More Suspension Questions

domtoni · Post by **domtoni** » Fri Jan 06, 2006 3:43 pm

Anyone have experience with a good suspension alignment shop in the greater West Midlands area? I am south of Wolverhampton.

Also, does anyone have experience rebuilding Koni shocks and know of piece part availability? The Koni service agent for the UK wants as much to rebuild the old units as new shocks. New units are substantially cheaper in Germany than through the official UK agents.

Thanks
Dom

veryporky · Post by **veryporky** » Mon Jan 09, 2006 1:23 pm

The Koni agent I used a few years ago was in the Farnborough Hants area - is that the same one who gave you the rubbish rebuild quote?

domtoni · Post by **domtoni** » Mon Jan 09, 2006 1:33 pm

Company was Sportsline Suspension in Brackley Northampton.

Probably not the same guy.

Ciao
Dom

impmad2000 · Post by **impmad2000** » Mon Jan 09, 2006 1:35 pm

There's a guy here in Leicester who set up a friends 911 to great effect. Chris at GC racing. (0116 283 2211)
He looks after some race 911's and will set what you like, Road /Race or midway between.
Cheers
Tim

domtoni · Post by **domtoni** » Mon Jan 09, 2006 1:41 pm

Thanks Tim. I just spoke to Chris and he made me a pretty good offer.

If the car is set up right, the job takes 5 hours.

The guys who did the job before had the car for less than a day, and charged me a ton more money.

Dom

davidppp · Post by **davidppp** » Mon Jan 09, 2006 1:52 pm

Hello, Dom.

My advice, given you seem pretty hands-on, is to do it all yourself.

I have experince of both..and have actaully used the gizmos, but bstill prefer the string method.

The accuracy will be at least as good as the fancy gizmos, and you will know how to do it next time..and play with the settings to suit your style, tyres etc..

I have seen some amazing errors from the so-called experts!

It will take you about two days done slowly and carefully, and making some simple tools for next to no cost..

I know of no-one in the Formula race world who uses the gizmos..

Kind regards
David

domtoni · Post by **domtoni** » Mon Jan 09, 2006 2:06 pm

Thanks David for your comments.

Back in the dark ages, when I lived in the states, and had hair on my head, a friend raced a Formula 4 car. The car did not handle, and the car was so far off alignment that it was a handful.

We devised the string method and found the car to be so much better afterwards. I thought that everyone used sophisicated equipment to set their cars up correctly.

Are what you proposing similar to what Pelican has in their technical articles, using hand made tools.

Thanks David.

Dom

davidppp · Post by **davidppp** » Mon Jan 09, 2006 2:43 pm

Hello again Dom.

Yes I'm aware there is loads on pp...

The best set up for speed assuming you do it more than once is to make a pair of light but stiff sticks or beams...say 1 inch 18g steel...just about two inches wider than the car at mid-wheel height.

Find some means of fixing them front and back in reproducible positions, and make them parallel and square with the strings.

The rest is I'm sure pretty obvious to you..

Camber and castor needs a level..but not anything fancy...

The only slightly iffy bit is setting the torsion bar heights.
i'd suggest simply driving the car once set up OK on the basics, then fiddling with torsion bar settings, ...but it is possible to use corner weight measurements........

Most people Italk to get into a real muddle trying to use corner weights, and I am not convinced this is better than setting by simply driving testing it..

But before getting that far, you may uncover some discrepancies in the positions of the fixed poiunts in the body, or bent bits in the suspension.

In fact, you almost certainly will!

There are actually only eight really important points yto check first.:
Six if you regard the rear torsion tubes as the datum..

start at the rear torsion tubes..I fix a bit of steel to the lower rear bolt and run a string forward parallel to the basic frame string(just sight it) both sides, then measure to the bottom of the sterring crossmember , and the inner bolt of the front suspension pickup.

Check the diagonals too.

Then check the position of the strut tops..if the rear tosion tube is set horizontal witha spirit level, its easy to put a level across the front crossmeber and the strut tops and the front pickups.

Its a bit more difficult to check the lateral position unless you can drop a line down and measure to the string..the way rtound this is to use a beamacross both strut tops , dropping veticals to the strut end and the string.

this also gives the fore and aft position of the strut tops..

Kind regards
David

domtoni · Post by **domtoni** » Mon Jan 09, 2006 2:58 pm

Thanks again David for the insight.

Unfortunatly I don't have the mechanical ability you do, but I trust my mechanic can do the job.

More later.

Dom