4722 replies to this topic

[Nev]

I would remove the yellow ones and sell them on then tape up one sid eof the mount. Fill the other and let it set. 

 

Have you got solid mounts in your track car Zoo? How do you find them?  

[Zoobeef]

I've not but I would do if I'd done it again. I just have other things to spend money on now.

Just seems that if you're playing around with that stuff you may aswell use all one type of material.

[oakmere]

The original mount is rubber with voids https://www.google.c...VzXUTb6wZk5ahM: The inserts fill the voids: https://www.google.c...wlw8J4p8Ad902M: So there are no voids to fill.

  All that gap between the V shaped yellow ribs can be filled, would make it a lot stiffer.

You could only do that if you removed the original rubber bush. Remember the yellow inserts work with the original mount not instead of.

[Nev]

It must be Spring, he's had his 6 monthly treat:

 

Edited by Nev, 31 March 2016 - 04:48 PM.

[Nev]

I and MrApex (Simon) have spent the last 2 days installing new ball joints, EP anti bump steer arms and a full geo.

 

Sadly we bought and installed 2 Delphi ball joints (from Autovaux) into the car before we realised that their thread lengths + taper positions were not long enough for the EP uprights I have. So I had to order some more ball joints from EP (which fitted considerably easier as well as resolving the length issue).

 

I have decided to increase my camber at the front to -1.0 degree and rear to -2.2 degrees (that's 0.5 degrees more neg camber than before on both the fronts and the rears). I have also raised ride height a few mm. The front wishbones now runs at precisesly OEM angles (ie 140mm ride height) and my 18" wheel + tyre combo is also exactly the same as the OEM 17" VXT wheel + tyre. The rear ride height is still sadly 35mm dropped, though maybe in the future I will resolve this, either with a home made bracket solution to reduce upper wishbone angle or EP GT race rear uprights. I also still have some minor shim adjustments to do to get things perfectly balanced tomorrow.

 

We had an issue with my new (2 years old) Titan rack, the threaded ends on it seemed too long, such that I could not adjust the toe correctly as they were bottoming out on the end of the remale joint. I rang up EP and apparently this has happened before once to their knowledge. Anyway they offered to drill more thread into the rose joint end for me, but this would of taken a few days turn around and I dislike having the car off the road. So the solution was to cut off the last 5mm off the Titan rack arms. This worked fine.

 

Anyway the upshot of this was a really noticable improvement on steering feel and quicker yet more delicate turn in for sure. We only did a short test run, and at low speeds on twisty B roads, so I'm still not sure how this will feel at high speeds yet.

 

Many thanks again to Simon for 2 major spannering sessions and not squealing on the test drive

 

 

Edited by Nev, 02 April 2016 - 07:12 PM.

[CHILL Gone DUTCH]

It's not your rack I had the same with my standard rack on recent rebuild its the depth length of the rose joint I took 10 Mm off the rack ends

[Nev]

It's not your rack I had the same with my standard rack on recent rebuild its the depth length of the rose joint I took 10 Mm off the rack ends

 

Just to be clear, were you installing an EP anti bump kit too and is your rack a Titan one?

Edited by Nev, 02 April 2016 - 07:25 PM.

[CHILL Gone DUTCH]

It's the standard rack With the bump steer kit

[Nev]

It's the standard rack With the bump steer kit

 

Interesting, so it's happing to others. Anyone else had this?

 

[CHILL Gone DUTCH]

I mentioned it to MBR before I cut mine down and he may of had it before as he knew the best remedy I also didn't want the thread risked on altering the rose joint

[Matthew Bentley Racing Ltd]

Very common. I have mentioned it a number of times. Nothing has changed. The first few times I thought it was the thread not being cut far enough. I tapped it further, helps but just hits on the pin after that. Have to cut the rack down by 3-4 threads. Need to be really accurate

[Nev]

I've been contacted on Facebook by someone saying this has happend to him and others he knows as well.

 

You'd think they'd try and resolve a fault that is clearly common-place, all it would take is to actually drill the thread down the full length of the female tube. In my case the two parts differed considerably in thread length, so I assume the part is hand made and thus subject to variation in machining depth.

 

I will be contacting them again about the issue, as when you spend £280 odd, you expect the part to fit without requiring extra machining iteself or requiring chopping of the steering rack.

