Had my coop abot six months but keep getting dusted round corners by Megane Sports and lowered Saxos! What are my options? ( Don't suggest a driving course! )

shoot yourself if your not even beating saxos The fiat is alot heavier at the front end i think compared to most cars, but i suppose main thing would be to upgrade your suspension, lowering it slightly, stiffening it up (and not in a sexual way) make it toight like toiger.

Drive faster on the straights, so you have plenty of time to get in and out of the bends before the other cars arrive there

seriously, use ur power to ur advantage. the coop is a very old design based on an even older chassis. ur not gonna out-handle modern chassis with modern suspension designs no matter what trick suspension bits u put in. the dead rear suspension geometry makes the car very hard to tune for balance and understeer is still a very big problem, viscuous LSD, ARB or whatever.

i recently ran against the new JDM Civic Type-R at the Sepang track and stock-vs-stock it simply blew me out of the water. i instruct at sepang so im fairly decent there but the CTR disappeared after 4 turns.

redd

PM Highwayman.

IIRC Phil had most of the handling / upgrade mods available.

Oh and you could upgrade your braking system so you can brake much later into the corners.

Jimbo and Cosmo also done lots of work on handling.

Search through the forum, there are loads of options, but lots and lots of discussion on it!

Here are my suspension/handling mods and the car does handle very well.

Polybushed front wishbones
Eibach springs
Uprated front ARB
Uprated rear ARB
Koni adjustable shocks front
LEDA adjustable shocks rear
Adjustable camber plates at front
Track widened with hubcentric spacers by 20mm total front and back
Sparco Strut Brace
Lower Sub Frame Brace

Most People Will Swap the Koni's and Leda's for Bilstein Dampers.

afer fitting konis and a strut brace to mine i still wasnt 100% happy with the handling.

i then fitted some carelli group buy seats , best thing i ever bought - with the old seats going around the slightest bend thought i was going to die, with the new seats i feel so much more confident and as a reult you can push harder.

dont overlook the seats

]

Shoehorn the Coop interior, exterior and engine into a mk3 MR2.

(Yes, I had considered keeping the Coops engine beyond the life of the car for this purpose!)

off topic, but when i was working at toyota, ive often thought that the 3s-gte lump (mr2 turbo & celica gt 4 engine) would fit in the mk3. very tuneable engines, with more parts available than for the coupe. (a bit smaller in physical size too)

now what would really float my boat, so to speak would be the gt4 drivetrain incorporated also,

4wd mid engined mr2


*Back on topic alert* - to start with springs &shocks + a stut brace would make a big difference (as has been mentioned0

you would struggle to send the power forwards and backwards on a mid-engined setup with any sort of off the shelf transmission

Thx for all the replies - My 1st time on the forum so thx v much. Sounds like the Eibach / Bilstein set up would be best.How much do you reckon is would cost? I'm no mechanic. I need new discs and pads so shall I upgrade to LE spec? I live near PowerFiat so I spose they could do a lot of this for me.

I squash the Saxos on the straights but on roundabouts ... I HATE understeer! Can you recommend any tyres? TOYO T1-rs seem popular...

Thanks for that. Now I understand why coop owners seem to chase BHP. Think I'll upgrade the springs/shocks/brakes/tyres and leave it at that. Cheers.

dba discs and pagid pads would be a good brake combination. have a look in the group buy section, not sure if its still running though!

ive just bought but not fitted yet

Bilstien dampers
Eibach Springs
Eibach Front & Rear ARB's
Wishbones
trackrod ends
top mounts

you are looking at about 1k then the fitting.

Paul.

I've just bought the same springs and dampers. Asked Roger at PowerFiat about the ARBs and he didn't recommend getting them - so I didn't bother.

i do recommend the ARB's, as there is no doubt that they offer an improvment.

HOWEVER - if your car is standard there are several other things you can do before buying ARB's, and most road users find Shocks and springs are enough to give a firm, good handling setup.

Ah, thanks for the clarification Roger!

So I should have said, didn't recommend them for me!

ditto on the ARB, especially the rear. definitely recommended.

redd

Provide yourself with KW's and T1-R's, then laugh at other cars puny handling skills.


BWAHAHAHAHA.

To keep a nice ride but have much improved handling:

Standard springs
Bilstein Dampers
Eibach front and rear anti-roll bars

Ahh Bliss

My setup:

- eibach springs
- electronic suspension control
- rear anti roll bar
- polybushed wishbones
- welded subframe
- lower and upper strutbrace
- solid rear mounts
- uprated rear and front ARB
- some camber
- 17" wheels with widened track
- Toyo R888

What on earth is that ?


My set up:

Leda Front Coilovers
Leda Rear Dampers with adjustable ride height springs.
OMP Strut Brace
OMP Lower Brace
Eibach Front and Rear Anti-Roll Bars
Poly Bushed Wishbones
Widened Track
-1.2 Camber on the front.
Light weight black plastic dust caps on all 4 wheels.

I am buying highywaymans coupe and i can tell you the handling is amazing so if you copy his set up you wont go wrong.

[/quote]
Light weight black plastic dust caps on all 4 wheels.

now theres a mod i never thought of,lmao

I was thinking the same lol.

Dink has a dedra or delta or something Jimbo, apparently comes with that as standard?

I have a wonderfully balanced (just a tad oversteer) Coupe now with a great deal of comfort for long trips:

Eibach springs (30mm)
Bilstein B6 shocks
Whiteline 22mm rear ARB
H&R CC112 Camberbolts front, -1.5deg camber
Toyo R888 225/45-16
Battery in the boot/sparewell
LE/Plus/Sparco front strutbar
Recaro seats (essential to FEEL the car!)

If you want to start off and steadily improve, as I'm doing, I can recommend starting with a sparco strutbrace, and then go for the Bilstien B6 with standard Springs. The shocks provide a more stable ride and the car is flatter round corners. The ride is also comfortably firm on the standard springs. Plus the shocks seem to get better and better I love the way the coop feels at the moment. It's far more chuckable, however there is still room for improvement!

I posted this a couple of years ago after a long torturous period testing setups. Jimbo did a lot more later and I've lost touch what the best is now. I reckon Bilstein/ Eibach will take some beating as an all round setup.

Unfortunately, I had to buy an M3 to make my Coop handle. Ride was pants though.

Has anyone replaced the rubber bushes in the wishbones with something less flexible like bearings?

They're good enough for the trailing arms at the back...

I'll just second the recommendation for Eibach/Bilstein setup - my own car has the following

Eibach springs
Bilstein dampers
Sparco strut brace
Nigel custom lower subframe brace
22mm Whiteline rear ARB

The car is much flatter through corners, has considerably less understeer than standard and the ride is not too harsh (the coupe is my only car and is used every day - I couldnt live with a really harsh ride)

However, if you're going to uprate springs/dampers, make sure all your other suspension components are in good condition - I'd recommend new wishbones, track rod end, droplinks and top mounts

Also, as has been mentioned, uprating the braking system is a good idea - I've got Red Dot grooved discs and fast road pads on the front - they are MUCH better than standard (lots of people run the 3G/Pagrid combo)