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on July 28, 2010, 10:08 am, Daze wrote:
adjustable??? good idea, bad idea. It made a lot of sense when I was first planning all of this, but now I am wondering if it is over kill.
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I like your design. It is simple and looks like it will work well plus I'm not sure what you would do to adjust ride heigth without the adjustability. My first reaction to the photo was similiar to Mustsed's ... it looked very heavy duty but that's not a criticism.
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I am thinking it is a big pain in the but!!!! I started drilling holes in the cross bars for the adjustable mounts and the problem I am having is getting the holes to line up perfectly. Not sure what I am going to do now.....
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I had to go back and look at your photo to understand the problem. It's not the outside holes that are the problem because you can use the mount as a guide ... it's the inside holes, correct? I am also guessing that you are unable to use a drill press in order to get the holes directly in line?
I had the same problem when I was drilling the shock holes for my LCA. I ended up using a drill bit that was 18" long and basically line honed the holes to line up. Not pretty but it did work.
I'm sure you have already considered making the holes in the cross bar slightly larger ... I know Tyrell is shuddering right now
Last thought ... eliminate the inside tab from the shock mount. Without the tab a little bit of misalignment shouldn't be a problem. Plus, your mount is so studly anyway that it should be more than strong enough without the inside tab.
Let us know ... I'm sure you are already bouncing around several ideas.
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I appreciate the thoughts Part of the problem is there is a slight loose fit on the mount. I added .010 gap so I could easily install the brackets after they have been powder coated. In the process of trying to get the holes lined up last night I snapped off one of the middle tabs (it was just tack welded) and so I was able to use it today to line up my holes, that solved the first issue I was having.
I have a drill press, but it is a small bench top model with only a 6" X 6" work top. Kind of hard to keep 40" of steel bar properly positioned with such a small top. the other issue was the drill press had less than 2" of depth so I had to drill one side of my 2" tubing, then put a steel plate under the tube with the bit already in the drilled hole to get enough depth to get through the other side.
The ultimate solution was to buy a bigger drill press. I got a stand alone unit and the top is about 16" X 16" I was also able to clamp a guide to the top so that all the holes line up on one axes so that all I had to worry about was spacing. even with that a few of the holes are still ever so slightly off, but I will be able to make it work. I will probably weld closed bad holes and go again.
Thanks for the ideas. It just goes to show there is just no substitute for having the correct tool.
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Find some one with a Bridgeport mill near you and have the slots milled. That would be worth the small fee to avoid the headache. I thought you had a small universal lathe/mill from northern or smithy.
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I have a small mill, problem is its just a little to small
with a little persistence, patience and a few fixed holes I was able to get the holes just where I wanted them.
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After a whole lot of testing, I found that its easy to change the ride height but with out relocating the lower mounting point its difficult to increase the firmness with out gaining too much height. On my front suspension I had 660 lb/inch springs on the upper control arm. when I converted to coil over shocks I supported the car by the lower control arm and moved the spring mount as close to the ball joint as possible. Now the front is firmer with 250 lb/inch springs than it was with the 660 lb/inch units. This was accomplished by changing the leverage the spring has over the load. On the Jag IRS, the closer to vertical the shock is mounted the better its leverage is over the load however on a mustang install that places the hide height way too high in order to obtain the firmness I wanted. So I was left with either buying heavier coil springs or relocating the lower mount closer to the hub. I went with the coil route.
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Seems to me you have to decide what type of ride your looking for. Performance or street? From what I have read a shock tends to do little to nothing in it's first molecule of motion. So in order to take full advantage of your shocks, they should be mounted where the most motion is created and standing straight up. But then there is the real world. I would guess the more you lean your coilovers the lighter the ride will be.
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the more vertical the coil over is the less shock travel and stiffer the spring will be reducing the shock travel even more.
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I disagree, the more vertical the more softer of a spring you need. Hyperco makes some good springs others have had issues with QA1's not being said or equal spring rates. You can also use a progressive spring which gives a better ride for light duty. But stiffer at aggressive movements. You need to decide how much travel is comfortable for you.
Also remember your shock spring combo is mounted inward on the wishbone. This already reduces the amount of movement of the coilover, maybe 10%. Saying that your wheels have more travel then the coilover.
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you are correct and I think we aren't quite on the same page. Some times when I am talking about something I am not a clear as I could be I agree that a more vertical shock allows you to run softer springs, thats because the effective rate reduces as you tilt the coil over.
As far as shock travel as you tilt a shock the travel increases with the same amount of suspension travel. obviously a 3" suspension travel will result in 3" of shock travel when the shock is vertical, but tilt the shock and it has to move further to achieve the same suspension travel.
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Daze,
The shortest distance between two points is a straight line. If you lived dead north and drove home 20 degrees west you will not only drive further, you will need to turn and if you don't turn you will never get home!
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A shock sitting inboard 3" at the top and a length of 12" would equal 11.618 vertical. If the suspension travels up 2" your vertical length would equal 12.618 minus 2" or 9.618. Your shock length would now be app 10.075". You have lost .075" of travel with the spring and shock. I know my Trig.
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your right and I am wrong I thought for sure that angling the shock increased travel, because it was covering both a vertical and a horizontal distance... kind of. Any way I sat down and drew two triangles and broke out the trig intending to mathematically prove you wrong. Turns out I was wrong. When I make a mistake I am the first to admit it, so hats off to you
I am a dope, if I took the time to really think about it, I would have realized that that is why the spring rate decreases. you are getting less spring travel for the same amount of suspension travel.
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Solutions only count, no harm no foul!
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