Hi all

I've been looking at the forum for a while now and made a couple of posts, but now I have started getting properly stuck into the car I will most likely be making some more......

I have an ex 750 MC Locost i.e Ron Champion live axle etc.

I intend to use it in speed events and it will not be IVA'd or registered.

I have had it log booked and am now working hard to go through it with a fine tooth comb to discover any issues.

Eventually the X flow will be replaced with a ZX9 r engine that I purchased from Roadrunner on here, but for now I am assessing the suspension and running gear.

The previous owner seems to have taken a nicely made chassis and assembled the rest himself and there are quite a few issues to sort out!!!

I have weighed the car and corner weighted it, I have spent some time setting up parrallel lines as per Staniforth and Puhn to check it for true and check other alignments and I am now stripping down the front and rear suspension to check and rectify as required.

I have quickly realised that the car has not been set up because the corner weights are miles out and the ride heights and camber ect are fairly random!

My question for now is ride heights?

Given that it is NOT a road car has anyone got any rough baseline settings so that I can then start to asses other things like coil spring length and damper travel etc. I will be running 13" wheels with slicks and the rest is Champion as far as I can see.

One issue that is apparent is that whilst measuring up the rear coil overs they are 13" long, but book says 14". However the way mine are mounted means that they do not stop or limit droop and the axle casing touches the chassis before the damper runs out of stroke on rebound, 14" units would make this worse not better. Should the dampers be sized/mounted so as to stop the rebound travel before the axle contacts the chassis? Of course until I set or decide upon a ride height I do not know how much bump or rebound travel I have or will need but this chassis contact does seem fundamentally wrong to me!

Sorry for the long post, any replies well received.

Regards

Steve

i would suggest either talking to or taking your car to matt at procomp.hes the man to talk to and is sucessfull building these types of race cars.

Thanks Daniel

Matt comes highly recomended and I may well be speaking to him about dampers for next season when the budget allows.

For now though I am sticking with the traditional Locost approach!! I have spent some time but not much money on measuring equipment (scales,cambergauge, level floor etc) and am working through the car learning a lot about it as I go.

I have had an interest in suspension for some years now and have digested the well known info from the likes of Stanniforth et al, but there is no substitute for hands on experience, hence my interest now in the Locost, which lends itself to my approach very well given its "home built" status. By taking it apart and measuring now I can learn a great deal which will be helpfull when looking at improvements for the future.

Thanks for your reply, any others most welcome.

Steve

i think, a good starting point is to have the bottom front wishbones (or rather the inner and outer ball joints) parallel with the ground:

that is, if you draw a line from one to the other, the line should be parallel. that would be you best starting point.
the rest depends on how the chassis has been built.
I would take a guess at 80-100mm?

have a click on the 'look inside' section, the few pages it shows actually include some of the bits you need to know
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Modify-Sportscar-Kitcar-Suspension-Speedpro/dp/1903706734

[Edited on 23/2/12 by blakep82]