Edited by Nev, 02 April 2016 - 09:10 PM.

[Mr Apex]

Re the test drive. EEK. Feel better now, been holding that in for a few hours.

[The Batman]

Try buying gt hubs to then find they want you to drill a hole in the hub and then make a bracket for speedo sensor and then bolt it together...

[Nev]

Needed to relocate my existing crank breather pipe, so made up this frankenstien one from a spare I had lying around. It is an OEM tube that's been chopped up into sections and re-welded. I will clean it up with a wire brush and paint it next, and finally install it next week when I will be grovelling under the car putting my new alternator belt on. It's hard to believe but it took me nigh on 3 hours to make it !

 

Edited by Nev, 04 April 2016 - 09:29 AM.

[Nev]

Jeeze, just took the squeeky fan belt off and 2 of the 5 ribs are missing - no wonder it was squeeking !

 

New one ordered for 2.30 pm today, should be up and running by 3.30 pm

[Nev]

New (non squeeky) fan belt now installed. The paint on the new crankcase breather pipe was still wet, so that will have to wait another day.

[Nev]

Damn it, had the handling spot on a few days ago but with the steering wheel slightly offset. So I adjusted the rack ends as identically as possible, but now the handling has got worse

 

Went off to an exhaust fabricators today and collected a load of scrap pipework off him for welding practice. So far I've used up 1/2 a big bottle of gas in the last few months and can only weld 2mm tubes with any sort of consistency. 1.5mm thick tube seems to be considerably harder to weld without blow-through

 

 

Edited by Nev, 05 April 2016 - 12:41 PM.

[Arno]

Damn it, had the handling spot on a few days ago but with the steering wheel slightly offset. So I adjusted the rack ends as identically as possible, but now the handling has got worse

 

By eye or with a string/laser/rods setup? Pretty much impossible to get the alignment set by eye IMHO..

Also check to make sure that your steering wheel is centered correctly on the rack travel. Rotate it from lock to lock and make sure that it ends up as close as a 'mirror image' on each extreme like in the attached picture. Then lock the wheel in the straight ahead and align the toe. (with a fancy Hunter or other rig it will allow you to locate the rack center automatically and then adjust both the steering wheel and the toe to get as close to center/center as possible)

 

I have seen cars where shops had 'centered' an offset steering wheel by adjusting (sometimes a lot!) on the track rods and it was now lop-sided from lock to lock. That gave very odd steering feel and made the amount of lock between left and right different and in some cases caused rubbing on 1 wheel as it was at full lock.

 

 

Bye, Arno.

Attached Files

•  steer.jpg   53.55KB   17 downloads

[Nev]

Thanks, but I'm no stranger to setting my car up, I use 4 different tools and have recently datumed my garage floor to offset the uneven concrete and built small ramps to level the car.

 

1. String + rod for front to rear aligment (ie make sure the fronts point the same direction as the rears) and also to approximate toe in.

2. A £200 mirror alignment tool with metal legs that mount to the front wheels to get the toe spot on.

3. A home made wooden contraption to clamp to the wheels to measure camber (which is accurate to about 0.1 degree as it is very large).

4. A telescopic threaded bar to measure ride height (and then use the garage floor datums to compensate for unevenness).

 

However, on this occasion even though I centred the steering wheel with bungies holding it in position, when I went out to drive it had varied a few degrees. I guess I must of accidentally moved the steering wheel (and the bungies didn't hold it) whilst adjusting the rack and not noticed.

 

I've found in the past that there can be a bit varience in the measurements each time you measure, even if you set everything up perfectly and double check the measurements. Then if you just drive out of the garage and back in, some of the measurements change due to things like the tyre rubber not being in it's natural position (ie twisting) and springs returning to slightly different heights, play in the rack, play in the bushes, play in the ball/rose joints.

 

In my experience a "good" geo is about how the car handles for where you commonly drive, not about the numbers. At times I've adjusted the geo contrary to the numbers. For example I have experimented with more ride height on the N/S to compensate for the pot holed B-roads that have poor surface on the verge but good surface at a higher camber in the centre. Then if I am going A-road bashing (where the surface is less pot-holed and flatter (ie less road camber)) I can wind the side down to equlibrium to the geo returns to a symetric state.

 

 

 

Edited by Nev, 05 April 2016 - 02:59 PM.