.
Having sorted the failed oil line I thought it was time to address something else which would take the development of the car forward rather than dealing with things gone wrong.
Although the car had been set up by Autofarm first by something of a 'stick and string' method and then on some fancy suspension geometry kit I was not entirely convinced that the car handled as well as it might. Or put another way I like to think, probably wrongly, that my driving ability exceeded the competence of the car. Arrogant? Probably.
There were things about the handling which I was not sure about:
Turn in was generally good but I felt it could be improved upon.
On tightish bends or roundabouts the steering loaded up and especially on broken surfaces the front end would 'skip' a little. I attributed the "skipping' to overly hard dampers at the front.
On entering a sharp a bend, and carrying too much speed necessitating mid bend steering correction to avoid the front end running slightly wide, there was a limited steering response.
Changing lanes on a motorway, for example, required what I felt was a significant steering input.
The car had a tendency to pull to the left on roads with a big camber. I accepted that some pull like this was not unusual but it was the degree to which this happened I was unhappy with.
There was the occasional noise from the rear on broken road surfaces.
I have read countless accolades to Centre Gravity but was always a little sceptical. Given that the same kit Hunter or Biesbarth was used in lots of places how could Chris Franklin of CG be any better? Despite the above reservation I booked the car into CG and after a couple of months wait ( they are that busy) arrived at 8.30am in Atherstone. It's a two hour drive from my home so this had better be worthwhile.
Chris asked me about my impressions of the car and what I was trying to achieve. He then drove the car around a route they use: fast dual carriageway with good road surface, lots of roundabouts, hump back bridge, poor surfaces B roads, cobbled road etc. The idea I think is to replicate as many road variations as possible to see how the car responds.
He asked what bushes I had on the suspension and he was satisfied that I had fresh , from the rebuild of the car, standard 'rubber' bushes.
Back on the ramp the tire pressures were checked and measurements taken between wheels and wheel arch. A preliminary "before" was taken of the geometry settings using the Hunter kit. First the rear and then the front suspension was "jiggled" up and down to assess the performance of the dampers and a graphical read out was produced of the up and down oscillations. Front dampers far too stiff as expected. The rear was fine. Then on to setting up the suspension. Adjustments made and Hunter consulted for the result. Car taken out by Chris for a test drive. Back on the ramp and further adjustment. Another test drive. And so on. Chris continually told me what he was doing which I was interested in. Of course there is the option just to leave your car and collect it later when it is done.
When Chris felt the set up was right I took the car, accompanied by Chris, to a drive around the locality. A very distinctive difference in the way the car handled. The issues described earlier sorted except that the damper inserts at the front needed replacing with something a bit more compliant. Surprise was that the rear drop link bushes were old ones and not new so they were replaced. This was the noise from the rear of the car. Minor wear in one of the steering rack bushes. This is a job for another day.
I finally left around 6.00pm. Awful journey back in the dark and pouring rain and headlights pointing about three feet from the front of the car. First time used in the dark.
Sent from my SM-G950F using Tapatalk