Rear Axle Help

[dendeel]

Hey all, Dennis here in Ontario,Canada finally getting around to my build and have a question, I have the floor and rear axle in and am wondering if there is a start point to set the shocks? on the 4 Locosts we built using live axles we set the ride height so the trailing arms were parallel to the ground at road weight but with the IRS I'm not sure where to start...i set the drive shafts parallel to the ground but that seems low...any help is appreciated.

Thanks

Dennis

 

[fry61]

General rule is for the bodywork/lower chassis rail just in front of the rear wheels to be 7" off the ground at kerb weight --- leaves the wheels at a camber which some correct with wedges in between trailing arm & hub. Not done that on our 2B which does give uneven wear across the tyre, but we use quite narrow tyres as Florin was built for touring.

[Bob Tucker]

\Hi Dennis,

the original shocks & springs supplied by RHE are not much good..

Many builders have eventually changed them for well known coilovers

from gaz, koni, protech etc. It may be easier to change them now while you can get to everything.

 

I cant see from your pic, but if you stay with the original setup, there is a tube which slides into the

bottom of the roll bar. RHE suggests you drill right through both tubes & fit a bolt.

But for setup purposes I fitted a jubilee clip so I could adjust the height easily.

[Guest Tim Norman]

Mount the diff as high as you can, it takes out a lot of the inherent negative camber.

[dendeel]

Thanks for the tips guys. we did mount the diff high as possible, i have a set of Caterham GAZ shocks, and I had to google jubilee clip as here we call them hose clamps..7" to the chassis bottom seems high but the last Locost we built was a track car so it was only 3" off the ground but stiffly sprung..we are probably using 205-55-16 but thats not set in stone..don"t have rims yet either...

[Guest mower man]

Mount the diff as high as you can, it takes out a lot of the inherent negative camber.

Should not that be pos camber Tim ?

[Guest Tim Norman]

No.

In its natural position utilising the two bolt holes as per the original design there is a lot of negative camber when the car is at its normal ride height. Lifting the dif and utilising the bottom hole on the dif and the top hole on the mount puts the dif higher and reduces the camber. Even better if you can get hold of the Cosworth back end, as the whole setup was designed for a lower car so win win. That's what I have on mine, and the rear wheels are near vertical even when I hit the loud pedal and it squats hard on its haunches.

[Guest mower man]

mick