Yes, we are specifying the manufacturers with 'length loaded' and providing the car corner weights. To stop the shorter coil flopping around when unloaded, we can either get Aurok to modify the dampers with stops preventing the length extending as far, or use drop chains on the wishbones. The rears have an adjustable bottom platform which we can raise to take up the slack. Our preference is damper mods, but time is the key here.
Just to update this thread.. Faulkner are building in dead coils to take up the slack when car jacked or on two wheels. The rears for example will have more than half of the compressed length as dead coils, ie all touching together and effectively a solid spacer. These 'dead' coils only separate if the car is lifted and provides enough unsprung length to hold the spring in place. By the way for the record our rates will be 350-375lbs Frount & 650-675lbs Rear. Edited by: Keith's Dad!
will AW tracksport be at donny this time? If so might be worth getting Andy to drive it round and see if he has any top ideas.
I think Andy will be there on the Saturday. But how can he drive it around on the race day then? Do you mean on track?
Stock Hatch has a funny approach technically because you can't do the ideal with the regulations you have. You have to get as much grip as possible at the front end within the regulations. This is rarely enough to stop natural understeer so you then have to reduce grip at the rear to get the balance you need. The natuaral way to reduce roll is to whack a large rate spring in, but the dampers available for stock hatch cannot cope with high rate springs and you end up loosing grip not only in the corners, but in the braking zones aswell. I prefer to stay soft on springs, and tune the chassis to work better with the body roll. Dont forget though that a good proportion of the body roll that you are getting is in droop on the inside wheel....measure the strut length at ride height and rebuild the struts to run out of travel just above ride height (i.e. so when you jack it up the wheel doesn't lower in the arch far before the strut runs out of travel) Other than that, inspect the tyre wear to see how you are using the tyres. If there is massive outside edge wear caused by body roll...then try more negative camber.
Hi Ian, you are the ONLY one other than Aurok to side towards softer spring rates. We got loads of advise from many people, some obviously very knowlegable and some probably not. But on balance the majority was saying hard as possible in paticular at the back. The one that convinced us was Andy at AW Tracksport who has raced a MK1. His has 850lb rears although we have gone for 650lbs. We have commited now in the hope that our 'ask the audience' advice was correct. Aurok always said we shouldn't 'overspring' the car which was why we took so long to do it. The car is over at Aurok's on Friday for a final setup with tracking and camber (2.5 degs). They are not over the moon with our spring choice, but they are used to setting up Touring cars, and Brit racing Type Rs etc which have unlimited mods to everything. We can't even replace the rubber bushes let alone uprate roll bars. Anyway we won't throw away our soft springs.
If you are running a lot of negative camber be careful about the drive shafts. I found the hard way that when you add negative camber it moves the centre of the hub closer to the gearbox so the drive shaft is effectively too long. Then when you corner hard it rams the drive shaft into the cups in the gearbox and the balls in the CV joint slip inside the outer and you loose drive. You can solve it by moving the spacer from one side of the joint to the other, and by grinding a bit from the end of the shaft. It looks like there is loads of clearance at static conditions, but when you corner the 'G' force moves the engine towards the hub. I have a few springs kicking around....dont know what they are, but they were on my Mk1 when it was doing stock hatch and it was a top 6 car.
Now that is interesting!! Keith said he had a noise develop when cornering hard and thought for a while the wheel may be coming loose. We havn't investigated yet, but I will look at that. It only started at the end of the Sunday race. We are running 3 degs on the left front. When were you in Stock Hatch with your MK1 then?
Just to clarify - you can't fit plastic windows, you can't disconnect your antiroll bars and you shouldn't fit antiroll bars from another model. The scrutineers have been known to measure antiroll bars with a vernier so be careful! The Golf seemed to be going well at Donnington Keith. See you at Brands.
I didn't run the Mk1 in Stock Hatch. I ran a 205GTi in 1999. But the Mk1 I converted into the VW Cup Car was David Richardsons Stock Hatch in the same year. I found a photo of it a few weeks ago in the background at Mallory....it was running about 7th then so couldn't have been far off the pace. I agree with Ste_ its not in the rules anymore to swap anti roll bars....it was in my day. I had a 1" anti roll bar on the front of my 205...it doesn't have the effect you think it will because it puts the tyre flatter on the road, increasing front end grip. If you are concerned about the drive shaft take the bolts out holding the inner joint to the gearbox flanges and see if the green oil seal in the centre of the gearbox flange is damaged. In my case it was worn through and gearbox oil was leaking into the joint.
We are stripping down the front end at the weekend to fit our new springs, we will check out the drive shaft then. I have a feeling the wheel bearing may be gone, but we havn't even taken it off the trailer since Donington, bloody lousy weather last weekend. Will let you know.
