[Cloud9...68]

Fascinating stuff - once I get past all the maintenance/repairs I'm doing to my car (new clutch, flywheel, fix all leaks, repair tear in firewall, etc.), I look forward to delving into the mysterious subject of suspension set-up. Glad to see there is a lot of expertise on the subject.

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[firefish]

Doing the polybronze means that you will be dropping the whole rear (well, I guess you could get by without it but why?) and if I were you I'd replace the lower mount and get a mono ball for the rear arm too while at it. You'll need an alignment anyway and the price of the extra parts is nothing compared to having to redo it in the nearby future. You might even consider replacing the rear wheel bearings too...



I do not know what the rules dictate but if you don't have to keep 'em, lose the t-bars!



How much can the Motons take? I'm running customed Ledas and the are maxed out at my running 1100 in the back. In "stock" form they'd probably crap out at 800.

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[flash]

that was a worry of mine too - the hydraulic konis and carreras i have can't handle springs that stiff

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[steve g]

For the Moton Clubsports, can the stock torsion bars be used in addittion to a coilover spring ?

I understand that some folks remove the torsion bars completely to simplify future adjustments by simply changing coilover springs.

Per the stock class rules, I need to keep a torsion bar.

One recommendation I have heard is that the existing bar is replaced with a 10MM bar, thus minimizing its effect and therefore another cost is incurred to do that.



Couldn't I simply add the new coilover spring and keep the existing torsion bars to give me the effective rate needed.



Or is there something about the dynamic interaction between the coilover spring and the torsion bar that I am missing ?

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[Dubai944]

^ I don't run torsion bars so I don't know what the differnece in feel is between a torsion/coil combo and a coil only combo at the same effective rate, but I don't imagine there is much difference.



Firefish, I run relatively stiff springs 1100F/1000R. The Motons on my car are excellent with no control issues. I think they would still be fine even with a fair bit more spring rate.

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[Cloud9...68]

"Doing the polybronze means that you will be dropping the whole rear (well, I guess you could get by without it but why?) and if I were you I'd replace the lower mount and get a mono ball for the rear arm too while at it. "



So to really take the compliance out of the suspension to significantly improve the car's track-worthiness, it sounds like the recommended set-up is as follows (taken from Elephant Racing's diagrams):



Front: Replace front and rear bushings with mononalls (aka spherical busings)



Rear:



- Replace training arm bushings with monoballs

- Replace spring plate bearings with polybronze

- Replace stock spring plate rear mounts with solid ones



Anything else? And is there an order of priority on these items, in terms of bang for the buck? Or, given the work involved to install them, is it best to just do everything at once? Among the items, it sounds like the spring plate bearings are the most work to replace. Sorry for the dumb questions, but I'm just at the beginning stages of converting my car from a street car to one that is much more capable of holding its own on the track. And I realize this isn't really on the topic of spring rates, but it does all sort of relate, right...?

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[flash]

i don't see the advantage of replacing the spring plate rear mounts except in a full-on race car



the spring plate bushings are required if you plan to delete the torsion bars - the rubber bushings cannot support the load and without the torsion bar, and just floating in the housing



while the spring plate bushings are a pain, only because you have to remove the rubber which is bonded in place, actually replacing the rear control arm bushings is the hardest - getting those out of there is a real bugger

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[Cloud9...68]

So is there any advantage to going with polybronze spring plate bearings on a car that is going to keep (at least for the time being) its torsion bars? My goal is to take as much slop out of the suspension (and the chassis, thus my interest in the chassis brace) as possible.



And thanks for the feedback on the sprng plate rear mounts - I'll de-prioritize that for now.

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[flash]

it tightens up the rear suspension - the OEM rubber bushings allow a certain amount of flex, which can create some odd handling issues, especially during transitions and weight transfers

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[Cloud9...68]

Boy, you got that right. The track I drive on most has a series of quick left/right/left turns, and I literally have to turn the wheel, wait for the chassis to settle, turn again, wait, and repeat. I'm sure I'm losing a ton of time rocking and rolling through this part of the track.

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[firefish]

I would definitely replace the spring plate bushing with a poly bronze setup if I were doing the rear again. I would NOT fit a urethane or graphite bushing there since I've heard bad things about them, mainly that they fail prematurely. The poly bronze, if you lube it regularly, should last forever.



Dropping the rear is a pretty straight forward job and the only real pain is removing the exhaust in one piece and maybe bleeding the rear brakes (but that's because I hate rust and brake bleeding). Once the drive shafts are gone, fishy 12 mm XZN I believe it is, the whole rear is attached to the car at only six points (eight if you count the shocks or coil overs), all of which are easy to access.



