wagoon

I have the same as you wagoon but with Bendix pads, stops my ute great.

I haven't got there yet as my sedan is still a work in progress. But this will be the setup of my solid roller crossy powered track car. If it's good enough for sikxe351 and his clevo powered sedan that sees the track alot it will be fine for just about if not everybody here.

Probably the best I have heard off apart from Koni and Bilstein is pedders. Pedders springs and shocks from the reports I have seen are not as harsh as kings springs with standard type shocks (monroe etc) and the pedders shocks seem to be able to handle ok.

 

My wagon is running run of the mill shocks(can't remeber the brand but they are standard). When I had the standard springs in the car they are ok with plenty of understeer when pushed. I then bought a parts ute that had low kings springs ( not even superlow these are one step under standard height) that I swapped into the wagon. It was mainly to get a reading on the installed spring pressure of the springs but I haven't been arsed pulling them back out again. The install of the king springs alone reduced the understeer enough that the back started to get tail happy and I was then starting to get over steer. My tyres were starting to get pretty low( and very old) at this point so I go new tyres. I lost the oversteer cause the tryes gripped a lot more than the old tyres I had on the wagon but the understeer stayed away. BUT with installing the low king springs I have had a couple of instances of the upper control arm hitting the bump stop and bashing it sounds like I have just snapped the chassis of the car, with the standard spring I had never hit the bump stops. There is nothing wrong with my shocks, they still control the car quiet nicely but when it comes to harsh sudden bumps they can't keep up with the king low springs installed

 

So what does this blurb/rant/waffle mean. Good quality short stroke shocks are not just for handling and going around corners fast, they are for general motoring comfort and will help to stop the car from hitting the bump stops when using lower than standard springs. As a bonus you will be able to corner faster but that is because with a good quality shock like Koni or Bilstein controls the car better(Bilstein give a slightly harsher ride than Koni, I have been told this by several people independent of each other). That is what the shocks are suppose to do, so if you skimp on shock quality you are skimping on ride quality it's that simple.

Rebuilt girlock caliper with QFM pads and DBA T2 rotors.

Certainly is worth the effort in terms of gains.

Panko you could show him a couple of youtube vids that show how much of a difference it makes. I watched one with the camera stuck to the outside of the car looking at the front tyre as it goes through turns. You can see the positive camber, kind of scary really. Tell him its for both longevity and safety of the car as both are true. Will also help with wear on the tyres too as your not rolling on the outside so much.

You could get the drop done in a day with a bit of help, a weekend would be all you would need though. Its the exact same process as removing the front spring execpt you drilling 2 holes on each side of the car.

Would he really notice the shelby drop? It doesnt lower the car that much but really helps with wheel position. Its just 2 extra holes each side, nothing more.

 

As for the template I only need it once so seems silly for it to just sit in my shed. Just use a 3mm drill bit through the jig, remove the jig and drill to size. That way the jig stays accurate and then pass it on, then we all can have shelby goodness.

Does the area where the two new holes are need to be strengthened?

Going off Crazy's experience he had to make a spacer for the washer to sit flat on but he did not strenghten anything.

Well consider it the ozfalcon shelby drop template. I will pull my finger out ( clean my finger before touching template) and get the job done so I can pass it on. Have to thank Crazy for his accurate drawing that I made my template from. Will take a pic of template when I get home and put a couple of pics.

If either of you blokes are interested I made up a drilling jig for doing the shelby drop. Its on my long list of things to do but after I have finished with it if you pay post (its 1 plate with 2 bolts will fit in post bag) its yours.

My engines making a noise what's wrong with it?

The nut behind the wheel

Yeah agree with Thom, I don't know of a wilwood setup that is ADR compliant. So any brake upgrade using bigger discs is probably just as good. Keep in mind people doing circuit racing use a standard good condition girlock caliper with a grooved disc and good brake fluid is enough that they don't see brake fade. If this setup is good enough to pull up a clevo powered x series on the track it would be plenty for other application

I really wouldn't recommend putting such a big tyre on such a little rim. That's a 12 inch tyre (close enough to anyway) which should be put on a 10 inch rim

How can you speculate without actually trying the coilovers though? 

 

I am not having a go , just curious because 99% sure im gonna end up buying the coilovers

I speculate that for a car setup for handling the coilovers Ando put up will out perform the xyz coilovers everyday of the week. How can I comfortably make that statement? It comes down to specifications just like in an engine. If you look at all the people that use their falcons to turn corners at speed (speedway, circuit, drift etc) they all run at least an 850LB front spring along with a top quality shock absorber. The result is a falcon that doesn't suffer from understeer, which allows for a much higher corner speed and therefore a much faster lap time. The xyz coilovers run a softer front spring (600lbs) so that when you want to drop your car into the weeds it won't be like driving with concrete shocks. As Nath has described the ride is a little soft when up a little higher. If Nath adjusted the shocks on his coilover to the firmer side it would control the body roll a little more and would make the car roll less. But it depends on the valving inside the shock as to whether you can actually adjust it to get a good handling setup. This has always been my concern with this sort of setup, you can never have the best of both worlds whether is be suspension or engine you always have to give up something.

The XYZ coilover are perfect for the person that wants to lower their car and get the "perfect" look or just want to lower their car so it doesn't look like a 4x4. The person lowering their car for handling purpose would best look else where. Most people that drive their car on the street and lower their car would not reach a level of cornering performance that they would see the advantage of the Ando coilovers, you really need to be doing track work to see benefit of these coilover. The XYZ coilover are a good thing compared to buying super low king springs and short stroke shocks as the XYZ coilovers as Nath has said has the extra adjustability over the basic king spring and short stroke shock.

