Lowered Suspension Question

  • Thread starter A7X
  • 38 comments
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There's modifying and modifying. Personally I wouldn't waste the time or money turning a "low three figure" car into a slightly less crap three figure car. I'd take the money I'd spend and the value of the car and pool it together into a car which is already slightly less crap than the slightly less crap version of the crap car in the first place.

Modifying a Clio isn't exactly out of the ordinary either - it's one of the steeds of choice for the MaxPower generation. We have a database of 12,335 badly modified cars at Barryboys and 404 of them are Clios - one fewer than even the venerable Vauxhall Nova. This puts it 7th behind the Vauxhall Corsa (1,048), Ford Escort (811), Ford Fiesta (666), Vauxhall Astra (523), Citroen Saxo (520) and Nova (405). Not that A7X is a Barry - he's not going to their levels (bodykits, ridiculous exhausts and so on) and is doing sensible modifications first. But, while the modifications may be sensible in of themselves, it's the application. That said, any car which is more stable (be it in acceleration, braking or cornering) is inherently a safer car.
 
Milford Cubicle
The GSD3's are better. Ignore Famine.
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I heard they have a slight edge in the wet but then they do also cost a bit more. GSD3's are no longer the Goodyear daddy as apparently they have made a new top dog tyre called the assymetricals. Havent seen them on sale anywhere yet though!
 
Okay, all this has got me curious about my car. I'd love to have the Twin Cam Nova suspension, but, well, it's difficult to find, especially considering it uses different arms and such from the normal 4-door. and If I found one I'd want the whole car.

does anyone know of a US model FWD AE8X model Corolla, that will fully interchange rear and front suspension bits for similar performance to a Twin Cam suspension? I've thought about an FX, but I'm not sure if the rear end bits would fit, and those arent' easy to find here, either. (Any pre-1990 import performance car is almost impossible to find. they've all gone out to the coasts.) I'm looking for kits, mainly, especially antiroll bars, since...well...I don't have any.

I'd probably get tires first...which brings up the subject of rims...and how I'll have to go Ridiculously cheap on those, probably 15" steelies with the correct four-bolt pattern. would cast-off Scion steelies fit? My currents are 13"
 
Famine
Oddly, I have 225/50R15 T1-Rs on my car. They do the opposite of sucking.

I was considering getting some 888s for her next trackday but:
  • They're twice the price each.
  • One track day would destroy them
  • It's not like I can break traction on track on the T1-Rs anyway.
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I can't fault them for wet and dry grip, but they didn't feel very confidence inspiring as i'd get this odd sensation where you could sort of feel the sidewalls flexing, which never happened with the old Yokos that I had. I don't know if it's just that all the weight is on the rear tyres in my car but several other people have reported the same sort of odd feeling in the stock sizes in the same type car.
 
A little flex helps for predictable loss of grip though. You don't want grip, grip, grip, grip, grip, death. Grip, grip, grip, wa-hey, whoops, death is far preferable.
 
Famine - talking of barry boys i used to frequent the site a lot (go on - call me a hypocrit!) and have actually got a couple of snaps i'd love to upload (some brilliant ones of a zafira), unfortunately i haven't got an email address supplied by my ISP so i cannot sign up. The only way i can think of is to use my work email, but i'm not to sure how our filter would take to it! Is there any other email address they allow? I have searched their site but could not find any other information on it. Sorry to stray off topic.

Back on topic - I find my yoko's are very unpredictable in the wet and and can be very slippy at times, and do suddenly lose grip - probably due to the low profile and as race idiot said they don't flex.
 
Famine
A little flex helps for predictable loss of grip though. You don't want grip, grip, grip, grip, grip, death. Grip, grip, grip, wa-hey, whoops, death is far preferable.
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This had me laughing out loud. :lol: :lol: The former sounds like the Toyota Yaris sedan we test-drove last month:

Vios_ss9.jpg

(damnit, Marv should have waited for me to color-correct those before publishing)

Stupid set-up, really... 205/45R17s with a breakaway point about as predictable as a North Korean dictator. If you ever see Yokohama DNA dBs on a car, run away, quickly. Add to that a stock suspension with really soft springs and shocks... ugh... this is the first time I've ever felt in danger of stuffing a test unit.
 
Famine
A little flex helps for predictable loss of grip though. You don't want grip, grip, grip, grip, grip, death. Grip, grip, grip, wa-hey, whoops, death is far preferable.
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The sensation in the toyos was slightly different than other tyres where grip bled off slowly it felt more like the whole car shifted for a second and then sorta bounced back. Not a major amount but it felt realy odd.
 

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