Bean Bandits Levin 'Globetrotter'

[NoHachi]

(12-25-2014 03:48 AM)jondee86 Wrote:  Driving in normal city traffic on these settings, how does the suspension
react to small (20-25mm high) square edged holes/bumps ? These are the
ones that send a short sharp shock into the car and make you wince when
you hit them. Like the manhole covers that you swerve to avoid if you see
them coming

Cheers... jondee86

Jondee, these very high velocity and very high frequency disturbances are not influenced much by dampers. Most of the shock is transmitted before they ever get into motion. This effect gets worse as you move the roll center towards the c.o.g.

If you want compliance over these kinds of disturbances, the places to look are tires with high and supple sidewalls, rubber control arm bushes and rubber top mounts.

Shitty shocks can make a difference here, but they have to be very bad indeed (lots of ae86 stuff is).

[jondee86]

(12-25-2014 12:18 PM)NoHachi Wrote:  If you want compliance over these kinds of disturbances, the places to
look are tires with high and supple sidewalls, rubber control arm bushes
and rubber top mounts.

I usually have 60-Series, but have 55-Series at the moment, as decent
14" tyres are getting hard to find. Rubber bushings... yes. Rubber top
mounts... yes. And that is one of the questions on which there does not
seem to be a lot of information.

All coilovers replace the rubber top mount with a metal/metal camber
plate, and I have always wondered just how much difference this makes
to the noise/vibration transmitted to the chassis ? In industrial practice,
putting even a relatively thin layer of rubber in compression between
surfaces can make a decent reduction in transmission. So would putting
say 4mm of rubber between the camber plate and the tower be a good
move ? Has anyone tried this kind of isolation ?

Just curious really... as it seems to me that if you wanted to sell
coilovers for upmarket cars, keeping the noise/vibration increase down
would be a good selling feature.

Cheers... jondee86

[Bean]

(12-25-2014 03:48 AM)jondee86 Wrote:  

(12-23-2014 02:26 PM)Bean Bandit Wrote:  Normally I have them on 2 or 3 and this soaks up a lot...

Driving in normal city traffic on these settings, how does the suspension
react to small (20-25mm high) square edged holes/bumps ? These are the
ones that send a short sharp shock into the car and make you wince when
you hit them. Like the manhole covers that you swerve to avoid if you see
them coming

Cheers... jondee86

No too bad, I'll make sure to hit a few when taking the footage.

(12-25-2014 12:18 PM)NoHachi Wrote:  

(12-25-2014 03:48 AM)jondee86 Wrote:  Driving in normal city traffic on these settings, how does the suspension
react to small (20-25mm high) square edged holes/bumps ? These are the
ones that send a short sharp shock into the car and make you wince when
you hit them. Like the manhole covers that you swerve to avoid if you see
them coming

Cheers... jondee86

Jondee, these very high velocity and very high frequency disturbances are not influenced much by dampers. Most of the shock is transmitted before they ever get into motion. This effect gets worse as you move the roll center towards the c.o.g.

If you want compliance over these kinds of disturbances, the places to look are tires with high and supple sidewalls, rubber control arm bushes and rubber top mounts.

Shitty shocks can make a difference here, but they have to be very bad indeed (lots of ae86 stuff is).

True I felt quite a difference when I switched from my highwalled 14s to 50R15s

(12-26-2014 02:30 AM)jondee86 Wrote:  

(12-25-2014 12:18 PM)NoHachi Wrote:  If you want compliance over these kinds of disturbances, the places to
look are tires with high and supple sidewalls, rubber control arm bushes
and rubber top mounts.

I usually have 60-Series, but have 55-Series at the moment, as decent
14" tyres are getting hard to find. Rubber bushings... yes. Rubber top
mounts... yes. And that is one of the questions on which there does not
seem to be a lot of information.

All coilovers replace the rubber top mount with a metal/metal camber
plate, and I have always wondered just how much difference this makes
to the noise/vibration transmitted to the chassis ? In industrial practice,
putting even a relatively thin layer of rubber in compression between
surfaces can make a decent reduction in transmission. So would putting
say 4mm of rubber between the camber plate and the tower be a good
move ? Has anyone tried this kind of isolation ?

Just curious really... as it seems to me that if you wanted to sell
coilovers for upmarket cars, keeping the noise/vibration increase down
would be a good selling feature.