The angle of the dump also comes into play as a turn down will be different to a straight horizontal exit. I know my xy that was dumped at the diff with turn downs would make rear seat passengers fell sick if cruising at the same speed due to the effect Greg mentioned. To fix it I had a rear section put into the system so can't tell you about adding mufflers to remove the drone

I pictured the top plate to look different but makes sense now, I thought the top mount would mount horizontal.

 

Im still a bit unsure on how the top plate works.

The vertical ring in the pic would "capture" the top of the spring since it's a smaller diameter than the standard size spring.

So I went to adjust the height today in prep for tomorrow's cruise.

 

The collars were in different places each side so you'd expect it to be sitting unevenly as they were pretty far off each other - got 33cm on passenger and 32 on driver (wheel arch to centre of rim).

 

I screwed the collars down (allowing the spring to lengthen more) and made sure they were dead even on both sides.

 

Dropped the car and it's still the exact same as before.

 

Not sure what the go is there... Makes me wonder where the hell the height adjustment is since it's not in the usual spot either. Instructions are absolutely useless - they just say use the "bracket" for height adjustment. No idea what they mean by bracket.

 

It's too low to leave as it - don't like taking speed humps at 10km/h and I can hardly get the jack under it.

Don't forget that the springs are different lengths from factory so your going to need to replicate this.

Could be because you removed the air snorkel or could be all the little things you have done. Yes the ecu can adjust but it's guessing as to what is best as it's only meant to allow for slight changes to a standard system, not modifications as well.

What do you call a backfire? is it crackling and popping on decel or is it a bang? How loud is the bang?

It maybe that the ecu is adding fuel to compensate for the extra air in and when you roll off the throttle because the bike is still essentially standard it can't use all the extra fuel so it explodes. Is it bad? Well it ain't good, might not do terminal damage straight away but over time it won't be good.

To me the top ring looks to fit a c spanner for adjusting. All coilovers Ive dealt with(on quad bikes) the top nut is the adjuster and the lower nut is the locking nut.

Looks like the height adjuster is all the way at the bottom still, what height springs did you replace?

Should be able to adjust the setting a bit to get a better setup as you get use to them.

One side is higher than the other as it's to do with road camber and load requirements. This pic is one ZI took when changing over to the king springs that are in my wagon now.

Nath, yeah measure everything you can but keep mind the springs will settle a bit after a while so may install a little high and wait for it to settle. I would ring the guys who made them and ask for a general setup, I would have thought there would be something in the box regarding settings and heights.

 

Edit: just thought, are these coilovers ADR approved?

I remember either Nath says or reading that the xyz coilovers have a 600lb spring. I wondered about upping the spring rate on them, but also wondered if the setup would support 800+ pound springs.

 

Sorry greg cant help with rebuilding info but can supply a shop in brisbane that rebuild koni and bilsteins so they should be able to help http://www.gsad.com.au/

Havent used them yet but I do plan on paying them a visit when I have the cash to do my front end setup. I have spoken to them in the past and were helpful and the bloke even owned an x series.

Yeah Nath I wondered about the shelby mod with the coilovers, but I would be checking with the maker of the coilovers to see if they still back their product with the shelby drop.

I think Ando has it right when he said that these would be great for someone that cant do fab work themselves for what ever reason. I am guilty of jumping of the fabrication band wagon where as a few years ago I didnt have the skills or time to be doing any sort of fab work.

I still see the generic king springs (sl,ssl,sssl) as only a cosmetic upgrade not to actually increase the performance and handling. So comparing these coilovers to a handling bias setup is probably not fair. I think the ride height adjustment is perfectly suit to getting the look of a car just right and as Nath said will probably workout cheaper to get the coilovers.

Nath got his set today but won't put them on cause blah blah blah. I am interested to see how they go as they are more expensive than a set of bilsteins and custom king springs, which when used with a shelby drop I would be thinking would provide better handling than the coilovers. This is only my opinion and am happy to be proved wrong but to me the specs on the coilover are more suited to looks than handling.

I found that the efi one hit the standard weber carby on a standard manifold, didn't bother to find out what I would have to do to make it fit although it should be to hard to make it fit with you favorite hammer. It's a worthwhile upgrade though as the tin covers can leak a fair bit.

I think efi again comes down to the money you want to spend (see the trend here, money is the key to this type of setup) A carby blow through setup will work fine if you don't cut corners and you know how to keep an eye on them, if you set up an electric fuel pump like I am in my roller cam setup it will be fine. I will prime the fuel system by a switch if the car has been sitting for at least a few days then turn the switch off and the car will operate on a ignition cutoff where by if the engine stalls the cutoff will shut all power down to the fuel pump. This will eliminate the dry starting issues of a carby engine that has been sitting.

Yes EFI will give better drive-ability on the street and give a few extra percent in overall power but if you car is currently carby you will need to change fuel tank and possibly fuel lines, fuel pump, wiring, install an ecu and add sensors sensors. Really there is only about a 5-10% difference between carby and efi turbo setups, but if you are chasing that last few percent then efi is the only way to go. But efi will add quite a lot more money to the cost as not only will you need to buy a wiring harness, ecu etc buy you will also need to buy a fuel rail and injectors to support the power level you are chasing