Superspec & Gaz Shoks

[Guest bytesize]

I recently took Robin Hood up on their offer to replace the dreaded Zzzzz's with Gaz adjustables and springs.

The units duly arrived and after fabricating new bush's, sleeves and mounts I finaly tried them on the car.

 

Now front seems to sit very low, 4inch, and the back very high, 9 inch (bodywork to ground)

 

Both front and back units had the springs just nipped up (bout half way up the shocker body) before fitting and have not been adjusted either way.

 

When the units arrived ther was no indication of which units or springs were for front or for the rear, (both spring sets rated at 300lbs).

 

I checked the Zzz's and based my choice accordingly.

 

I used the shorter of the shockers with the shorter springs for the front and the long shockers and long springs for the back, now I am not so sure if this is correct or not.

 

Has any one else fitted these units or have info on what the pairings should be.

 

ie Long shock & Short Spring to rear, Short shock & long spring to front etc.

[Guest Dredd]

Your right to put short on front and long on back. My Spec is 3" off ground at front (under the sump) and 10" at the rear from bottom of rear panel to ground. The front clearence is comon to other spec owners, some havefitted sump guards, but you hould go for a remote oil filter kit at least as it is extremely vulnerable.

[mellors55]

I have replaced my Zimmers with Protec's on my SS.

I was at first struggling to find the correct spring rate (I started with 300 all round but the front was very low even after moving the top mountings out). So I measured the rating of the springs on the Zimmers I had taken off and found them to be 380 on the front and 280 on the back.

So I have settled for 400 on the front and 300 on the back and I can now adjust ride height without having to screw the spring pans up too tight.

John

[Longboarder]

Better to vary length of spring as well as rate to adjust ride height and handling respectively. i.e. drop to 300 on the front and go an inch longer. 400 on the front sounds very hard but no different to 380!

 

Nigel

[Guest bytesize]

Played around with the adjusters on the shocks today, I have managed to get the rear to measure 6.5" from rear of cockpit (just in front of rear wing) to ground (5" from bottom of floor pan).

 

Front sitting at 7" from body panel to ground (measured at brake flexi) , this gives me around 2.25" (loaded) and 2.75" (unloaded) from the sump/oil filter to ground.

 

With the front I have had to screw up the adjuster to around 1.25" of thread left, however the springs are down to around 55-60% of their original length, the shock has around 2" of compression to fully closed and around 1" of expansion to fully open.

 

The rears are a little less radical, around 2" of travel left on the adjuster. The clearance between the top of the rear tyre and the bottom of the wings is now at around 3.5" when the car is unloaded and around 2.25 with a driver in.

 

I can raise the front by moving the bottom mounts closer in but this gives the car a pronounced nose high look and I dont realy want to raise the rear much more, it is already starting to look as if the rear wing gap is too big.

 

I'm kinda worried about the sump to ground clearance so any more ideas or help would definately be appreciated.

 

PS Photo's can be arranged if this would help.

[Guest Dredd]

I used 10" 300lbs on front with GAZ adjustables and 11" and 300lb on rear with same shocks. I have moved my front suspension mounting back to the original setting (half way up) and with about 22 clicks on the adjuster wheel and 9 threads showing on the front shocks, I maintain the 3" clearence. The ride has a touch understeer but nothing you notice too much. The rear is really good with noticable extra traction out of corners.

[Guest bytesize]

I contacted Dave at Dampertech-Rotheram, these are the guys who supply GAZ to RH, and got the following advice.

 

With the springs removed from the shocks, measure the distance between the mounting bushes on the shocks when they are fully open and fully closed, my front shocks are 13" when fully open and 10" when closed.

The shocks should be fitted so that at rest they are half closed.

 

ie 13" minus 10" divided by 2 equals 1.5"

 

This give me a magic figure of 11.5" (13" minus 1.5")

 

1 - Take shocks off the car

2 - Jack up the front utill you get the required ground clearance, in my case 4" from sump to ground

3 - Measure the distance between the top mounting holes and the bottom mounting holes, on the car, until you find a set which gives you exactly 11.5" between them.

4 - Release any tension in the springs on the shockers

5 - Mount the shocks between the chosen mounting holes, the ones with the 11.5" gap

6 - Adjust the tension on the springs so that when you lower the car of the jack there is 11.5" between the top and bottom mounting bush's and subsequently 4" of ground clearance.

 

N.B. Always jack the car up before adjusting the springs and make sure you give it a little wobble and shake after lowering it back onto the ground, just to make sure the car settles to a natural possition.

 

Step 6 sounds worse than it is, I only had to make two adjustments and it was spot on.

 

The last piece of advice from Dave at Dampertech was to make sure the bottom wish bone was somewhere between horizontal or up to 10 degrees of the horizontal.

 

The rear suspension should be set by same method, using the fully open and fully closed measurements to find the centre spot then picking the correct mounting holes and adjusting the springs to get units to sit at midway point.

 

Hope this helps, it certainly worked for me, so cheers to Dave