I was having this discussion with a colleague today, and I thought I would get the view of the collective!

Now my car is on the road, there are a couple of things I would like done to it. Chances are unless I get a particularly exciting bonus I won't be able to do them both this summer. One is a rolling road session, the other is a proper suspension setup.

Some details about the car- Sylva Stylus, originally built with a 1.3 flow, and converted to 2.0 zetec on GSXR600 TBs over the last year by myself. The engine is running on microsquirt, and for the past few weeks I have been taking it out when sunny with auto tune on. It now drives quite nicely up to approx 50% throttle and 5000rpm. I push it a little further each time and adjust as appropriate. The chassis is a '94, but it was finished and registered in '98. This means that the SPAX shocks are at least 15 years old, the adjusters have seized, the shafts are pitted and a bit nasty, and the only suspension work I can find that has been done by previous owners was to put heavier springs on. Having said that it seems to drive ok, but I haven't had it near a track yet. It is currently on a standard rack, but I have a 2.4 quick rack waiting to go on.

If I were to get it on a rolling road I would probably just drive it to Bailey Performance or similar and get it mapped, total cost approx £300. To do the suspension would cost rather more. The front of my car is heavily MK2 Escort based, so I could buy adjustable TCA's and compression struts like the rally boys, which would give me camber and caster adjustment that I don't have currently. The rear is live axle so a bit limited. Then it would be off to Procomp or similar for some new shocks, geo setup and corner weighting. Cost approx £lots (600-700 including TCA's? bit of a guess).

I know which one I would rather do, but I'd be interested to hear what you lot think! (votes from Bailey Performance and Procomp will be ignored for obvious reasons )

Suspension - the best money I have spent on my car was the £200 I spent at Procomp. My car was at least 30% quicker as a result of being able to corner as it should.

The tuning is something that you could tweak yourself at home with some not very expensive kit - so personally I would be taking it to Procomp, and begin trawling eBay for a cheap wideband A/F meter so you can start tuning out some of the flatspots yourself.

Power without control etc.

Get the suspension right. Besides, you can get the microsquirt to tune itself with a bit more time/effort.

Suspension every time, just set up a friends westy, he has had the car for some time and done 30000 miles and he is a quick driver and has a 200bhp duratec.
We set ride right, inclination (made a massive difference) corner weight and tracking, he recons it worth at least 40 bhp being flatter with much improved stability in the corners.

I'm not sure what your front suspension is quite like but talk of compression struts sounds a bit similar to some of the mods done to the early Robin Hoods, if you look on the Rhocar site and search for tie bars it may give you some ideas.

If engine is running healthily and safely, which it sounds like it is then I would say suspension.

Tue bars is a common mod on monocoque robin hoods as the front sierra roll bar is too stiff, simple job to do and much cheaper than buying bits off the shelf.

I only have experience of setting up both fuelling [on carbs with a wideband - don't know about efi] and suspension at home. I found it relatively easy and cheap to massively improve my MK Indy handling with four cheap weighing scales, a gunsons trackrite and an electronic angle gauge. Total cost was about £70. I didn't need any new suspension bits though.


If you can only use half throttle and 5k rpm in my book you need an RR session first.

Stu

I'm glad you mostly said suspension, that was my thoughts as well. Power without control, any idiot can drive fast in a straight line etc. My colleague disagreed with me.

I have a wideband already (AEM), and it seems to be working nicely. The reason I can only use 50% throttle and 5k rpm is because I started tuning low speed and load first, I just haven't worked up into the higher rev range/throttle openings yet. I might have done if the weather wasn't so carp, and it's only been MOT'd a short time. Seemed more sensible this way than starting at full speed and load and working backwards!

If you look at this website under front suspension (one third down ish) you can see how rally escorts are set up http://www.britishracecar.com/WalterDavies-Ford-EscortRS1600.htm my car has cut down escort front struts mounted to the usual Sylva rocker setup. It already has compression struts to take braking loads in place of the roll bar (which in the standard Escort takes braking loads and resists roll, the rally cars separate these functions), but they are non adjustable as supplied by Sylva. I could just mod the ones I have I suppose. Later Sylvas used bespoke lower wishbones rather than the Escort bits, but they are also non-adjustable as standard.

I'm getting married a week on Saturday, but when I get back from honeymoon I'll start getting it ready for some shiny suspension bits!

Sorry, bit of an essay that