My Sable 2005 MR2 - shnazzle

[lamcote]

Yes changing camber does change the toe, that is the problem.

[Wabbitkilla]

Minutely yes .... but I pretty much used them to restore camber after working on the suspension.
When checked on the kit at Tweeks it was found that it was very accurate and toe wasn't significantly affected.

I used to run -1.5 degrees all round.
I found high camber was a real niusance on public roads, "lorry rails" on motorways induced drifting and crowned country roads could be lethal.

[shnazzle]

Ah OK. Good shout then. That's what I'll do. Hate those camber bolts though.
They're an absolute pain in the ass to adjust. You need 3 hands!
Adjustable arms are much easier

[lamcote]

Restoring camber to its correct setting is fine, adjusting it to a new setting will totally screw your toe setting, unless you adjust the camber so little that it's not worth changing anyway.

[shnazzle]

No that's the plan. Just 0.5deg or so. Worst case I take it to North East tyres near me and they'll sort the toe for a hell of a lot less.

[lamcote]

0.5 degrees will leave you with quite a lot of toe out, it's a simple trigonometric calculation. A quick and dirty calculation looks to me like you would go from 5 minutes toe in to around 15 minutes toe out! That's 3 times more toe out than the amount of toe in you have at the moment!

If you then just go for toe correction without a four wheel alignment you could well be left with a load of unwanted thrust/steer ahead angle that you just paid to be dialed out at the last place.

[Wabbitkilla]

Oh well, full job it is then Patrick

[lamcote]

Having given it some thought, I reckon I could develop a way of doing DIY 4 wheel alignments just using a bit of string, calipers and a spreadsheet, without the faff of finding the (impossibly) precise centreline of the car as you normally have to do with the string method.
Anyone interested?

[shnazzle]

I'll just stick with it until I can be bothered to get it aligned  s:) s:)  
It's the risk you take for experimenting

In the meantime I'm perfectly happily driving around as it is

[shnazzle]

Just found this.
Has a handy spreadsheet in it  s:) s:)

 m http://www.negative-camber.org/jam149/t ... nment.html m

[lamcote]

I don't reckon you can viably use that method, the tolerances of the measurements to the hub centres are just not accurate enough to ensure you have got the strings parallel. Bear in mind that your toe in of 5 minutes actually means that the leading edge of wheel rim is 0.25mm nearer the centre of the car than the wheel centre line is. You just can't measure accurately enough to the wheel hub to get the string in line and who knows what manufacturing tolerances there are for components in the hub itself? Any method for using string should only ever use measurements directly to the wheel rim itself. You are then only measuring the same distance both to align the string and measure the toe angle.

Edit. Rereading the instructions I have also noticed there are some very important measurements that have been forgotten about that will mean their results are actually meaningless.

[shnazzle]

It was just something I found. I have no intentions of using it  s:) s:)

[shnazzle]

Found out something new today; With the open loop trick, my car no longer runs on 95ron hahaha. I don't mean "My spidey senses tell me the car's not happy". I mean, full on kangarooing all over the show every time I went onto the accelerator at any pace.
Luckily managed to stop at a services and throw in half a liter of petrol treatment to increase the octane a tiny bit. THe only thing they had was "Nitrox Hot Shot". It had methanol in it so I figured, that'll do to increase octane a bit. Luckily I only filled the tank with about 20 quid of 95ron, so the 500ml of this overpriced crap did the trick.

Only premium now

[stewart@boro]

Thought I might have been on another rescue mission  s:lol: :lol: s:lol:  
Have to keep clear of Scotch Corner in future  s:) s:)

[shnazzle]

Haha wish I had waited to Scotch Corner, they had 97. But I was desperate.

Modified cars are a pain in the ass.

Having said that, Helen's car is dead sensitive to fuel grade as well and we've noticed that it can be much worse on some 95s than on others.
So, I clearly got a very bad batch from that crappy little garage we stopped at

Oh, and another note on the alignment; I'm keeping it! After a blast on some b-roads yesterday I'm converted

[shnazzle]

New toys to be added next week

Hurricane intake and MaxBore throttle body
   

[shnazzle]

Hurricane and MaxBore throttle body in.


