4722 replies to this topic

[Nev]

Nope the other way around, from minimum setting. I have read somewhere someone thought it "vital" to count from the other way around, but I doubt it makes any noticable difference in practice. One of the problems with the car world (and I'm sure suspension/coilovers is no exception) is lack of genuine practical knowledge by 90% of people and the abundance of marketing bullshit.

Edited by Nev, 07 September 2012 - 11:00 PM.

[smiley]

Even the nitron manuals tell you there is no magic setting, and you need to tinker with it to optimise it for your car. (i believe 8/10 from full hard comes from factory) Most references for clicks will be from full hard though. So with 24 from hard max, your's are set to 18, and not 6. Which explains your comfy ride atm

[techieboy]

Nitron advise counting back from full hard as any clicks that do disappear tend to be from the soft end. I believe GAZ advise counting from full soft.

[Nev]

I'm sure a 1 click error here or there won't make much difference though, no matter what they say My old setup (on well worn Nitrons that had done many track days) were soft as shite and most proably all different dynamically, but gave a good ride on the road still and I never even adjusted them once. So this time I am going overboard by fiddling with them ! When I took Zack (who is used to a stage 4 and 5 VXT) out for a quick blast in Nipper the other weekend, the grip Nipper has to the tarmac was so beyond his expectations he thought we were gonna crash on a big roundabout at about 60 leptons, but to me I thought we had at least a 30% safety margin and thought nothing of it at the time. This kind of "testing" makes me happy that I have made some correct decissions about the car's setup

Edited by Nev, 07 September 2012 - 11:18 PM.

[cnrandall]

Nitron advise counting back from full hard as any clicks that do disappear tend to be from the soft end.

I believe GAZ advise counting from full soft.

Its more to do with the way the shock is constructed and matched. Not all Nitrons will have the same number of clicks, depending on how they balance up on the dyno but if you set from full hard you will get repeatability across your particular set.

[cnrandall]

Afer running on 18 clicks of valve on the Nitrons for ages, I wound them back to 6 clicks as a final experiment. I deffo prefer the car with less clicks, traction and predicatabilty on poor tarmac is quite a lot better. It's suprising what a difference it makes. Will leave it on 6 clicks I think, for locals roads anyway.

How old are you Nitrons Nev? Valving is clearly not very well optimised... Big gains to be had here.

[Nev]

Hi Chris,

The front Nitrons are both brand new, the rears are my old ones but fully re-furbed with 1500 miles on them, all 4 corners have their better quality light blue springs. The fronts are mounted on after market strut mounts that lower it by 4cm (at the expense of making the wishbones out of true ). If I had more money I'd get some besboke wishbones fabbed up to account for this (artificially raising the hub back to the centre line of the wishbone swing radius) but these are bit out of my price range ATM.

I am going to see what the results are from this local wheel alignement place, but they only set it up to the spec on the sheet I give them, no real world test driving, which I will evaluate myself over the coming few weeks. If it turns out to be poor or not as I want, I haven't forgotton about comming to you for the full treatment and a Pilbeam front ARB and rack riser/spacer plate whilst it's being done . They are only doing a 4 wheel alignment anyway and going to let me know the existing castor and camber as I still dont know what Alex (the previous owner) had them set to.

My biggest "non standard" question mark, is that now that I have considerably fatter front tyres (245mm instead of 175mm) am I guessing right that I should reduce the camber (and possibly the castor) a bit to ensure that more of the tyre is on the road more of the time (remember it's a road car ATM)? During very tight cornering it currently feels like only 50% of the tyres are on the tarmac (due to excessive castor tilting the wheel too much?), however on smooth flat tarmac with milder turns the dig in and grip is amazing. Hard to answer I know without test driving it... Also, all this stuff is so tarmac/surface dependant, every corner is different and it is becomming more apparant that you can't set the car up for every eventuality. With this in mind, I am aiming to optimise it for smooth/good tarmac, sweeping long turns as you general get on A-roads and relatively high speeds (80 to 160 leptons (not for the road obviously )) as this matches the engine capability and my general driving style.

As usual, it is a toss up between saving for after market ECU or spending more on ARB + geo. It's hard to know which would be better value for money.

Thanks for your input.

Nev.

Edited by Nev, 08 September 2012 - 07:36 AM.

[Nev]

Im off to clean the car now and thence to Castle Coombe for the show as I have quite a few friends turning up. One of them in a 450 BHP corsa for me to experience from the psx seat !

[jules_s]

Lol What time you going nev?

[Zoobeef]

I take it that's Adams Corsa?

[Nev]

Yep, Adam Dewis's Corsa. We've been following each others progress for 2 years and spoken quite a few times and met at SantaPod 6 months ago. Am going at about 10.00am Jules, should be there for approx 10.30. I think I'm meant to be displaying on the VauxSport stand if you want to find me, or just SMS me

Edited by Nev, 08 September 2012 - 08:57 AM.

[siztenboots]

if you have 5 mins with adam, ask about his manifold and show him the likely routing over the top of the alternator on your car please. I've never been able to pin him down for a weekend visit to get the project moving.

[Nev]

if you have 5 mins with adam, ask about his manifold and show him the likely routing over the top of the alternator on your car please. I've never been able to pin him down for a weekend visit to get the project moving.

Okies Steve, presumably you want side fireing entry and routed approx where the existing pipe from the IC comes in ?

Edited by Nev, 08 September 2012 - 08:56 AM.

[siztenboots]

thanks

[Nev]

I tried asking him Steve, but he was rather pre-occupied as he blew a hole through the bottom of his block on his first run and was sorting out AA recovery

[VXT Tim]

Oh dear He said he'd not had chance to map it again yet.

[Nev]

The poor guy looked rather sad and forelorn. It was a strange thing to happen to him, as he'd been spanking the engine for over a year now. I guess one of his end cap bolts worked itself lose or simply snapped (even though they are ARP!). I dread something like this happening on Nipper, which is why I was so keen on building the engine as best as I could, using the best parts and knowledge. I had a psx ride in a Clio cup, at the first corner it unexpectedly rolled so much I though we were going to tumble over! I think you get so used to flat ride in a VX, that going in an ordinary hot hatch is a bit of an eye opener. It went down the track like a bouncy castle, cornered well though and moderately was able to keep up with the others.

[Nev]

Went to Castle Coombe (Forge event) and had the car static noise tested. It made 102.7 dB at 4500 RPM (their limit on the day was 100 dB). Deep down however I know it is way noisier than that when on boost at 8000 RPM, so driveby tests would almost certainly fail me too (with an even larger margin of failure) The solution would be to get a full silencer box welded back in (I only have a 1/2 sized box in there at the moment).

Edited by Nev, 09 September 2012 - 06:52 PM.

[MrSimba]

Any photo's of Nipper at the event Nev?

[Nev]

I didn't bother taking any as I have quite a few now. Though some girl taking pics of him asked me "what it would take to have a ride in him" - as her boyfriend was standing right next to her I didn't reply with what went through my head!

Edited by Nev, 11 September 2012 - 05:19 PM.