berny2435

on another note, my frackin collars have twisted themselves upwards over time on the right front side of my car. The allen set screw was loose on the right front. Caused my rather new alignment to be off and car pulls to the right now. I looked back at some old #s and took the right front down 2 turns but I have no idea what ride height was before alignment. car still pulls to the right. Thinking I need to go down another couple turns. I mark my shocks with permanent marker where the collar was but didn't go all the way down in fear that it was aligned after it moved up a bit. I just hope that was where it was previously aligned at.

Probably going to need a new alignment again.. .
Thinking about getting a corner ballance too this time.

//steve\\

Once your alignment is set grab some ride height measurements wherever you park it and write them down so it's easy to go back to. That's what I try to do so if I disassemble things it's easy to make sure they go back together and my alignment isn't off.

robrob

Berny, just measure the spring perch collar on the left front and then set the right shock at exactly the same position. That will get you in the ballpark. If your car still pulls to one side you'll need a new alignment.

robrob

I test drove the car today around the neighborhood so I didn't push it but it's the first drive since tightening the 8 out of 12 subframe bolts, tightening a loose front sway bar link and a fresh alignment after the shock revalve and spring upgrade. The car feels great, much "tighter" now. Can't wait to get it on the track, hopefully next week.

berny2435

What's your plan for testing the new setup?

Did you keep your KW helper springs in?

//steve\\

Rob's car is a dedicated track/racecar so I'd imagine testing is going to be first track day of his season.

robrob

I did keep the helper springs to contain the springs at full droop. I'm starting with a best guess soft setting for both compression & rebound and plan to make a lot of adjustments during track sessions to get the best feedback. I'm keeping the rest of the car as close to what it was to reduce variables but I did correct loose subframes & a loose swaybar end link so that will hopefully make the car more stable. I plan to start with compression adjustments first then move to rebound--basically following the KW Tuning Guide on my site.

TubeDriver

Hey Rob,

How loose are we talking about? Were the subframe bolts finger loose?

robrob

Pete, the front subframe's two rearmost bolts could be turned by hand. All 6 of the rear subframe bolts were below torque specs but not as loose as the front subframe bolts.

robrob

After getting on track for the first event of the season I can finally give a report on TWF's V3 revalve. I moved from 628lb front and 571 rear to 800lb front and 700 rear. The revalved V3s handled the new springs really well.

My best lap with the old springs was with the V3s set at:

Compression .75 (3 sweeps) front, 1 (4 sweeps) rear [4 sweeps = 1 turn]
Rebound 4/6 (4 clicks) front, 1 (6 clicks) rear. [6 clicks = 1 turn]

I wanted to start soft on the shock settings so with the new springs & revalved V3s I went with:

Compression 1 turn (4 sweeps) front & rear
Rebound 1 1/2 turns (9 clicks) front, 1 4/6 (10 clicks) rear

Just driving to the track I could tell the settings were too soft. The suspension was just too compliant, too comfortable for 800/700 springs but I didn't change anything until after running about 4 laps. The rear end felt funky, almost like I had twitchy 4 wheel steering.

I came in and changed the rebound to:
1 turn (6 clicks) front, 1 2/6 (8 clicks) rear.

I also discovered that my catch can pulled almost a quart of oil out of the valve cover during that short 4 lap session. I put a clamp on a vent line and drained the catch can and added 3/4 of a quart and went back out. I'm going back to my old system of just venting the valve cover, not applying vacuum to it.

The car was more stable and handled better and I dropped about a second a lap but the rear was still less stable than it should have been so I came in and dropped the rebound to:

4/6 (4 clicks) front, 1 (6 clicks) rear. Note that these are the same settings that worked best with the old 628/571lb springs but with the revalve it handles the 800/700 nicely. The car felt very stable and predictable. I overcooked a couple of corners but I was able to catch the car with little drama. I dropped another second off the lap time.

I ran one last test with the rebound set to:
3/6 (3 clicks) front, 5/6 (5 clicks) rear and I noticed a drop off in traction with more understeer and oversteer at different points around the track. The weather had warmed up some so that may have been a factor but I'm pretty sure I'm close to the ideal rebound settings.

Because of the catch can problem I lost a bunch of track time so I didn't have a chance to mess with the compression but I'm sure it's too soft at 1 turn front and rear. I'm going to try 3/4 turn front and rear (3 sweeps) next. If that is an improvement I'll try 5/8 in the front (2 1/2 sweeps) next.

So far I'm very happy with the revalved V3s but I need more testing to work out the optimal settings.