Hi,all.
Had the Velocity on a track for the first time today (at the RAF Marham Charity Track Day, big thanks to all the RAF personnel involved for a great day in fantastic sunshine) Anyway all was well except we munched our way through a brand new Toyo on the rear offside with the rear wheel arch fouling the shoulder of the tyre (it was basically an anticlockwise track with a couple of long, fast lefthanders which loaded up the offside wheels). At the moment they are on 15 inch wheels with 195/50 tyres. After we noticed the damage to the tyre we managed to borrow a spare set of rears from another (very kind) kit driver, these were 13 inch but still fouled in the same place but only very very slightly. As he was leaving about a hour before the end of the day we took his wheels off and put our 15s back on, magically there was an extra 2 inches of clearance between arch and rim, final blast out on track and the clearance had gone and the tyre was fouling again.
Any ideas why just jacking the car up would suddenly give this extra clearance and why did it disappear again, knackered shock perhaps and should we look at the suspension or just change to smaller wheels (or both!)

a pic of where it is catching might help

Not sure how well these show up
Rescued attachment DSCN0950.JPG

Suspect the reason you had the extra clearance after refitting your 15" wheels was because you had jacked the car up to change the wheels , after changing them you let the car down and thats when you had the extra clearance? As soon as the wheels had turned a couple of rotations the suspension would have settled reducing the clearance? Could be that the wheels are too wide ,wrong offset, the rear ride height too low or the rear wing fitted too low? Noticed at last years Newark show the lineup of Luego's had the rear wings fitted differently. Would it be possible to trim the arches to gain extra clearance?

' wheels are too wide ,wrong offset, the rear ride height too low or the rear wing fitted too low'

I'm certainly worried we have the wrong size wheels (we didn't do the original build), most other seven type kits over there today seem to run 13 inch wheels. Not sure which way to attack it, use smaller wheels or change the ride height, what I don't want to do is upset the handling because that was fantastic (on the straights today we were murdered by the TVRs, Evos etc, through the twisty bits we were as quick as anybody)

and
Rescued attachment t2.jpg

Thanks for the tip on the drum sizes, I'll have a measure up in the morning. When I had the tyres fitted yesterday I thought the looked a bit buxom (same size as the ones I had taken off) the picture probably exaggerate it but they're really stretching the 'fully enclosed by bodywork' definition.

Have to say the smaller tyres/wheels we borrowed seemed to handle everybit as good but on cheaper tyres which seemed to suggest that rolling radius was right for the car, is there a magic formula for working this sort of stuff out?

IIRC Luego did wide rear arches , it is possible to widen your existing arches.

'widen the wheel arches'
Sounds fiendishly simple (and cheap)

Alternative is to limit the shock travel, simply spilt the shock and insert rubber bump stops on the shaft so the tyre can never quite rub.

This is a sound approach, on some race series where the spring rates are fixed differing rates of rubber are used as bump stops to control travel on the edge.

If its dedion or fixed axle the axle may not be central so make an adjustable panard rod to bring in line.

Also I jack up the outside springs for the track.

Regards Mark


[Edited on 18/4/09 by mark chandler]

Had a good think about this and the handling is so sweet at the moment I don't want to do anything that might upset it so looks like widening the arches it is. Has anyone done it on on Velocity. Is is a simple as fabricate some sort of (arch shaped) spacer, unbolt arch, fit spacer, rebolt arch? Or is it me being simple and it's more complicated than that.

[Edited on 20/4/09 by norfolkluego]

Hi there
Had similar problem with my Velocity rear arches did not cover the wheels, Remove arch , place on piece of marine ply draw around arch , mark up bolt holes , cut out with jig saw cover with colour coded gaffa tape, refit to car with longer bolts and wing piping and hey prestow jobs a gooden, i used 10mm ply by the way but work out what thickness you need by putting a staight edge accross the wheel and measure the distance between the tyre and arch and add a couple of mm.
hope this helps worked for me otherwise it would of failed SVA. and there still on there now.
Regards Bill.

Thanks Bill, that's Saturday taken care of, I'll report back how we get on.
John

Finally got the wheel arch off, it was had more bolts than the Forth Bridge and half of them were crossthreaded but we're now in the position to make the spacer and refit the arch,, job done but....
It now seems there is another problem, the top of the damper is er... damp with something so I assume it's leaking, don't think the 'dampness has come from somewhere else so while the arches are off I may as well change them. Problem is I've never bought a damper in my life, what size/type do I order (this car will spend most of it's life on a track/hillclimb course). Pic attached, cant tell what the existing one is, the red lettering at the bottom starts ZEEME then disappears inside the damper.
Rescued attachment shock2.jpg

Probably Zeemaride , sold by GBS but I suspect the quality isn't brilliant. Might be worth fitting something better like AVO etc. You may be able to get some at Stoneleigh?

Hi John Luego supplied Proteck shocks with my kit . they will proberly be at stoneliegh, there service is good had a small problem with one of mine and i took it with me to Newark show and he delt with there on the spot.
Maybe if you take a pattern with you there he could match up them for you.
If not why not try Gaz in Basildon, they will make what ever you want.
Regards Bill.

Thats a zeemeride as supplied by Robin hood.It is a mini shock fitted with a threaded sleeve for the spring.I made a pair for the rear of my car but found them to be under damped and was always a bit wary of the fact that the bush tubes were rather flimsy.I changed them for Avos and it made a massive difference, if intending to use the car for a lot of track work i would definitely change them for something decent, Protech would be my choice nowadays.
Paul.

At this risk of sounding like a total muppet, what spec do you need to supply/measure, length/diameter/ vehicle weight ?? etc. before I pick the phone up. As I said I've never bought one in my life and I don't want to end up with something that fits a tractor.

I fitted Gaz shocks to my Velocity and I am really impressed with them. From memory the rear springs were 180 rated but you could always ask Ben at Luego. I do remember the salesperson at Gaz knowing exactly what I needed, they are standard sizes. They came with a printed test sheet showing the perfiormance of each shock during its shake down test. Naturally I didn't understand it but it looked very impressive. Couldn't recommend them enough. If you have Zeemeride shocks on the front then perhaps get a set of four, they will make a big difference to the drive and handling of the car and you may find a good deal at Stonliegh for a set.