Nick just the man...
As im typing im looking through all Alans data sheets what a shame he passed away, as id love some real help and advice on suspension and not somebody charging me £50/hour to make the car go slower, been there done that.
Anyway ill try to explain it.
In 2006 my brother had the metro and he went off at Donington and snapped a shocker. Some miglia guy sold us a pair of trax spax like the ones that had broke. at the time I was quite naive and just banged them on thinking little more about it, god knows were the broken ones went. so im unsure of if any how different these are to the one you saw in 1997.
In 2007 I bought the car and raced it with the 1380cc engine I did ok in it but never went as quick as my bro which is strange as normally Id match him or be a tad quicker, years went past trying to get the 1293cc supercharged engine to go as Id hoped with blowups and court cases, in this time suspension wasn't a thought as the car hardly ran.
Anyway once we started building our own engines things looked good big power and touch wood fingers crossed reliable.
so now I can feel where the car is fast and slow,
One area were its feels slow bearing in mind that the car is so much quicker now than back in the day due to the supercharged engine and im now right at the front with the quick cars is through chicanes were everyone else is using lots of kerb. Now ive tried using kerb but the car hate it and throws me every-which way but forward. not good. so I find myself lifting and using a tighter line so in fact slower this amplifies at places like croft were there is 3/4s of a mile of straight just after so im slow through the bend which make me slower down the straights if you follow, Now when the car was 1380cc I wasnt going as quick upto these chicanes so Im thinking before I never noticed it, and when with slower cars you dont notice these things!!!
So ive been looking at the front suspension and found that at 4.1/4 inch of ride height like Alan stated even with just me jumping on the front end its coil bound which is why Im thinking the car hates kerbs. So if I wind the coil platform down it has more coil travel but then it sits to low. So I replaced the 6" spring with 7 inch and all though this has helped the coil binding its like the space were the shocker sits from top arm to chassis is to small.
so
im now extending the top alloy rose joint to sit above the chassis this has basically give me 40mm more and i can use the platform to get the ride height I need.
In doing this ive taken droop out the suspension.
Alan commented on how little bump the car had in 1997 and how much droop it had to.
Ive not measured yet exactly how much droop it has now but that is my job tomorrow.
But before I finish the final position of were the top mount will sit im thinking about how much droop I will need not to break traction it has got a lsd but I dont want it lifting a front wheel.
But in the back of my mind Im thinking of how well the car went back in pinder days, But also thinking im now circuit racing with higher speeds etc... Am I doing the right thing!!
Reading the notes in detail it says that the metro in 1997 was nearly on its bump stops and had 1.5 inch of bump which I think is measured at the wheel not the damper.
If you can follow this any imput would be nice..
Edited by MIGLIACARS, 13 July 2017 - 06:05 PM.