Chassis Tilt

[AndyW]

Can I ask other Superspec owners if they could have a look at their cars for me - I'd like to know if my car is different and has a problem or whether all Superspecs are like this by 'design'.

 

Looking from the back of my car, the right driver's side is about 2cm higher than the left, so it has a bit of a tilt. I've checked the Sierra subframe and the lower coilover mountings are all OK, and the number of turns of the spring hangers is the same both sides. The difference seems to come from where the top of the coilovers are mounted onto the chassis tube.

 

This is the left hand side:

 

And this is the right:

 

As can be seen there is a 2cm difference in the distance between the horizontal chassis tube and the bottom of the shock bracket. The bracket is welded in a different place on the right compared to the left. And more of the bracket can be seen. Is this normal? Or do I need to correct it to get the car level? I guess I could use the next pair of mounting holes in the righthand bracket to bring the body down a bit.

 

Andy

Edited September 30, 2016 by AndyW

[fry61]

Might just be "within design limits" -- our 2B is 20mm out of square in plan elevation & the springs are wound up the dampers to different heights to get the body level at the back.

 

And before some-one says "equalise the weight of passengers" measurements are done with cockpit empty!!

[alanrichey]

Here's mine. I have the same sort of figures, probably well within RHE tolerances

 

 

What does look different is how the brackets are mounted. Mine are different to yours, using holes 2 & 4. You look to be using 1 & 3 (and maybe 5?). Not sure if that makes much difference.

 

 

Al

[agent_zed]

Ah the +/- 10cm tolerance on everything they made. ha.

 

If you don't like it make a new bracket It wouldn't be hard to do. 3mm box with a the one edge cut off (assuming standard box fits with the bracket on the chassis). You might find due to leverages etc that the bracket doesn't need to be 2cm longer to achieve a 2cm height adjustment.

 

everything is customisable on these cars, just a question of at what point you are happy to stop changing bits (if that ever happens).

[AndyW]

Looks like it's not just my car then, I should have known nothing is normal on these cars. :-) Although my 20mm difference is double what others are seeing.

 

For chassis and suspension mountings I would have expected tighter manufacturing tolerances, but maybe it was a case of "about there" when the brackets were welded on.

 

I did wonder if the tilt might be a design feature to compensate for the driver's weight. Or is that over-thinking it :-)

 

Al - yes mine are mounted in holes 1 & 3. But you have Zimmers still, whereas I have Gaz, so maybe our shocks are different lengths. I've got rather too much air in my rear arches so I'd like to mount them lower and/or wind the rear springs down a bit. But I don't want to affect my front sump clearance too much as that's already minimal.

[Bob Tucker]

"Discrepancies" are the norm with RHE cars.

 

I should have known nothing is normal on these cars

[philshelton]

Richard would say it was in the design to compensate for drivers weight LOL

[PaulF2B]

Looking at the photos the hole spacing on the bracket appears around 2cm.

Why not drop the left side down to the next set of holes (as per Al's build) that would give around 6cm both sides.

 

However lowering the left side would reduce your overall ground clearance, not sure if that is an issue?

 

If so, you need to look at raising the right side to 8cm, possibly with a new bracket as Agent_Z suggests.

 

The other thought is to just use the tolerance in the bracket holes (they are often well over the bolt diameter), you will probably find to can close the gap be about 1cm by loosening the bolts one side and push the bracket up / tighten. Then the opposite side pushing down.

[Guest peter2b2002]

Richards jigs were made out of elastic and tape measure out of rubber

peter-2b