Looks incredible, Jason! Finally all the hard work is starting to really come together. My project (pictures in the "suspension gallery") has been on the road for about a year now (about 2K miles) and I've been able to solve the early problems and "tweak" a few other things along the way. I'm sure you can't wait to check out your set up on the road, as well. Will you be adding an anti-roll bar?

Pure55, I'm sure an anti-roll bar will come into play soon enough, but for now it's a matter of making it work properly the way it is then adding as is needed. How did you determine how much anti-roll was needed?

Jason

I just measured the torsional stiffness of the front bar off a super (which I was using at the time) and used that as the starting point, since weight distribution in my car is similar. It was also important, in my design, to keep reasonable ride quality. When I changed to the "de-coupled" front bar, it was a matter of finding another one that fit and had roughly the same torsional rate. On the horizon, though, is a switch to an adjustable bar. The one on there now is working well, but I want to explore the effects of a larger bar..

Jay

Just getting the final upper shock position squared away. It turned out we had less bump travel than we needed, so the shock mount is being redesigned to be a few mm higher and account for a bump stop as well.

Jason

Were you buy the coilovers and how much?

Dou you calculate the spring rate?

The coilovers are QA1s. I think Carrera bought them out of vice versa. I think the model is Proma Star. I havn't bought the springs yet as I'm waiting to get the car all together so I can weigh it.

Here's my shock. Since I bought mine they've introduced a double-adjustable one too, rebound and compression.

http://store.summitracing.com/defaul...7&autoview=sku

For the money it is a very good shock, but if you really want to spend some cash, try Ohlins.

Jason

Have you used that before..
I checked them out on *KSR*
The Ohlins are just out of my range right now..
Just dont know many ppl that have heard or used the HAL Shocks..
Peace Troy

Thanks.

Do you know something about aldan coilovers?

They are an old hot rod mainstream from what I understand. The guy I have building my front end uses them, but again, he's a hot rod guy, I'm more of a road race guy. I've seen one the Aldans, and at least as far as construction was concerned, I wasn't impressed, but I really don't know how they function compared to QA1s. What I do know is that QA1s have adjustment, on mine there is a single adjustment for compression/rebound, and they've recently introduced a separate rebound, separate compression adjustment, I don't know if Aldans have any.

Jason

i know when i had my suspenion modded on my road bike (01 Yamaha R6)
the difrence was unreal..
im guessing this gose for anything that has suspenion..
cant wait to get my hands in on a suspenion project..
*Peace Troy*

Still re-doing the shock tower. We are changing the the crossmember as well to get it closer to the shifter tunnel and make more room for a custom gas tank. Plus it will look better too!

Jason

Hey Jason,
Sounds like your IFS is getting a pretty heavy makeover - before it even hits the road! All in the details isn't it!?
I decided to build my IFS around the Mustang II based components. This is a custom modification to a tube frame chassis fiberglass buggy, but might still be of interest (switching from balljoint front end to IFS).
Couple of interesting aspects - the MII spindles weight less than 1lb more than CB lowered drum brake spindles, yet take much larger bearings (~0.200" larger in diameter) than the VW. I'm using a bolt-on disc brake kit - solid rotor/aluminum hub with 11.75" rotor diameter & 4-piston Wilwood forged DL calipers. :)
Compared to the BJ set-up - I'm loosing 3lb per side in unsprung weight despite the extra beef of the MII hardware, and despite my previous BJ setup using custom adapters and Wilwood 4-piston calipers (already much lighter than std. disc brake spindles and VW iron calipers!). A bonus is I get a lot less scrub radius and rack & pinion steering. On paper the geometry looks pretty good - my next step is to assemble the hardware and take some as-built dimensions and verify locations of the inner pick-up points. I'm designing an adjustable upper A-Arm pick-up location for tweaking caster and swing-arm length - if necessary after it's built.
Jeff

I am using the QA1s on my bus. Work great so far. Quality seems top notch. The adjustability is very good, a couple clicks on the knob makes a huge difference.

I noticed that in the 3d design the main part of the shock body is mounted with the body on the inboard side attched to the chassis part and the rod end attched to the lower A-arm, but in the pictures the shock body side is mounted on the A-arm end and the rod to the chassis side.


I was thing with this change is it because clearence or huh? seems would be beeter witht he shock body being ont he chassis side to remove some unsprung weight.

QA1's are designed to sit with the body of the shock on the bottom. Splitting hairs on the weight of an aluminum shock is a little silly anyway, as the unsprung weight is only half the weight of the shock, which isn't much. I think just driving this thing is the priority now. If it works good, then I'll look at where the ounces can come off!

Jason