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Thread: Project Stealth Machine a.k.a The Blackbird

  1. #161
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    Noice. I had limos on mine and they provide a really nice ride. Only thing to watch for is you can't run real low-lows as there is more suspension travel than on the harder springs so you will get wheelarch rubbing if you try to drop it on the floor. If I remember, you were only running a very modest drop when I saw the car so you should be fine.

    I had whiteline ARBs to control the body roll and rubber-bushed adjustable arms all round and it gave a lovely, refined yet taut ride.

    When you fit them, make sure you can get the ride height you want whilst still having a decent amount of thread connecting the lower assembly to the main body (you need a minimum of 50mm I think. You should be able to get that as they come with a longer lower assembly to compensate for the fact the static sag is greater due to the softer springs, IIRC.

    There is a fitting guide out there too if you do a search. I did one for a 13 and someone else did an earlier one for the 14 that details the fiddly bit with the rear parcel shelf.

  2. #162
    Member sx rider's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Jonny Wilkinson View Post
    Noice. I had limos on mine and they provide a really nice ride. Only thing to watch for is you can't run real low-lows as there is more suspension travel than on the harder springs so you will get wheelarch rubbing if you try to drop it on the floor. If I remember, you were only running a very modest drop when I saw the car so you should be fine.

    I had whiteline ARBs to control the body roll and rubber-bushed adjustable arms all round and it gave a lovely, refined yet taut ride.

    When you fit them, make sure you can get the ride height you want whilst still having a decent amount of thread connecting the lower assembly to the main body (you need a minimum of 50mm I think. You should be able to get that as they come with a longer lower assembly to compensate for the fact the static sag is greater due to the softer springs, IIRC.

    There is a fitting guide out there too if you do a search. I did one for a 13 and someone else did an earlier one for the 14 that details the fiddly bit with the rear parcel shelf.
    Thanks for the advice, I dont run that low so hopefully I wont have any issues with rubbing. I'm probably going to fit them tomorrow if the weathers not to bad. I've got godspeed ARB's fitted so with these I hope it will handle nicely.
    Last edited by sx rider; 04-11-2017 at 22:37.

  3. #163
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    I'm in the process of slowing replacing all the photos stored with photobucket for Flicker and found this picture of the first s14 I went to see! This was around 2008, this was too rough around the edges for me so I didn't make an offer, plus the stickers
    Last edited by sx rider; 11-03-2018 at 15:06.

  4. #164
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    New Apex coliovers fitted this weekend

    The ride is pretty smooth, over the bad surfaces where the HSD were a bit too bumpy for me, these new Limo's with their softer spring rates handle rough sections much better which is a result.

    old vs new







    Here's how it currently sits, I need to find somewhere with level ground to get a proper idea of the ride height all round though, I'm pretty sure the rear is a little higher and the front a little lower on level ground compared to this picture where the surface isnt even.

    Last edited by sx rider; 11-03-2018 at 15:09. Reason: resize photos

  5. #165
    Flamespitter overnutter's Avatar
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    Car is looking good bud. Howcome you went for those coilovers?


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  6. #166
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    Quote Originally Posted by overnutter View Post
    Car is looking good bud. Howcome you went for those coilovers?
    Thanks mate. A bit of an impluse buy I guess but I weighed up ride quality vs too much poke, it was a gamble with the CS2's being slim enough for me to reduce the front spacers, that was the reason I wanted them. I could have had 4kg rear & 7kg fronts with the CS2's but I was worried about them being harder riding than my 5kg/4kg HSD set up. Shame they dont do the 30 day money back offer with the CS2's.
    Last edited by sx rider; 07-11-2017 at 22:55.

  7. #167
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    Apex are the only ones that do 4/3 kg limo coilovers.

    Given this is still almost double the stiffness of OEM suspension, its amazing to me that no one else does anything like it.

    8/6 vs 2.2/1.8 means making springs 4 times harder...on british roads !? Seriously ?

  8. #168
    Member sx rider's Avatar
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    yeah it's true and they aren't making any more! The additional suspension travel might be an issue with the height I'm running but time will tell! If I need to I could raise it a tad I will.

  9. #169
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    If your arbs are adjustable then tweaking them might help if the rubbing is occurring during cornering. Preload might help if it's during acceleration/braking. Damping should help if it's when the surface is rough as long as you don't end up with pump down.
    I did run the damping quite a few clicks from soft on mine as full soft is very soft.

