Just a quick post to let you know how my trip to see chris franklin at center gravity went today!

The initial booking was for a health check on all the eccentric bushes and adjusters as with it being a '99 and after readin the horror stories on here, I expected the worst!

I fitted racing logic coilovers and driveshaft spacers aprox. 5 weeks ago and had lowered the car roughly 60mm all round .
Two weeks before my visit I started covering the bushes (the inside bit not the bolt and nut ends) with plus gas to give them the best possible chance, this later proved to be a great help!

On arrival I was met by chris who quickly introduced himself and showed me the workshop. He took the car out for the initial assessment and it showed that the car gripped well with no understeeer and behaved as it should apart from a slight pull to the left under braking and feeling not a tight as it should.

The car was then taken into the workshop all tyre pressures checked and then he adjusted the ride height so it was even on the front and back ( I had managed to get it within 3mm so hadn't done a bad job ) Then came the bit I was dreading, checking all the adjuster bolts...

First camber castor and toe were all free, a very welcomes surprise! Then every other one was seized with chris reckoning he could free off the front left castor. Luckily I had purchased some poly bushed rear toe arms from a member on here and chris agreed to cut the current ones out and replace with the new ones to give the best geo he could wih the seized camber bolts.

4 hours, 3 blades, lots of penetrating fluid later the rear toe arms were off and the new ones on. The front castor bolts took a couple of goes with the snap on gun to come free but we eventually got there, greasing and cleaning all bolts that were free and replacing with the peace of mind that they won't seize.

Geo was set with the front and rear camber as best as chris could get without the adjusters being free, luckily there werent far off, and then everything else set to chris' recommendations for the usage.

A test drive later and I was a vey happy guy, grip for days if you keep on the throttle and the car felt much more settled in corners with it sitting in a straight line when it should!

I cant thank chris enough as the outcome was a much happier one than I anticipated, a note to anyone worried about seized bolts/bushes, take your car to someone who has worked on, I believe chris said upwards of 900 s2000's in their time. I ended up with 7/10 adjusters being free and a much more drivable s2000!

 

I can only second this opinion. I took my S to Chris a few weeks back for a health check etc and his knowledge and service were/are exceptional.
His workshop is the cleanest I have ever been in too, wash your car before you go and don't go through any puddles

 

Couldn't agree more. Took my 2005 to CoG in May. Fortunately none of my adjusters were seized, and once Chris had worked his magic to set my car up for fast road use, it's so much better to drive.

 

They are good, but you can get the same job done (without a trip into a hedge ) for much less money at various other places around the country.

 

I might speak to Ray and Ang from Daytona Autos, and see if they are willing to do a bit of a geometry day.

They have excellent optical imaging kit and are fully capable of adjusting to a tolerance of 1 minute (that's 1/60th of a degree).

Put it this way, it's been on my Westfield and we narrowed down a defective part on the front axle and some worn bushes on the rear axle.

Even despite that, after the geo, the car was LOADS better!

I think that's a discussion for the August North West meet.

 

I'm sure there are hundreds of places that do the same thing but the point of my post was to give my experience with chris at centre gravity! I'm sure most places would say drop your car off and leave it with us, chris let me watch every step and I can say I now know an awful lot more about suspension and geometry than I did before !

Money well spent

 

Go to nineMeister in warrington and they will tell you all about GEO and suspension too and let you watch them do the job, furthermore they set up/build Chris' track car for him, there are plenty of people around who know their stuff and only charge £80 or less for a full GEO

 

im sure they will welcome you with open arms when you work out if coilovers are worth it or not

if you've had a bad experience or would rather pay £80 thats fine mate, id rather pay £300 for a replica mugen intake than £500 for a legit one at end of day ! But im sharing my positive experience of a day i thoroughly enjoyed

 

And Nut is sharing his experience with you on a public forum.

Having met Chris, I found him to be a top bloke and I wish him every success.

 

Nut hasn't actually said anything about his experience with Center Gravity. He has asserted that you can get the same job done elsewhere for £80. I have had my S2000 set up by Center Gravity, and Chris supplied and installed my Bilstein PSS9s. I was and am still extremely happy with the results. That's not a comparable job with the OP's because it took a couple of days to do all the necessary work.

However, this job I think does stand comparison. Last month I took my BMW Alpina D3 biturbo to Center Gravity for a thorough geometry check and adjustment. For the Alpina Chris spent about 4 hours with me - on the initial test drive, then testing the capability of the shocks, checking the geo on the Beissbarth equipment, corner weighting, adjusting geo, and setting correct ride height etc, then final test drive. If you can get that all done for £80 then whoever does it is charging £20 an hour for their labour. I'd be very surprised.