Post Mallory Musing (not as a big a muse as Bob though)

I've always felt the rear of the fury was rather lively, but put it down to it being live axle, but now that i am pushing a bit harder i feel its really starting to hamper my progress. Now i know the biggest limiting factor is me, and apart from getting as much practice in as i can and planning on some driver training later on in the year, i have also embarked on a weight reduction plan and fitness campaign to try and improve my racing (and health) Putting that aside, i'd also like to improve the car if possible (just incase i get back on the sofa and scoff pies), I'm happy having the car sliding around underneath me, but i feel its just to snappy and find myself constantly fighting and backing off to keep it on the tarmac. I have definitely changed my driving style to try and become smoother (and maybe slower) but watching videos of the car from behind and observations from the pit wall show the rear of the car hopping about and constantly suddenly stepping out. The car definitely never feels like the back is in a controllable drift, its either gripping or letting go violently, which isn't confident inspiring or a particularly quick way to negotiate a corner.

Considering i wrote my dissertation on rear suspension design, you would think i would know exactly what i was talking about or what to do, but the reality is, the subject was completly home taught by myself, i looked at the subject it in a very 1 dimensional way, basing it it only one authors view from a book in the university library, I didn't bother reading all of the book as it was too long, there was beer to be drank, i only had 6 weeks to complete the project (as i'd left it to the last minute due to the previous point) and as i discovered the day before i handed it in and the prototype was sitting at the Stoneleigh kit car show, i had made a rather large error in the formula, so obviously had no idea what i was on about, which is still true today!!  I understand all the terminology, and a lot of the theory, but turning that into reality and diagnosing problems really is new ground for me.

The rear of the car doesn't look settled so i decided to strip the dampers off and have a look at what was going on with the suspension. But before i did all this i measured everything up and took the corner weights (using 4 bathroom scales) so i had a starting point to revert to if needed and check the current setting/ride heights etc. Once this was done I removed the dampers and springs and the suspension seemed to move around correctly and had no slack in it, so that all looked good. I sent the dampers off to Procomp Motorsport (who i used to finish off setting up the ST last year) who have a dyno to see how the dampers are performing.

The results are shown below:-

The results show that the valving had been adjusted for  the lighter car and that it was working as intended, but apparently the 2:1 ratio between rebound and compression are not correct as the dampers are ramped up. I also hadn't realised that 1 way adjustable dampers actually adjusted both rebound and compression, i thought they only controlled rebound, i now realise that i had been very stupid and must hang my head in shame. So with the compression increasing too much per click coupled to the fact i was running 11 clicks (out of 12) at the rear and also running 225lb/in springs at the rear it looks as if the car had virtually no suspension at the rear, which would back up why the car was so lively at the back and hoping around so much. I maybe barking up the wrong tree here, but my plan is to now drop the clicks right down (front and back) for Brands this weekend and see if it helps things. Ok i may have problem with rebound, but i will have to try and find a compromise for this weekend. Yes i should have played with the settings more before this, but the last thing you want to do is try new settings for a race with no testing as you can't do anything about them, plus i have been that engrossed in trying to improve myself, i have tried to the leave the car in one state as much as possible as a bench mark.

I have booked a track day in May and ordered a set of new protech dampers and 180lb/in rear springs, so i'll fit these, and swap over the current 275lb/in fronts for the 225 lb/in i have on the rear at present and see if it improves things, watch this space!