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  10. #170
    Guest zeppelin101's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by sx rider View Post
    yeah it's true and they aren't making any more! The additional suspension travel might be an issue with the height I'm running but time will tell! If I need to I could raise it a tad I will.
    BC sell them directly through their website still (just for info)

    http://www.bc-racing.co.uk/applicati...type-ra-4.html
    http://www.bc-racing.co.uk/applicati...type-ra-2.html

    Second tweaking the damping. I've got Meister R things on my Civic Type-R and if I run it full soft it's actually pretty dangerous on a bumpy road, there is no body control at all the car pogos across the road Stiffening the damping a touch made it much better without significantly compromising ride quality.

    Also all other coilovers are probably super stiff because the majority are demanding something that allows them to run bloody low or stay stiff for drift/track. Shame because they are great road cars until daft suspension is put on
    Last edited by zeppelin101; 08-11-2017 at 14:52.

  11. #171
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    Thanks for the info guys. I'm getting some scrapping when I got over ruts and bumps, I'm 10 clicks from soft so I'll experiment with that on the weekend. The Arbs are not adjustable but the droplink bushes are looking spent so I'll change them soon. I put 5mm preload all round, increasing it will increase the spring rate no?

  12. #172
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    Increasing preload will reduce the range of travel. On a linear wound spring, it won't increase the spring rate

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  13. #173
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    Quote Originally Posted by Jonny Wilkinson View Post
    Increasing preload will reduce the range of travel. On a linear wound spring, it won't increase the spring rate

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    Oh right, I have been misinformed then.

  14. #174
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    Not necessarily. I'm no expert. It's just your guess against mine lol.

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  15. #175
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    As I understand it, winding on preload is going to compress the spring. If the coil is the same along its whole length, it will still compress and extend at the same rate however it will have less length to compress before it becomes fully compressed so shorter travel.
    If I'm right about that then the car will sit lower with more preload so you will raise it up by lengthening the lower assembly. Now the car will hit the bump stops before the wheels have traveled so far into the wheel arches. Also the increased preload should mean that sudden weight transfers should have a less immediate effect on the suspension.
    I think.

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  16. #176
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    Ok fair enough I see what you are saying. The reason I thought preload effected the spring rate was do to with corner weighting, during the process they weigh all 4 corners and then adjust the preload accordingly to balance the car and give a 25% weight distribution per wheel. I'm probably wrong though.

  17. #177
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    I see. I'm not sure but isn't that using the preload to raise or lower the corners so that more of the total weight gets "assigned" to that corner ?

    The Apex coilies have independent ride height adjustment so you don't have to use the preload, you can make the lower assembly longer or shorter to raise/lower one corner.

    That's just a guess. Most of what I've learned about suspension is from bikes and obviously, corner weighting doesn't come into m/bike suspension setup so much

    I should probably do some reading on t'internet about this stuff.

  18. #178
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    I'm not too sure, I read a few threads last night but there was a lot of conflicting information about it. I guess the adjustments are very small when it comes to corner weighting.

  19. #179
    Guest zeppelin101's Avatar
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    Spring rate in a linear spring is fixed. So it'll be 6kg/mm (for example) if it's unloaded or fully compressed. The only thing that changes as far as the spring is concerned is the force within the spring as a function of how much it is compressed (f=kx you might remember from school science).

    Long and short of it is that preload changes the amount of energy in the spring and therefore its behaviour is different when it has to deal with a load such as going over a bump or loading up in a corner. You might tweak preload as part of the corner weighting setup but mostly it is used to control the way the suspension behaves in terms of compression and rebound.

    The relative heights of each corner of the car alter the weight distribution across the car across the diagonal. This is what corner weighting aims to improve is to make sure the balance is similar between sides. If it isn't then it can lead to different handling behaviour when taking a corner in different directions. For oval driving you might aim for that (which is the point of wedge and stagger in oval car setup) but for road racing / normal driving you want consistency of behaviour in both directions. Imagine having understeer turning left and oversteer turning right - potentially a symptom of poor corner weighting.
    Last edited by zeppelin101; 11-11-2017 at 09:29.

  20. #180
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    thanks for the info mate, its interesting stuff.

    Edit - coilovers are almost dialled in, running 11 clicks from soft on the rears & 15 from soft up front, increasing the damping almost stopped the scraping, only big bumps at speed or hard cornering gets a scrape now. I'm going to have raised it a touch all round, then alignment but I doubt that will be done before winter hibernation.
    Last edited by sx rider; 13-11-2017 at 21:18.

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