Early life crisis

[cwspellowe]

Ha ha car is definately back lol

I like him in these moods

People are always looking for ways to improve because they think that owning a Halfords socket set suddenly makes them a chassis engineering expert.

I still haven't contradicted myself. Lowering the car slightly will mess up the handling unless the geometry is re-done.

Getting the geometry done on a 306 is virtually impossible. You can get the tracking looked at, to check for toe-in / out, but nothing else is adjustable unless you spend mega money on new top mounts and struts, even then the rear cannot be adjusted at all...

My point is that you can't just chuck some aftermarket wheels and suspension on an MX5 and expect it all to work together seemlessly, whilst checking yourself out in the plate glass windows of your local town center. You may get lucky, but without proper equipment and a geo check you could never be sure how good your setup is.

Whilst there are products out there then there will always be a flock of people prepared to spend mega money on the parts to add to their car with the ignorant self belief that they're definitely making an improvement to their car.

For example, your estate looks fantastic. However it has those expensive D2 coilovers does it not? I'd question the point of those. The car has virtually no suspension travel and an inability to navigate a pothole or speedbump, whilst you openly admit in another thread that you try not to corner too fast because the cheap stud conversion kit you bought could cause a wheel to fall off if it is put under too much stress. But something made you buy those parts, for whatever reason, and it has bought you joy as a result.

Ahh but you didn't say to have the geometry realigned, hence the misunderstanding.

The D2's? I got them for £100 and they're cheap Taiwanese suspension. The only reason I sold the TA's and got the D2's was because they were camber adjustable. Yes they're £600-odd a set new but that doesn't make them good. If I wasn't getting them so cheap I wouldn't have bothered as I know for a fact they will be ruined, if they aren't already that is.

I'm not afraid to throw it into a corner to be honest, the cheap studs work fine but track day abuse is something completely different to road driving which is why I recommended he got the more expensive high tensile stud conversion if he's using it on track. Much the same as I wouldn't run my suspension setup if the estate was a track car, the D2's are nice and firm and I like the way they work with no ARB, in fact they're surprisingly well damped too, but to get any decent ride height out of them i've had to drop the spring pan and there's about 3" of droop. Piston smash a-plenty but given the fact the estate doesn't get driven in a way where it will bump steer off the road it's not an issue to me.

I do however disagree with your last statement, using the estate as an example of the "ignorant self belief that they're definitely making an improvement to the car". Quite the opposite. I've designed and implemented suspension parts on the gti6, i've spent hours researching the mechanics behind the way suspension parts interact and have a good understanding of what does what and why it does it. I've enough knowledge to know that no, there is not much driving comfort at all, but i know how to set up toe, camber, caster, pitch, bump steer and all the rest exactly how I want it. As a result the estate drives how I want it to. It doesn't feel like a barge, it sticks to the corners at the speeds I feel comfortable doing and gives a lot of feedback via the steering wheel. It's also surprisingly forgiving on all but the shittest of roads, hit a pothole and something dies but the answer to that is avoid potholes...

There's more to suspension than theory. Dialling in is the fun part, once you have the bits where you want them you DRIVE the car and adjust the setup to YOUR driving style. Personally I don't like body roll as a measure of grip, others do. But trial and error is not an ignorant self belief, it's a tried and trusted way of making the most of the adjustability available to you.

Oh and...












..I also own a Halfords tool kit.