What To Spend My Suspension $$$ On

[Guest XR09]

I get that groany squeak too. Not all the time, but enough to be annoying when it does.

Most times I have it is when the car lifts a wheel. Like coming up the drive at an angle. It makes the groan like a dry bush as it settles to weight on again.

The noise does appear more often after I have used the gurney under the car.

I got nothin no idea lol I have tried everything. All the bushes look like they have rabies and still that noise. Front sway bar ?????

JP300 You willl love what the Teins do to the handling of the car. Just give them a chance to bed in. They take longer than most. Thier sensatinal on dirt roads.. lol... true ! And go the EDFC. Getting to the clickers can become a real pain after a while. I didn't think it was worth it..... I was wrong.

Edited 20/08/10 08:33 PM by XR09

[Dazz]

As a new owner of an 04 BA XR6T, and not having much experience driving these types of cars before, it's interesting reading the replies in this thread about what works and what doesn't work on these cars.

Coming from much smaller and lighter cars, predominately Mazda RX-2's and RX-4's over the last twenty odd years, seat of the pants feel is somewhat vague at the moment due purely to having to brake and turn such a heavy car. Rushing into a corner I'm nowhere near as confident the car will actually stop (pedal feel is not as rock solid as I'm used too, but comparatively much better than a new Late model camira I drove a few months ago), and although I haven't gone even 7/10ths as hard as I would have in my last RX-2 through the twisty bits, I've got an idea of what the cars feels like it needs.

To me the front is too soft, not so much in plain stiffness (in road car terms) but slightly in roll and also in wheel alignment, particularly castor. The steering doesn't feel as though there is anywhere near enough castor as self centering is weaker than what I "think" it should be, and regardless of the quality of the tyres they don;t feel like they are being given the chance to work as they should.

The rear actually feels the opposite to me, and initially I thought it felt too stiff in roll. It's interesting to hear people talking about removing the rear bar as I wondered if thinking this was me just being unfamiliar with this type of car, or maybe not?

I know with my last RX-2 keeping the rear nice and subtle made the car much faster on the road, and even keeping the front end on the softer side of optimum was far better across all types of road surfaces. The car "felt" like it handled better with the stiffer front springs and big front bar, and yet unless the road was billiard table smooth, it skipped and slid across the road through bumpy corners and was much twitchier under hard braking deep into turns. The softer springs and slightly smaller front bar gave more roll, but massive amounts more real world grip. On the track is another matter altogether, especially with really grippy tyres, where you can easily go up in spring rates and bar size, but again only to a point.

My gut feeling in getting my XR6T to handle better on the road is good bushes so that the wheels remain as close to the alignment settings as possible, as much castor (within reason) as can be had without causing other problems, and more camber. I dare say once that is done the shocks will be the next thing to feel under damped, and lastly the actual spring rates which can probably go up a little bit, but not too much. Again I have no experience with these particular cars but from past experience going too stiff rarely seems to make a real improvement in actual grip, and often decreases it on bumpy surfaces and especially in the wet where a slightly more subtle setup is preferable.

I have no doubt that with sensible settings you can get these cars to handle very respectably, but I doubt you can get a car this big to have go-cart like handling of a much lighter car, physics just won;t let that happen. Handling aside the effortless power these cars produce is very impressive.

[Garrettba03]

This is an old thread but all the problems with the soft feeling front end...was gone with the upper inners, lower front buses, swaybar d bushes changed to super pro @wholesale suspensions.

It still wont be chuckable like a 1000kg car...but you feel great responsiveness solid geometry and hold its line remarkably for such a big car...like I can ACTUALLY feel the chassis now lol instead of massive soggy direction shifting spongyness...changing gometry all over the place.

Also Chage f&r swaybar d bushes. Mine came out hard as rocks and...oval shaped holes lol. totally stuffed.

My rear now feels soft...ill be chaging rear c/a bushes and diff bush soon also @wholesale suspensions top guys.

Difference was literally night and day with bushes changed, I would do this as first suspension mod for sure!

Oh and I decided to increase corner spped with tyre grip rather than bigger bars...for wet safety reasons. Just me anyway

Edited 25/08/11 03:00 PM by Garrettba03

[Smoke them tyres]

Hi Dazz,

Yep, supple is the go IMO. Rear wheel drive cars respond best in the real world to the setup you described for your rotary.

I would try to get as much initial camber in the front as you can get into it.

Then a reasonable amount of caster.

The reason I say that is.....in most cornering situations, not enough cornering lock is put into the car for the caster to be of full benefit.......it arrives "too late" I suppose you could say.

The other issue with too much caster is that you will get to a point where adding more caster will start to lose (decrease) initial neg camber. Just the mechanics of how the shimming on the UCA works.

The centering is definitely nice, but in power steering cars, there is the hydraulics to overcome, not simply pure mechanical ratio.

I can vouch for this after converting one of my old Falcons from manual to power steer. I still miss it.

Yep, I would DEFINETELY replace the bushes with poly ones....this will make a significant increase in how the car feels and responds. The other thing it will do is make sure the fronts don't wear unevenly on the inside due to toe out under braking. Unfortunately, ALL manufacturers are at the NVH thing by fitting "quiet" (read sloppy) rubber bushes. Not optimum for sustaining wheel alignment under dynamic loads.

Edited 21/09/11 01:35 PM by Smoke them tyres

[Rockatansky]

Emailed around for some quotes today, doing the front suspension bushes in Fulcrum SuperPro.

Awaiting the response. Anyone know a good suspension shop in Melbourne?

Edited 15/08/12 08:36 AM by Rockatansky

[MR_FG_09]

can anyone recommend a good suspension shop on the gold coast? I really want to do some upgrades on my FG T

handling feels sloppy im running ssl/sssl in my opinion is to stiff and compromises handling while looking aesthetically

tough my last FG XR6 running sl's all round handled alot better also running billys as well, im keen to try raising rears

back to ssl's.

[senna_T]

Performance Suspension at Labrador, speak to Chris

[rbjet]

What about somewhere in Melbourne. Preferably western suburbs. I just bout a new set of tyres but I want to fix the issue of my front inner's scrubbing 1st. I'm guessing I need a camber kit to address this?

[senna_T]

You'll need the lower inner control arm bushes replaced to stop 90% of the inner edge wear.

I've heard good things about Centreline Suspension

[CHILLR]

Centreline are very good!.. a little pricey though. He'll also start by trying to talk u into spending 4k so be carrrreful... They love Bilstein.