Escort Beater

[martine30rally]

Good call, just make sure you clear the code or it may be stored and give duff results even if the sensor is reading how it should.

[kitkat]

I decided to make an adjustable rear beam, the wishbones are rose jointed, allowing track and camber to be adjusted. The beam itself has the options of adjusting the roll centre, squat and the sweep angle.



Above are some of the components pre-welding.



The beam was welded to an RSJ, I then had the machine shop cut it into pieces!



A steel insert fits in top and bottom of the four turrets, these have a hole machined in them which a caphead passes through, clamping wishbone to the beam, via spacers. The spacers adjust the roll centre, the steel inserts have offset holes to adjust the sweep angle.



The above picture shows how the bolts are accessed through the floor.




modified wishbone, just tacked together at this point, several gussets have been welded since to add strength.



The above picture shows the wishbone bolted in the mid roll centre setting.


The above shows the adjustable rear top mount, as the roll centre is moved the damper length needs to be changed....

painted turrets.

Testing at Walters Arena, all the hard work paided off!!!

[gartrac]

Lots of nice fabrication

Did you buy the adjustable beam kit or did you manufacture it all yourself

Peter

[kitkat]

Paid a visit to Prodrive and spoke to my ex boss who allowed me to take away some of their wishbone adjusters and a GpA beam to measure. Decided I wanted to play with the roll centres and sweep angle so put the thinking cap on and designed a beam arrangment, had a local machine shop turn the bits up. My biggest concern was driveshaft plunge when I started moving pick up points, fortunately the shafts have lots of movement

[is-si]

Thanks for the update, give us a post when you have an event lined up

[kitkat]

Does anyone suffer from mid corner understeer? This genarally happens on a bump, as you can see from the video.

https://youtu.be/WIZ_y_aFtXI

[slidewaysbmw]

Hi mike .its not something my car suffers from despite various different attempts to increase rear end grip ..looking at the video it appears you gain a lot of grip when the rear suspension is under load ,this in turn gives you front end understeer .phil littlewood who developed the original compact challenge suspension suffered the same issue ,he increased the rear grip with variable rate springs and the cars suffered from understeer .

[kitkat]

That's an interesting point. I think I've had this issue since the car was built though. The rear suspension has had several evolutions in design, now you can drive the car without the rear snapping sideways. I've looked at the front camber curve, thinking with some body roll maybe it needs more camber, or I need to move the front roll centre, but looking at the video, body roll looks good and the camber curve was good when I measured it. The front feels like it goes airborne over the bump and hence loses grip, I was thinking more towards softening compression on damper. A friend of mine, Justin Middleton has a E36 sedan, and his car has the same issue, hence me thinking the problem is more front end, as both cars share the same front suspension?

[red325]

It does look like the front end is going light - it might be worth trying to reduce the rebound (rather than compression) damping so that the wheel returns to the ground quicker and doesn't hang?

[kitkat]

Hi Red325. Funny enough this is the advice I was given by Marko Ramanen (Bigem dampers) in Finland, he’s suggested softening the rebound by 10 clicks. We’re out on the Nicky Grist, so hope to shake the car down before the event to try a few things. Thank you for your input, will keep you posted.

[red325]

Glad I'm in good company with my suggestion.
Hope the change does the trick and good luck on the NG.
Simon

[kitkat]

I’ve been making carbon panels during the lock down and have finished the bonnet and front bumper.

https://youtu.be/HSSxnLBqD0M

https://youtu.be/OZ3cbXfArAI

I’ve now started on the front wings, think I may call body kit Covid!

[mrfuzzyfelts]

I’ve been making carbon panels during the lock down and have finished the bonnet and front bumper.

https://youtu.be/HSSxnLBqD0M

https://youtu.be/OZ3cbXfArAI

I’ve now started on the front wings, think I may call body kit Covid!

Selling these panels when done?