Brake and coilover setup (discussion)

[Ghostrider]

a club car? as in Improved Production? the thing would never turn in on the Yokohama A032R's! Those kind of rates are for racing slicks only!

It depends what your talking about. For road cars, this method will work adequately and keep a more comfortable ride, but for track work its totally the wrong way to go about it. Springs should be used as the primary tool for getting the balance right. Swaybars should only be used for fine tuning or adjusting the balance. Big swaybars can create big problems for track cars. If its for the road, I don't really know why you'd want (let alone need) to increase the spring rates - my HR30 is very firm as it is with standard suspension (even still has the standard 'adjustable' shocks! set on hard) and handles surprisingly well at standard height.

most club level race cars are built, setup and raced without ever being corner weighted. Corner weighting is about setting cross weights, which can make the last little 1% in becoming a genuine outright contender on the race track after everything else is sorted. It's not used for selecting spring rates. For a road car its a total waste of time.  

As is adjustable suspension. It's useful for a race car, IF you know what effects a change in roll centre height, or bump/rebound adjustments will make, but for the road its a total wank. On a well setup race car, a 5mm change in front ride height can make a significant enough difference to the rollcentre and axis that it can totally change the on-limit balance of the car. A street car will be far less sensitive to the same change due to a range of reasons such as the much more conservative geometry and significantly lower mechanical grip.  

Besides, 90% of street cars have the ride height dictated by aesthetics rather than function, and most just see camber as a way of getting bigger rims under the gaurds!

Harry,

I'm not going to get into debate over this, but let me say this, in a lot of respects your wrong, not all, but a lot.

The guy that is setting up the 200B club car was racing sport sedans before you were born. We were both competitors at a race track that you probably have never heard of, "Warwick Farm" and he was a very successful competitor, beating many bigger budget teams than his.

You obviously have your ideas and I have mine, but going on your age, you are obviously drawing on such a massive wealth of experience.

Setting up Nissan/Datsuns my way has paid off for me in the past and I will continue to do the same. At about when you were 1, I was throwing a 180B SSS around what is now the south circuit of Oran Park in a fairly quick 49.6 seconds. A fairly mean feat for an under 2L series production car and something no one else could do in the club at the time.

The car was set up by Don Selby in their workshop in Planthurst Rd Carlton and he has no relativity to the now Selby name, other than the name, that Whiteline markets today. They were very big in mini's about then and the tyres were Dunlop greenspots, something similar to the historic tyres used today.

[hrd-hr30]

well you can't argue with "facts" like that! I give up - you're right, I'm wrong! Clearly my lack of experience with prehistoric sport sedans running on conventional (ie cross ply) slicks and double wishbone suspension, or fwd minis on crossply greenspots and no real suspension, or series production 180Bs on god knows what kind of crap tyres, makes me not worthy to question your omnipotent motorsport knowledge!

I've only built, setup, and competed with an Improved Production (they haven't been called "club cars" for about a decade!) 2L Datsun 1200 with strut front end and Yokohama A032R tyres, and have a couple of mates who've done the same with 1200's and 180B's. Clearly that's not relevant! ah, hang on - that's what your mate with the 700lb front springs is "gunna" do, isn't it?

in future, have the respect to respond specifically to what you claim is wrong and why, rather than trying to tottaly discredit the person you're talking to with crap like "I've been doing this since you were in nappies" and you'll get treated with the same respect in turn. You're not talking to some pimply faced teenager, and frankly I'm not terribly impressed if one lap time set over 30 years ago is the best you can find to brag about in your long and illustrious mortorsport career...

later,

Harry

[Ghostrider]

well you can't argue with "facts" like that! I give up - you're right, I'm wrong!  Clearly my lack of experience with prehistoric sport sedans running on conventional (ie cross ply) slicks and double wishbone suspension, or fwd minis on crossply greenspots and no real suspension, or series production 180Bs on god knows what kind of crap tyres, makes me not worthy to question your omnipotent motorsport knowledge!