Cheers... jondee86

Topmounts are solid on my end and I got polybushes all round still it's resonable comfy - for real comfort you need to get a Citroën DS
A thin rubber layer would certainly work on the noise/vibration matter but not make a difference in comfort.
Also don't forget on upmarket cars the entire noise isolation is much better and hence less of an issue compared to our old beaters.


Now to other GOOD news - after more than one year of search I finally found a place to work on my car. A nice workshop owner will provide me with a bit of space and access to all his tools (including paintbooth) after new years so progress updates should finally resume
I will start by stripping the whole car down and check everything over. I don't expect any big surprises but one never knows. Up 'till recently I wanted to stitch weld the whole thing but it's a lot of effort (cages are not allowed around here for street driven cars) and I'm not sure it's need to that extent - I'll do some analyzing once it's stripped and go from there. Also will review the Option Videos on that matter - strut towers will defo see some attention.
I'm open to suggestions/experience/opinions on that matter.

[Bean]

Rainy days again so no footage yet.
@jondee86: what speeds would you like to see going over the manholes?

some slightly informative update:
I received my infrared thermometer so did some under bonnet measurements after a slightly sprited drive. Here the results:
underside of the bonnet 60-90°C, intake side cam cover about 70°C, exhaust side cam cover up to 90°C, stock header heatshield aroun 120°C and the exposed 4th runner in the back 290°C.
Ambient temps were around 15°C and measurements are taken on my parking spot so about a 2min slow driving before switching the engine off and taking readings about 20sec after shut down.

So to all people running FPR bonnets, make sure a good epoxy was used and or put some insulation/heatshielding in the area of the header.
I do have to admit though that my engine although still stock apart from lack of EGR seems to run hoter than average. I remember measuring up to 800°C with my EGT fitted in place of the EGR bung on the 4th runner of the header.

[jondee86]

(01-03-2015 12:08 PM)Bean Bandit Wrote:  @jondee86: what speeds would you like to see going over the manholes?

The urban speed limit here is 50kph so in the 40-50kph range would be
good. Just the kind of slightly above or below grade covers that you can
see coming when you get close, but don't always have time to swerve
around. Not massive drops... I'd guess not much more than +/-20mm from
level for 90% of them. Anything higher or lower will usually get rectified
reasonably quickly after road repairs.

As NoHachi says, the kind of shock generated might be beyond the
control range of the suspension. So I would also like to know how the new
suspension compares to your old setup on these kinds of bumps. Has it
smoothed them out at all ?

Cheers... jondee86

[Bean]

This much I can say already, it does feel better than my previous setup despit twice the spring rate an sportier tires (whent from 185/55R14 performance tires to 205/50R15 semis). You can feel the combo is well suited to each other. I always had a feeling the Tocico HTS are asking for more than 2kg springs. You could turn them all the way soft and it was comfy but also very boat like. (I'll see if I can dig out 1 or 2 pictures I know I should have somewhere with more lean than the tower of Pisa)
Before the weekend I brilliantly turned up the dampers to 3/4 front/rear out of 12, just when the rain set in again... it made it interesting to say the least but still not harsh - wouldn't call it comfy either but the difference is definitely there.
I hope traffic plays along and I will try to borrow additional cams to take front and rear footage at the same time with two to three different damper settings.

[Bean]

So a new phase has started, today I droped my car off at the workshop and will start stripping it down, finish the new engine swap it and so forth - lot's to do

@jondee: I took some footage of the front coilovers unfortunately I had to find out I really suck at editing - barely managed to cut the start and end of it... anyway if you or somebody else is willing to edit it or just wants the raw footage I can put it on my server.
Resolution is 848x480 @240fps - to get the most out of it I mounted the cam at a 90° angle so it needs turning too.
Haven't figured out how to convert it to slowmotion either so anyway volunteers are welcome

[Bean]

So here we go started yesterday with the tear down

engine, gearbox, driveshaft and some other parts in and around the engine bay are out. Seems I have brought more back from Africa then I thought


Now I'm off to holiday for a week

There's still so much to do but good things take time and I'll just do it step by step.

[banpei]

Are you an illegal sand smuggler?

[Bean]

(01-30-2015 09:47 PM)banpei Wrote:  Are you an illegal sand smuggler?

Had so much of that stuff, they might have paid me to get rid of it