exiting bends, remembering I have well over 200bhp at the wheels with 195's that was very impressive, I certainly didn't have to wait until I was straight. If I was brutal with the throttle very early then I'm sure the back would come round. Playing on roundabouts if I floor it then I get a fraction of understeer that does progressively change to oversteer with boost. back certainly doesn't brake away easily. I only overcooked it once on track where I out broke myself entering a fast bend far to fast, I was still having to brake while turning to be honest I almost still got round but ran out of talent, much more (totally) my fault than anything to do with the car (looking at the rubber on the track the front inside I'd locked up and whilst turning it had left a dotted line getting about 1/3 round the turn). On track turn in coming off the brakes is excellent.

A bit of feed back post trackday, very happy, car gripped very, very well, very neutral which is what I was after. I gave a couple of passenger rides to two of the WIM sponsored MX5 "hornet" from planetmx5 / cobham common drivers and had a comment that my car felt more planted and I was able to carry much higher cornering speeds in it. The cars obviously faster as it has about 120bhp more being turbo'd but cornering speed shouldn't be really effected by that. I was running regular road tyres in the same size. Only difference was that car had the WIM trackday geometry whereas I just have " WIM fast road" & of course the P5 coilovers, ride height looked about the same. Thought this maybe of interest.