Testing at Silverstone

Initially i was going to enter the extra race organised by Colin at Pembrey within the WRDA, but decided it would be far more usesful to do a bit of development on the car. I had received the new dampers from Procomp, had a set of softer springs for the front and rear and had fitted a front ARB all ready for the day

Existing set up:
Front springs 275lb/in
Rear springs 225lb/in

New set up for testing
Front springs 200lb/in

Rear springs 180lb/in

16mm front ARB connected to inboard damper pick up point

The venue for testing would be a trackday at the silverstone Stowe circuit, which is very twisty as thought this would give a good test bed, plus it was cheap! Rather than making loads of changes at once, i decided to fit the dampers and softer rear springs, but leave the front ARB and springs and do these during the day.

For the first session out i left all the damper settings at total soft, just to see how the car felt. Straight away the rear end grip, even on acceleration felt vastly improved, but the car was too soft and wallowed all over the place, and the front felt like i was driving a bus, so i came back in and started upped the damper settings all round. Doing lots of short sessions and lots of tweaks to the dampers, by lunchtime i felt as if i got the dampers set up as well as i could with current spring set up. I was very happy with the dampers as they are mega controllable and can really feel a difference by just adding single clicks here and there! Coupled with The softer rear springs, it was mega grippy at the rear but front end was a bit too loose.

At lunch time I fiitted softer front springs and the arb. But straight away it felt wrong, with loads of understeer. And an observer came over to tell me they had a good picture of the inside wheel lifting high into the air! This backed up the horrible feeling the car had mid corner, I stiffened rear and softened front  dampers slightly and went out again, but could actually see the front corner lifting! It was obvious the ARB was far too stiff for the setup, so I disconnected it and went out again. Instantly the car felt better and had the turn in it had with the old set up, but was far more controllable and less flighty at the rear, after a bit more playing with the damper settings got it gripping to the road like a carpet grippy thing! The rear is very very stable now and it turns in as well as before, the only negative is that the car now  pushes wide after the Apex as it understeers slightly. I am gusessing this is partly down to the fact the car is rolling more, and the front tyres are going into positive camber due to the geometry not having enough camber compensation. But it could also be that i am now putting more power down with the rear end grip coming out of corners so pushing the car on. But then again i could have just screwed the handling up!!! But there has to be a trade off somewhere, so i'm willing to give this a try at Brands and see if the rear stability and better transfer of power from the right foot can get me a quicker lap time. If not, i can always put the old springs back on!!!