Further Lowering Sydneykid Road Kit?

[bradsm87]

I'm really wanting my car to sit a bit lower than it sits at the moment with the sydneykid road kit. I was thinking of changing the front control springs to flatout springs and lowering the rear spring retainer by one notch on the bilstein shock. At the moment, i never, ever hit the bump stops up front and very occasionally do on the rear under acceleration with 2 ppl in the back under acceleration but I can chop a bit off the bumpstop and be more careful if i lower it. I already have 2 camber kits on the rear so my rear camber will still be OK. Are there any problems I should expect doing this?

Cheers,

Brad

[Sydneykid]

The bump stops in the kit are very compliant, so I doubt that you are not hitiing them, just not feeling it as harsh as you might expect.

Are you already on the lowest circlip grooves on the front and rear? If so, you are at the limit of the suspension geometry. Regardless of where you set the static camber, the dynamic camber change will start going positive, you will have noticeable bump steer and the extreme drive shaft angles will start to soak up even more power than they currently are.

If you avoid the rear problems, by keeping it at the same height, and simply lower the front some more, you will have a few additional issues. Firstly, increased roll oversteer as the front CoG will be lower than the rear CoG, we have found that the recommended 10 mm rake (nose down) is the best. Lower the front only and you will end up with more than the ideal rake. Plus the front centre of roll will be below ground, so the roll couple will be somewhat larger. Hence you will get more roll at the front than would otherwise be the case. This will manifest itself as excessive wieght transfer to the outside front tyre and it will understeer accordingly.

Add the major symptoms together and you will get understeer on the way into a corner, oversteer on the way out and unpredictable toe angle changes (bump steer) if you hit a bump mid corner.

So, yeh nothing to worry, about as long as you don't mind bad handling.

Cheers

Gary

[bradsm87]

Are you already on the lowest circlip grooves on the front and rear?

Not at all. I'm on the circlip that it came with and have 3 or 4 more to go lower. I just want to lower it one more clip. Also, I'm guessing it would help that the flatout springs are stiffer than the controls which will help to not bottom out a bit.

Front: It's an S14. Mcpherson strut. Non-adjustable height.

Edited December 24, 2007 by bradsm87

[BAMR33]

SK, what was the recommended circlip groove for an r33 gtst with the Bilstein group buy suspension?

[Sydneykid]

SK, what was the recommended circlip groove for an r33 gtst with the Bilstein group buy suspension?

The standard one.

The 4th one (counting from the bottom).

Most importantly, the one that gives 350 mm front and 340 mm rear.

Happy New Year

Gary

[BAMR33]

Cheers Gary, and happy new year for you too.