But if you don't want to do all this but get a little more feed back from the rear I suggest that you keep the stock spring plate bushing and the rear arm bushing and go solid on the three mounts per side were the rear bolts to the car. They are replaceable, I think, without having to take the car apart. At least I know for sure that the rear spring plate mount and the rear axle mount is. The forward mount can be tricky as you need to drop the axle a couple of inches but I think it's doable.



   

   

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[Dubai944]

I don't know what other do when fitting the spring plate bushings but I found a great way of removing the bonded rubber was to use a stiff nylon brush wheel fitting on the end of a drill. The rubber burned of easily and the metal got a nice polish at the same time. If you do fit the polybronze you have to dril and tap holes for the lube nipples. Make sure you think through the location of the nipples for ease of access for lubrication. I was a bit thoughtless putting mine in and once the suspension was back together I realised I was going to have trouble getting the grease gun in on one side due to inteferenece. For the sake of a few mm's I curse myself every time I lube them <img src="/forum/images/smilies/968/rolleyes.gif" class="smilie" alt="" />

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[Cloud9...68]

I noticed Pelican stocks a special tool for removing the spring plate bushing that costs $85, so thanks for your tip, and saving those of us who soon will be doing this the expense.

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[firefish]

As said, you don't need a special tool for that. I used a torch and burned the rubber off (not too hot though...).

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[Cloud9...68]

Firefish,



Thanks for the confirmation that a special tool isn't needed. My garage floor will resemble yours in a few weeks (minus the lift - I'm so jealous!) in terms of the suspension parts that will soon be scattered all over the place.



I noticed from your signature that you went with Racers Edge bushings as opposed to Elephant Racing, which seem to be very popular with a lot of people. Did you find some advantage to Racer's Edge, or were they on the car when you bought it?



Also, what were the main things you did to get 200 lbs out of the car? And do you race it, or just use it for track days? Your set-up sounds very nice, and contains many of the elements that I will probably have on my car soon. Thanks.

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[flash]

yeah - i did the "torch and wire brush on a drill" method - worked fine, but made a real mess - covered everything in rubber dust

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[firefish]

Hmmm, did I mention 200lbs somewhere? I cannot remember. But it sounds about right anyway. Main loss was seats as the Sparcos are way lighter that the stock buckets. The rest is a lot of "little bit of this and a little bit of that". The RS Barn cat back is another great gain. The sound system was another 10 lbs give or take. But I still haven't fitted the lexan rear hatch and my fancy battery (there goes another 40 lbs) and the front lights are to be removed (about 15 lbs per side). My fog lights are gone in favor of intakes for brake cooling. LED drl's are much lighter. Passenger airbag is a couple of pounds and so was the CS wheel compared to the OMP I have now. And the junk in the trunk. And so on...



Why Racers Edge? Well, Elephant didn't have everything I needed (being the torsion tube carrier mounts - where the tube is bolted to the car) but I chose RE mostly because Pete at RSB claims that they have better bearings/seals and I have chosen to buy most of my parts through him. Plus I already had the RE camber plates and since they worked great I figured why not. Price is about the same.



My car "only" had the Ledas, albeit not in their current configuration, and Sparcos when I got the car. Everything else is me. And it is not a race car, it is my three season daily driver and track toy.



And the garage is unfortunately not mine. My friend, whos knee is shown in pic, runs a shop about some five minutes walk from where I live. Only disadvantage is that the car can go in on Friday evening but has to be out by Sunday afternoon.



The whole rear, including longer studs for rear hubs, took the better part of a day for me and him. That is how we normally do stuff, working in pair on his car one day and on my car the next - more efficient and a lot nicer.



And as flash said, be prepared for some serious mess when burning/grinding off the old bushings. It is a task best performed outside.

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[Cloud9...68]

Thanks for the thorough answer. I'm encouraged by the fact that despite the fact that you've done a lot of fairly "aggressive" things to your car, it is still usable as a daily driver. Mine has never been a daily driver (I commute in a vanpool to work), so I guess I can make it a lot more track-worthy, and still be able to drive it on weekends on the street.

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[firefish]

Thank you.



What is acceptable as a DD is fairly individual. I don't mind the firmness of my ride, the only thing that 'bugs' me is the seats as they take a little more effort to get in-and-out but it's not that bad unless you have lots of stops (ie picking up stuff for the wife on the way home in five different stores...) + that the buckle for the seat belt is sitting in a tricky position to reach (I don't use the race belts for plain road driving).



My car is quite heavily springed as compared to what I sense that you normally run "over there". As a result I don't need to set my shocks that hard to get what I want. And in MY opinion my way is better. I often see cars with weak springs that compensate with high settings on the shocks and that makes for a very harsh ride and it is also not nice to the car.

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[flash]

way too many people do in fact set their shocks too high for the springs they have - they just don't understand how things work - shocks are only there to slow down the spring - they are not there to stiffen suspensions - it sounds like you did it right

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