i'm in need of a little better handling, i feel as though im driving a people carrier crossed with a spaceship.. obviously i'm guessing tyres are a first, but then is it simply a good set of coilovers and a strut brace?

thanks.. oh and pricing for any items would be a great help, cheers dean

When did you replace the wishbones?

Ross

never is that front and back? cars got 60k on

As above, wishbones if they havent been changed will really help things along with decent tyres. Look in the group buy section for some uprated wishbones at the moment. Then a strut brace and either coilovers or a decent spring/damper combo should sort you out, and maybe a thicker rear ARB too - should handle pretty damn well after that lot.

The coop doesn't have wishbones at the back, trailing arms I think.

Floating sensation is usually down to the wishbones. Order a set from AA, along with new track rod ends and anti roll bar links. Fit that lot and see how it feels.

Ross

Floating sensation is usually worn dampers, torque steer and tramlining is worn wishbones.
Fastjjs is doing an entire front suspension rebuild kit for 700euros, kit includes:

Pair of wishbones
Pair of top mounts
Pair of droplinks and bushes
Set of Bilstein dampers

That will sort out any handling problems and its a great price

Have i read somewhere that if you do the front dampers its a good idea to do the rear also?

Always best to do front and rears at the same time for obvious reasons, but driving around with the Bilsteins on the front and worn standards on the rear won't do no harm until you can afford the rears. Just drive the car sensibly in the meantime.

When I said 'a set of Bilsteins' I meant front and rear.

Just checked:

4 x Bilstein Dampers
2 x wishbones
2 x antiroll bar links & bushes
2 x track rod ends
2 x top mounts with bearing and rubber spring cup

799 euro

Or

All of the above including Eibach Pro springs

999 Euro


Very good price !

Buy mine!
(not for sale though)

2 cheap mods that will improve things dramatically futher are:
# H&R camberbolts front, set to ca.-1,5deg.
# Move the battery to below luggagefloor, throw the spare.

Hmmm not the battery idea again. I measured the corner weights of the coupe and the right front is already much heavier than the left front. Take away the battery and your making an even larger weight difference, add the driver and it gets bigger still !

Maybe a good mod on your LHD euro coupes where the driver balances out the wieght difference but not so good on our RHD coupes.

I was also looking at that over the weekend, but as said i dont see how it would benefit for the same reasons as Jimbo.

Ross

Yeah its a shame that, it would be useful shifting a chunk of weight to the rear.

i was thinking about these, has anyone any pics to how how they work? if its wat im thinking doesnt it lead to a weak point in the suspension?

It's a replacement for the upper bolt (of 2) in the strut/hub:
http://sfk.ibk.se/depa/showfile.php?carpic_no=1011&type=picture

Be sure to tighten to the prescribed torque.

so wat is it exactly? an excentric washer?

I think it's profiled kind of like a cam lobe, so you can effectively change what angle the strut meets the hub.

yeah.. looks like it alright.. i would have thot that altering the angle at which the hub means the strut would have added extra stress?

how does it work though without making the hole oval on the strut?

Or is the bolt actually thinner than the original? allowing the movement?

where can i get the H&R camberbolts? as they dont list them for the coupe. what are people with fk silverlines using??

Will those not wear the tyres out quickly on the edges though!?

They have a slotted top hole for the hub carrier so adjustment is made by rocking the hub inwards.

I wouldnt run anymore than -1.3' on a road car, anymore and your just going to scrub the inside of the tyres and create wandering.

to get the best handling coupe you really want
- Coilovers
- front and rear antiroll bars
- strutbrace
- Strut chasis reinforcement bar
- front lower strutbrace
- polybushed wishbones and droplinks
- seam-welded front subframe
- uprated rear subframe bushes
- 10mm hubcentric spacers front and rear (maybe even 15mm front)
As well as refreshing everything else

I think that people should first consider what the definition of "Good Handling" is. It may not actually be: "a setup which gives me the fastest time on a smooth track" for everyone. Just buying/using a whole list of suspension mods for your car may not actually give you a good handling car for normal A and B roads, and may end up being crashy and non-confidence inspiring.

If you want a setup that can handle normal roads and allow you to progress whilst maintaining confidence (i.e. dispatching cambers/bumps/adverse conditions without being crashy/or snapping on the limit etc...) then I would consider renewing the obvious wishbones/links etc..., then go about modifying sections of the car to give the result you desire. Having thick uprated ARBs front and rear, a strut brace, poly bushes and coilovers will no doubt mean the car will corner differently (i.e. roll less, turn in sharply, be easier to induce lift off oversteer (less prone to understeer), etc.. etc...) but then you may find that the car is all over the place when you hit a bump, and is very snappy on the limit (either during power understeer, or lift oversteer).

Think about where you drive your car, how you drive your car, and how adjustable the setup is. I felt a difference in the way my car soaks up bumps/potholes when I fitted JUST a strutbrace to my car, and the difference between that and Gouki's car on 18s, with a bilstein/eibach setup is completely non-comparible, and may not be what people actually want to experience for everyday driving. When you read the articles in EVO, they actually much prefer cars where you have a good feeling of what grip is avail, and cars that soak up bumps/potholes, and they actually hate cars that are crashy and uncompromising. I suppose it comes down to what you can live with or put up with, for the compromise that you have to make (i.e. comfort/performance) but then consider where you do the most miles in your car (road/track) and what roads you use (or where you live)before choosing what to do.

the beauty of coilovers is that you can match your compliance requirements by choosing the correct spring and damping rate. With the list of mods I've listed none of them have a negative effect on the handling on less than perfect roads except your choice of springs and dampers. They would all make you faster point-to-point regardless of surface but dependent on the springs and damping.
As for feel I think you will find that these modifications also make the steering feel much better than what was lets face it a very average standard setup.

Are there any other cars that use the same droplinks as the coupe? In particular, ones you can get poly bushes for?

I've never seen it mentioned before other than someone making their own.

dunno about droplinks or ARB bushes for that matter

Aren't some Alfa bits compatable with the Coupe?! Thought it's been mentioned previously.....

http://www.alfamanservices.co.uk/index.htm

Mark

Thats not completely accurate in my understanding mate, fitting a strut brace or thicker anti roll bars do have negative effects on handling:



taken from the wiki page on "sway bars".

So it depends on what you're trying to achieve, there aren't many things you can modify wrt suspension and not see some sort of compromise (i.e. some improvements in performance/vs various negative effects).

You've got to apply the theory to the problem tho. The anti-roll bar I have is a mild uprated bar and it does not exhibit the behavior described. Otherwise why have antiroll bars at all?
The mild uprated antirollbar I have is OE on some other cars of the same chassis.