I've only built, setup, and competed with an Improved Production (they haven't been called "club cars" for about a decade!) 2L Datsun 1200 with strut front end and Yokohama A032R tyres, and have a couple of mates who've done the same with 1200's and 180B's.  Clearly that's not relevant! ah, hang on - that's what your mate with the 700lb front springs is "gunna" do, isn't it?  

in future, have the respect to respond specifically to what you claim is wrong and why, rather than trying to tottaly discredit the person you're talking to with crap like "I've been doing this since you were in nappies" and you'll  get treated with the same respect in turn. You're not talking to some pimply faced teenager, and frankly I'm not terribly impressed if one lap time set over 30 years ago is the best you can find to brag about in your long and illustrious mortorsport career...

later,

Harry

Where did I try to TOTALLY DISCREDIT YOU?????????????

Go read the text before shooting your mouth off.

Go dig up a copy of a 98/99 handbook because 2E club cars are listed in it.

And specifically "corner weights have nothing to do with spring rates"

Where did I say anything about corner weight specifically, I simply said WEIGH the car or are you now suggesting a set of 1mm thick springs might be just the answer in your 2L 1200 front, or a set of 20mm might be better.

Which is the go? or is hit and miss your best plan of attack?? might get a bit expensive???

There has to be a starting point and the weight of the car is a pretty good place to start for my money, as the standard springs are designed for a prescibed RIDE and have exactly nothing to do with the cars handling charateristics.

What's your answer, go and see Mr Pedders or Whiteline and take what they recommend, take what they are trying to SELL to anyone that asks. Pedders won't even disclose their spring rates and when asking they tell you anything you want to hear even when proven wrong, as I have a set of pedders springs, got them measured and then asked and got bullsh!t for an answer. You have one of the best spring makers in Oz in Qld but I wouldn't use their recommended springs in any of my cars.

You are right when most 3J cars never see a set of scales. More fool them! go tell messrs Brock, Gibson, Johnson, Gardner etc, etc, etc about your set up method and see how you fair.

As for your improved production 2L Datsun 1200 rocket ship, with it's high tech strut suspension I think you would be hard pressed to be within 10 seconds of the flying minis of Peter Manton, Brian Foley, Lackis Manticus and others running on Xply slicks and NO REAL SUSPENSION and a miserly 1310cc & webber carbies (NO EFI). Better still try your hand against Jim McKewon in his 1600 Lotus Cortina, maybe you might get within 20 seconds of his lap times. All of these cars were Improved Production Class.

As for our prehistoric Sports Sedans, I would like to see ANY improved production car on ANY TYRE go up against the Frank Gardiner prepared Chevrolet Corvair that was driven in it's latter years by Alan Grice and subsequently BANNED by CAMS because it was just to quick. No TURBO's or EFI in the Corvair, just a FLAT 6 & carbies.

Cheers.

[hrd-hr30]

where did you try to discredit me?

in a lot of respects your wrong, not all, but a lot...

...going on your age, you are obviously drawing on such a massive wealth of experience...

the sarcasim is obvious, and given that you go on to talk about how much more experience you have and how fast you were, the obvious implication is I know nothing compared to you. You don't think that's an attempt to discredit?

The point I was making, and that was apparently totally lost on you, is your experience with cross ply tyres on production 180Bs over 30 years ago is totally irrelevant to today's radial DOT tyres. As is your mates experience with cross ply slicks on sport sedans with widely disparite suspension designs which require totally different geometry and double the spring rates of strut suspensions. Setup experience from these cars are totally irrelevant to setting up a strut front end club car to run on radial DOT tyres. I was not suggesting that struts are more advanced than other suspension systems or that IPRA cars are better than sport sedans. Just commenting on the relevance of your experience - we were after all talking about your mates 700lb sprung club car...

Go dig up a copy of a 98/99 handbook because 2E club cars are listed in it.

