bbjon wrote:I think I'd always rather go with the standard setup if possible.
Lotus knew what they were doing when they developed the spring and damper rates - certainly far better than I do!
particularly when they did so much development work - John Miles did 80,000 miles in England & Europe sorting the ride and handling (P 123 of Mark Hughes' book) and then they did a 24 hr run at Snetterton that stopped after 22 hrs & 1860 miles (84 mph average) when the gearchange cable broke. I'm happy to bow to their judgement on best setting ..
I'm still running OE setup on my SE that's not yet done 53k miles so dampers are working fine (I think, I'll find out for sure on Saturday), so I haven't gone down the 'replacement damper' route yet but ....
I was involved in racing 1000cc Mini's in the '70's. My Mini was 'super lightweight' so got Spax, who were 5 miles away, to build me special dampers for the rear. Spax supplied a performance chart and advice on setting up adjustable dampers.
Been delving in my files and found the chart & my notes from a 'Team Pub Meeting'
- Copied them below verbatim -
You may find them useful, or you may not ...
(Was a 2 car team and the other driver was also called Phil and was he that used Konis, not me...confused us at times. too!)
spax mini damper.jpg
Dampers (Notes following my visit to Spax and team discussion at The Woodman)
Normal road cars are softest on bump (being compressed by a bump) and between 2 & 5 times stiffer on rebound (extending out again) to give decent ride and stop ‘harmonic bouncing’ on springs.
Bumpy circuits require close to ‘road settings’ - Llandow, Lydden Hill , Castle Combe
Smoother circuits ratios can be lower bump/rebound ratio – Brands, Silverstone, Snetterton (couple of bumpy corners, particularly Bombhole , but generally smooth)
Single seaters run lower bump/rebound ratios than saloons – Spax guy didn’t say why.
Phil’s Koni have adjustable bump when fully in, and adjustable rebound when fully out so should have more choice - but he keeps getting ‘lost’… Dampers need to be removed from the car to adjust.
Fronts won’t be too bad with my one piece front but rears will be a pain in the arse as on Phil’s .. Takes Phil about 45 minutes to do all 4 and he’s never certain he’s set each pair the same !! .(Can’t be delegated as it’s ‘feel’ )
Spax can do some ‘specials’ for a lightweight Mini with 6 settings by an external screw so can be adjusted on the car – very useful if it rains and we are changing to wets, dampers can be softened at same time…
Spax have supplied chart for suggested performance ratios… Note that '3' looks more than halfway between 0 & 6 so 1 to 2 & 2 to 3 might create more change than 3 to 4, 4 to 5, 5 to 6… suck it and see at a test day…
Spax settings - Bump to Rebound ratios are adjusted together as shown on chart. Ratio measured with dividers are :-
At 0.3m/sec
0 1 to 4
3 1 to 5
6 1 to 4.5
At 0.2m/sec
0 1 to 4
3 1 to 4
6 1 to 4
At 0.1m/sec
0 1 to 4
3 1 to 4.5
6 1 to 4.7
Spax setup info for test day …
Bounce, wallow or lurch in corners – increase rebound damping
Car jacks itself down to bumpstops – too much rebound damping (BDA Escort man at Snetterton last year!)
Grounding, lurch onto front corner, excessive squat or dive – too little bump damping
Hard ride, sideways hop & patter (Go-kart) – too much bump damping.
Front start on 4, Rear on 2. (If dry) Wet will back off 1 click - so set Front 3 Rear 1 if wet.
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