In reply to ill_climber :
Nice! I used the first gen forte upper plates I had on the Rio for caster and ended up with about 6.8* of caster as well. Completely changed the feel of the steering.
In reply to ill_climber :
Nice! I used the first gen forte upper plates I had on the Rio for caster and ended up with about 6.8* of caster as well. Completely changed the feel of the steering.
Lots of progress this weekend. I got the lower strut mounts sorted out. They needed brackets for the sway bar links and brake hoses.
Then as a bit of a last minute decision, I decided to pull the crossmember. I didn't take may photos cos I was in a hurry but essentially I cut the top and bottom off the rubber bushes and made up lock plates and spacers. The forward mount point went up 10mm, the rear went down 5. This gave me 3 degrees anti lift, raises my front roll centre and solid mounts everything.
Next was just to reassemble the struts and uprights. Pretty happy with how it turned out.
Next with it all back on the ground was setup. I ballasted the drivers seat with weight to simutate me in the car and set the preload on the springs. I wanted the car to sit a little higher than the previous set-up as it had less than 100mm clearance and the lca angles were not ideal. I was able to leave the left side with no preload and needed 5mm on the right to level it up. looks like the 6kg springs will be about right for a start. I checked the camber at -2 degrees. I got out my string lines and dialled in 1mm toe out per side.
I tried out the adjusters too. When pushing down on the car by hand at full open there seems to be good amounts of compliance, full closed and it hardly moves at all. I'll 3D print some covers for the tops to protect the pivot bearing from moisture.
As promised I 3d printed some covers out of tpu to keep moisture and dirt out of the top strut bearing.
When I had the crossmember out I noticed the the lower engine mount was pretty sad and had been allowing too much movement. I fabricated a new one from steel pipe and fitted tpu bushes using the sleeves recovered from the old mount.
Once that was sorted it was time to tackle the rear Coil overs. Things are pretty tight in length and girth so will require some head scratching.
After quite a bit of messing around with ideas for mounting the rear coil overs, I cam up with the below setup for the lower mounts. Turns out this is the only photo I took. Ooops. I got some spherical bearings with weld on cups and made the below braketery and welded it all out with the tig. These fit to the lower mount on custom machines bobbins.
There was a bit of trial and error on the uppers but they fit directly into the car with some custom 3D printed TPU bushes to locate correctly.
Anyway, the car is back on the road for a while now. Handling and general control is much improved. I'm back at my usual hill climb this week end so very interested to see if i can better my PB.
In reply to ill_climber :
Hi.
I happened upon your exploits through a Google search and, boy, am I glad.
My Getz [Euro 1.4 GSi 5d, 2006] has had the 'modding mallet' applied, since buying it on my birthday.. Y'know - wife says "treat yourself, chuck".
Your exhaustive quest for mods + tweaks and to go Hillclimbing... Sounds both daunting & thrilling, in equal measure. Very Well Done.
My car is bone stock but 'refreshed'... New BOGE rear dampers were DEFINITELY needed .... And the ditch finder 14" tyres got binned c/w upgrading to GM 15x6 steels with Sumitomo 185/60 rubber.
My 'icon' 8-ball, I bought off eBay & drilled 12MM to fit my gearstick - the threaded top I chopped off! It is a really nice handful and heavy (to keep mass in the 'throw') but a bit shorter.
In the early Eighties I modded Hillman IMPs, great days....
All the very best to you and a great read... Here in UK.
tooSavvy
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