I'll take your word for what is in the 98 manual of motorsport, because I have to purchase a copy of that every year as a requirement of my CAMS licence. I guess current information isn't terribly relevant to bench racers. But Club Cars/Imp Prod have always been a 3rd catergory class since its inception. Group 2 is for sports cars. Assuming you meant 3E which is Series Production, a totally diferent category to Improved Production. What are you talking about?

Where did I say anything about corner weight specifically, I simply said WEIGH the car or are you now suggesting a set of 1mm thick springs might be just the answer in your 2L 1200 front, or a set of 20mm might be better.

oh, so from just the total weight of the car you can choose appropriate spring rates for front and rear hey? aren't you clever... And if you go to Pedders or Whiteline for advice on springs for a race car, then good luck to you! I choose spring rates primarily through experience - knowing what ballpark sort of figures will work, and then tweaking from there with feedback gained from seat of the pants feel. I'm still using the first set of springs I chose, and they are on the stiff end of the spectrum, but still well and truly under half the rate your mate is apparently running. Its not rocket science, but if you think the ball park set of figures for DOT radials on cars about the weight of a 200B is anywhere up to 700lb, I can understand why you think it is so difficult.

You are right when most 3J cars never see a set of scales. More fool them! go tell messrs Brock, Gibson, Johnson, Gardner etc, etc, etc about your set up method and see how you fair.

it was in particular reference to club level motorsport, and in direct response to you suggesting road cars should be put on scales to select their spring rates. Your V8 Supercar reference is just a smokescreen, there is simply no response required to that.

As for your improved production 2L Datsun 1200 rocket ship, with it's high tech strut suspension I think you would be hard pressed to be within 10 seconds of the flying minis of Peter Manton, Brian Foley, Lackis Manticus and others running on Xply slicks and NO REAL SUSPENSION and a miserly 1310cc & webber carbies (NO EFI). Better still try your hand against Jim McKewon in his 1600 Lotus Cortina, maybe you might get within 20 seconds of his lap times. All of these cars were Improved Production Class.

unlike you, I never made any claims about how fast I am. But since you mention it, my lap times at Morgan Park, which is reknowned as a handling circuit, are faster than the best Nc Mini in the country running on vastly superior modern radials, so pardon me if the thought of minis and lotus cortinas on 60's or 70's technology cross-plies does not set my legs atremble... btw, the lotus powered escorts and cortinas are seconds off that pace.

[Adam_RSX]

Bahahaaha, how can you say that harry wouldn't have heard of Warwick Park... it's still quite well known.

Just because you or your friend has been there and done that it doesnt mean that you are all-knowing. My old man (who is the same age as you) was racing GT6's and Spitfires at Mallala/AIR/Winton/Oran Park/Phillip Island/whereever in the 70's and 80's and he was very quick but I doubt he could be trusted to set a car up. Same with his friend who was running a historic Datsun Fairlady and won the Porsche Cup in 93ish, I doubt Chris could set anything up.

The only one of his friends that I would rely on is Simon Aram, but thats because he was building front running sports sedans and Formula cars for years.

Yes, you have experience and knowledge

but you're not necessarilly always right. You don't always have to jump straight on people who don't agree with you 100% and sometimes you need to check exactly what has been said... Arguing about crossply slicks when someone has been talking about street cars and street tyres is a tad pointless.

[Boof]

blah blah blah...

Front bars???????

[V8skylineMAN]

yeah....I'm with boof.....Topic people?

you wanna debate/bicker about suspension setup start a new thread.

[hrd-hr30]

This thread hasn't been about front bars since post #30 - it 70 odd now...

but if you want to talk about front bars, no-one's stopping you...

[Boof]

Well go start a new thread called "whenwebitchaboutsuspensionsetupsandbrakesetupscauseweareallengineers" and then bitch on there.....

[hrd-hr30]

[T04GTR]

the larger the disc mass and pad area the better for repetability. its job is to absorb heat.

spring rates on most jap coil overs are way to hard. 550lbs etc

i ran 300 in the rear and 280 in the front and it was good. on jic 5 way adjustable. still no traction.:rb26 to4 440atw at 1.2bar: