simon's learning what to do with the polo thread

[sambb]

At the end of the day you could run the stock fronts, maybe add a 22mm whiteline front bar to get a good mix of front roll stiffness from bar and springs and then run your stiff rear srings with that mutant bar. If the rears turn out to be too stiff (its 3 wheeling with the inside rear half a foot in the air) and really overpowering the diagonally opposite front, then go back to the H&R rears and then concentrate on getting rear toe out into it to get it to turn.

[sambb]

Simon I just tried to heat up (read melt!) the ABS sensors to get them to be a little bit straighter for the spacer mod. Hmm not happening. I had the heatgun at 4000 degrees, the plastic was bubbling and hard not to get the plastic to start smoking and it still wouldnt budge. Straight sensors are needed I'm afraid - what were they worth new?

I dig out the nordlocks to send to you. Did you want to bother with the weitecs (only like 12lb/in stiffer than stock fronts)? I'm happy to send them down for you to try if they are boomerangs if it doesnt work.

[simon k]

jeez - plenty of chatter while I've been fiddling with the doors on the mini...

Hang on to the Weitecs Sam, I'd rather work out what springs will make it stiffer while keeping me at the standard height - changing the rear springs is easy, but I don't really want to be pulling the fronts out again and again with trial and error. I'll get all of those springs you and Gav talk about into the same units first! N/mm, kg/mm and lb/in all in the same post!

There's another sprint at the local track coming up in a few weeks, I've done tyres, bilsteins and a tune since last time I was there which ought to see a solid improvement.

The sensors weren't super expensive new, but I wanted to see if they'd fit without too much fiddling before forking out. Bit of a bugger that it wouldn't bend

[simon k]

spring info				calc'd spring rate			spring rate at the wheel
Spring	rate	Units	front/rear	kgf/mm	lbf/in	N/mm	kgf/mm - adj	lbf/mm - adj	N/mm - adj
stock rear	25	N/mm	rear	2.55	142.86	25.00	1.63	91.43	16.00
stock front	25	N/mm	front	2.55	142.86	25.00	2.06	115.71	20.25
sams front	7	kgf/mm	front	7.00	391.98	68.65	5.67	317.51	55.60
sams/gavs rear	8	kgf/mm	rear	8.00	447.98	78.45	5.12	286.71	50.21
front weitecs	27	N/mm	front	2.75	154.29	27.00	2.23	124.97	21.87
gavs front	10	kgf/mm	front	10.00	559.97	98.07	8.10	453.58	79.43
cut honda rear	280	lbf/in	rear	5.00	280.00	49.00	3.20	179.20	31.36
Gary's ideal front	37.5	N/mm	front	3.82	214.29	37.50	3.10	173.57	30.38
Gary's ideal rear	75	N/mm	rear	7.65	428.57	75.00	4.89	274.29	48.00

[sambb]

I'd try to confirm with Gary the front spring rate recommendation because it sounds pretty soft. It could be that perhaps he thought our fronts were stiffer than that? Also its down the list from doing the FARB, so without the bar you may need to go stiffer on the spring. But then again on strut suspension you are going to have to go custom to get a stiffer spring rate and doing trial installs without knowing where your ride heights will end up could wear thin. Thats why when I had the B8's I went straight to the front bar. I must say I have been seriously considering removing the FARB and going back to the OE bar. Its stiff setting is something I just never use. I'd have done it in a heartbeat but there's a lot of work to do it inc setting up the subframe alignments all over again etc. Would probably be easier for me to go to 6kg front springs instead and then I might be able to exploit both my front bars stiffness settings.

[simon k]

yes, the FARB is higher on the list than front springs, but then front camber is above that and much cheaper & easier. I found an online store in Germany that sells good quality TT ball joints and also stock the turbo gaskets. Last night I hunted for the best price on the whiteline 22mm FARB and the best I could find was about $275 which isn't over the top.

here's your 6kg spring added to the table (more for me than for you).

spring info				calc'd spring rate			spring rate at the wheel
Spring	rate	Units	front/rear	kgf/mm	lbf/in	N/mm	kgf/mm - adj	lbf/mm - adj	N/mm - adj
stock front	25	N/mm	front	2.55	142.86	25.00	2.06	115.71	20.25
front weitecs	27	N/mm	front	2.75	154.29	27.00	2.23	124.97	21.87
Gary's ideal front	37.5	N/mm	front	3.82	214.29	37.50	3.10	173.57	30.38
6kg front for Sam	6	kgf/mm	front	6.00	335.98	58.84	4.86	272.15	47.66
sams front	7	kgf/mm	front	7.00	391.98	68.65	5.67	317.51	55.60
gavs front	10	kgf/mm	front	10.00	559.97	98.07	8.10	453.58	79.43
stock rear	25	N/mm	rear	2.55	142.86	25.00	1.63	91.43	16.00
cut honda rear	280	lbf/in	rear	5.00	280.00	49.00	3.20	179.20	31.36
Gary's ideal rear	75	N/mm	rear	7.65	428.57	75.00	4.89	274.29	48.00
sams/gavs rear	8	kgf/mm	rear	8.00	447.98	78.45	5.12	286.71	50.21

Do you you have a stock front spring laying around? do you mind measuring the height and wire diameter for me? I'm digging through catalogues to find something heavier that'll substitute

[sambb]

yeah I have a stock front under the house. I'll dig it out Thursday- that work? I did a spring rate calc thread a while back. I know the wire diameter was in that but non-captive height I'm not so sure. You'll also need front weight over axle. I'll try to send a pic of Gavs corner weights tonight.
Thanks for converting the front 6kg. Good to see it framed against the other rear wheel rates like that.

[simon k]

no rush - it's just that the spring catalogues have the free height and installed height, like this:

Moog Coil Springs | Moog Suspension Parts

you can have the spring spreadsheet if you want

[simon k]

This weekend I put in the superpro lower control arm bushes I bought a couple of months ago, and also did a slightly different version of Sam's Audi TT balljoint modification. I wanted to make sure the balljoints were filed and aligned exactly the same, so I took the subframes out of both sides... I didn't realise that just about everything is held together by them and once you take them out it's pretty a bit of a pain to align it all again - never mind...

I've no idea how much camber I got out of it, not a huge amount, but I tipped the balljoint forward a long way and along with the caster bushes there should be a decent increase

I've also been hunting for a cheap set of 15" wheels for a while. A while ago I discovered that the double headlight Celicas have 5x100 wheels, and one model has 6.5" wheels - a mate has one that he'd given to his nephew, but the nephew wasn't doing anything with it so it was going to go to the scrappers. I grabbed the wheels and it turns out they're 7" wide - 45 offset is a bit narrow but some spacers will fix that. The centrebores are smaller than the hub centre so spacer can fix that too

[sambb]

sorry man I just realised I'd said I'd measure the stock springs free length and forgot. I'll hunt them down tomorrow if you still need me to.

[simon k]

sorry man I just realised I'd said I'd measure the stock springs free length and forgot. I'll hunt them down tomorrow if you still need me to.

would be handy to know, but not a big deal... the FARB is higher up the list than springs

[simon k]

Had another day at the local track today and after spending a lot of time (and $$$) on tyres, tune and suspension I only went a smidge faster, I had fun, but I'm a bit disappointed.

I think I should put springs in the front, on stock springs it still rolls over onto the outside front wheel. There are a couple of sections where the car transitions from turning right to turning left and it feels awful. Everyone kept telling me how much air I was getting under the inside rear.

So, it's either find springs to replace the standard springs (Sam reckons Eibach in Sydney are good and will be able to tell me what options I have), or I've done a little bit of digging around the coilover sleeve conversion for the B8 dampers, and it looks straightforward - except most of what I've seen involves machining a circlip groove into the damper body which I'm not keen on the idea of. I have no idea how thick the damper body is and would be very cranky if the damper snapped in two.

I might also get some more camber out of the TT balljoints, I probably only have 1° there now - I didn't have any idea how much it'd have so just made them fit and put the car back together, saw that there was a bit of camber there and left it.

[sambb]

yeah with a tonne of rear anti roll it sounds like you are over powering the diagonally opposite front which goes into pos camber with that much roll angle on the car. That's why I did the FARB in mine when I had the B8's - stiffer springs were going to be hard to find so the bar was the next best thing. Still doesn't help front end dive resistance though
What rears were you running - the stiff cut ones or the H&R's? Its possible that you had excessive rear roll resistance and dialling it back a bit could have kept the front end a bit more in its window? 3 wheeling is good for front end grip but skimming the deck is what you want not half a foot in the air. Given what you have on hand I'd get as much camber from the BJ's as you can and try the H&R rears.
Is your rear track similar to the front track now that your stub spacers are in?

[MattSA9N3]

would be handy to know, but not a big deal... the FARB is higher up the list than springs

I have a H&R FARB sitting here if you're interested.

[simon k]

yeah with a tonne of rear anti roll it sounds like you are over powering the diagonally opposite front which goes into pos camber with that much roll angle on the car. That's why I did the FARB in mine when I had the B8's - stiffer springs were going to be hard to find so the bar was the next best thing. Still doesn't help front end dive resistance though
What rears were you running - the stiff cut ones or the H&R's? Its possible that you had excessive rear roll resistance and dialling it back a bit could have kept the front end a bit more in its window? 3 wheeling is good for front end grip but skimming the deck is what you want not half a foot in the air. Given what you have on hand I'd get as much camber from the BJ's as you can and try the H&R rears.
Is your rear track similar to the front track now that your stub spacers are in?

yes, still on the stiff cut springs with the huge rear bar - what you say about the rear overpowering the front is what it seems like. I was hoping the Bilsteins would tame it, but they're still only dampers, not springs. I could have taken the bar off yesterday, and even run home and grabbed the H&Rs. It was obvious from the first lap of the first session that it hadn't changed much and I had it set in my head that I just needed front springs and nothing I could do about it, softening the rear again didn't enter my head. I'll take a few different things to the track next time.

According to my alignment model, since doing the balljoints and caster bushes, the rear track is 15mm narrower than the front.

I have a H&R FARB sitting here if you're interested.

for sure! you have a PM Matt