Thought I should share the latest mods to the suspension on the rally car - don't try this at home kids!
We all know that the V6 has an "interesting" handling trait on the limit, brought on as a consequence of short wheelbase and rear weight bias. In addition the standard car has a steering lock like a 747 so when it gets sideways, you run out of lock almost immediately, inertia takes over and round you go.
Apart from a few sacks of cement in the front, there is not much we can do about the weight but we have been attempting to improve the other factors - wheelbase and steering lock.
The first component is the front subframe - donated by Winnies rallycross car. The first shot is the original subframe with the steering rack mounted above the rear of the subframe. In front is the power steering pump (we run electric pas rather than the engine driven std set up). The second shot is the new subframe and you can see that the rack is now mounted 2" further forward by inserting another rear subframe member in front of the original.
At the same time, we took out the lock stops in the rack which prevent the wheel fouling against the inner arches on the road car. In fact, our problem was that on full lock the wheel clouted the forward anti roll bar drop link - the silver rose jointed links on the first pic below. The second shows the roll bar rose jointed direct to the wishbone on the new set up.
Finally, the wishbone mounts are moved forward by 2":
By now, the steering column was also 2" short of reaching the rack so Scott and Rupert spent many a happy hour cajoling an Escort Gp4 steering joint between the two only to find that the whole assembly now had extra articulation - in other words, the flexible joint made the steering column all wibbly-wobbly! A large rose joint was mounted under the dash to steady the whole affair and a bronze bush turned to make it a tight fit. Too tight as it turned out!
If all this seems drastic, the second part of the job is the big one!
All the lower mounts are now 2" further forward but the top mounts are in the original position so, when viewed from the side, the shock absorbers lean at a drunken angle toward the front of the car instead of being vertical. This is the castor setting and instead of 1 degree we had 15 degrees - and a rally that weekend...
Within 100 yards of the start I knew we had a serious problem. I could turn into the hairpins but my weedy body just did not have the strength to turn the lock off. Castor controls the self-centering action of the steering and Popeye couldn't drive this thing! If you can imagine turning a corner and the steering locking in the full-lock position - that's what we had and in a few places Steve AND I were hauling on the wheel to get the car straight.
You can read the Tour of Cornwall report elsewhere but on with the mods.
Safely back at SG Motorsport, Scott and Rupert set about the top mounts - here is the before:
And now having seen the angle grinder:
Next up are Rupert's delicate fingers trying to fashion something for it all to mount to and the tower completed:
The gold cylinder poking out is the new 3-way Ohlins suspension that has replaced our trusty Bilstein setup. Finally we have a fully adjustable top-mount allowing us to set the camber AND CASTOR properly.
And the final result is pretty clear to see - look at the position of the front wheel in this early shot of the car compared with the position after all this agony!
Finally, a couple for James at v6clio.net, just so that you know we are thinking about you!
