so, onwards with the mods...so as finally the snow has melted away, it was finally time to slap these beauties on. Brand spanking new PFF7's with PZero Rosso boots on!!
and now it was the turn of the dreaded rear shockers going pop.
Sounded like the rear diff was locking at random during initial moving off from standstill, and then again around left handers. So went for a complete swap out with the BC ER series. Yes I know Exe-TC would of been preferred, but for what I paid for the BR stuff I can't complain!! Plus they come with top mounts all round too.
Setting up was the first thing, so measured standard ride height..355mm and 350mm as per other post.
Jacking car up and taking off all wheels and old struts was a bit of a mission, but not majorly difficult...just a few tight bolts and a bit of cleaning up to do.
Setting the new struts was a guessing game as you never know how much the spring will compress once they are on. I must of got lucky... Undo the bottom lockiing ring...and wind out the strut until you have 70mm from the inner body to the bottom of the mounting ears.
You do not have to touch the spring platforms to adjust pre-load as this is already factory set...just the lower locking ring. Make sure you copper slip the thread to ensure you can still loosen things in the future. Ally and steel do not mix well!!
Here you can see old and new together - a small difference eh?
and hey presto...installed and lubed up
Just one thing to note on the rears with adjustable top mounts is that due to the shape of the strut tower, and to allow for adjustment, the lower fixing plate is undersized (so it can move left to right) and this causes a gap to occur. It is this gap that will transmit road noise and maybe water/debris into the car. The plan I have is as they are now adjusted, I will cut a hole in the top hats just the right size for the extenders and try to seal this off.
You can see the gap here....
Extenders are 200mm ones, which fit pretty snug agaist the back seat rest.
So far everything is set to mid range on both compression and rebound as I bed everything in...but fine tuning will come later. Right now it feels too hard on rebound so will slacken this off by a few clicks.
The geometry was all redone along with corner weighting at the local rally preperation shop. Nice fellas, good english and top work.
Settings are:-
Toe = 0 all round (it also stayed at 0 during spring compression testing too)
Front Camber = -2 degs 15 secs
Rear Camber = -1 degs 30 secs
Feels superb to drive and so responsive on the steering input. A lot of the rally boys have toe out to get the rear out especially on gravel, but I stayed with the standard 0 all round.
Now time for the rear roll bar, and a complete refresh of the bushed and drop links to tighten it all up again, and make the best use out of this new set up.
more to follow shortly!!!