Lovely warbling sound haha. Love it!

Stock vs maxbore


EDIT: the noise! Oh sweet heavens the noise. My cheeks hurt from smiling.

[jvanzyl]

nice... have you got a new obd2 yet to do some mapping?

[shnazzle]

No not yet. The next one I get is going to be a more upmarket one for once, but funds are depleted. It's time to recover funds now

[jonty]

Going back a page it's interesting what you've said about rear camber - my car was running stock PFL wheels previously and when I did my 2zz swap after 2 years of outdoor parking under a tree I put some 17s on since the PFLs were corroded to hell... But I had to wind the front arm out to push the wheel back in the arch to give clearance, so my alignment was all over the place. I've had the alignment done last week and set the rear to 2deg as well, and I definitely can feel that the stability is not as good as before I came off the PFLs. I'm going to replace my steering UJ this week ( I think there is a tiny amount of play) but if that doesn't solve it I'll go for less rear camber.

Have you changed the settings from 2 deg yet, or still going like that? I'm normally happy with a loose rear end, but this is the front that's floating about and it kills my confidence...

[shnazzle]

I'm keeping the -2 rear camber. I'm used to the reduction in straight line stability now, just takes a grain more focus. But the rewards on the twisties make it all worth it. So, definitely a keeper.
I won't put on any front camber though. This setup will do for me. There's nothing else I want changing to the handling.

I have removed the stock rear cross bar and left the "cusco" rear strut brace. This really made the rear a lot more compliant on the roads around here and less skiddish.
It's still a bit heavy on understeer, but I'm keeping that in as it is a daily driver and a bit of safety goes a long way.

My brake fluid could do with changing and some yellow stuff pads wouldbn;'t go amiss. All stuff for the future. Still got plenty life in my mtec pads which are absolutely smashing.

All in all, my setup is one I am happy with and can recommend. It may not be amazing for track, but it would make for a very good track day and it's very comfortable/balanced for daily use. That's me done  s:) s:)

BCs at 4/6kg (although I do like the MeisterRs as well, having been in 2 cars with them now)
Front and rear strut braces (replacing stock bracing)
TTE mid brace (Matt's brace)
-2deg camber on rear. The rest as stock.
AD08R tyres, slightly wider than stock (195 and 225).

Power-wise; I'm taking the path of Nic/Bernie but I'm in no rush. I'm very very pleased with the performance of the car at the minute. It's noticeably quicker than stock and brings power in lovely. And as Stew and I concluded on Friday; any quicker would just mean more chance of killing yourself.
The big wap of power from a turbo on the 70 roads is really good fun and puts a smile on your face, but on the b-roads it's largely wasted. If not entirely. It makes the car more driveable if you do lots of motorway miles as well. But I don't.
2zz is a track toy in my opinion. Although if any swap were to take place, it'd be 2zz.

Car's going into "maintenance mode" now for a while. Interior's getting redone, I'm sorting out little electrical bits and bobs. Replacing missing clips/screws. New wheels eventually, as mine will fail not too long from now.
Just keeping it running as-is is a prospect that I'm very happy with at the minute
Absolutely love my car

[lamcote]

Sounds like you have your car set up really nicely. Can you just remind me what you have on there that actually increases power? I know you have the EMB and now the new intake. I am assuming the EMB does increase power, the intake is really for noise (although it may start to help power if you get to a higher output?) and you have a TTE exhaust? Was the EMB mapped with a TTE exhaust?

 Is there anything else you have? I wonder what output you have?

[shnazzle]

That's it really.
Increased airflow via the hurricane intake and maxbore throttle body
Increased scavenging via the TTE (a tiny bit) and perhaps the gutted manifold. The manifold starts to fail higher up in the rpm range and lose performance as the gasses build up in the chambers and start blocking rather than helping flow. (my theory).
My cat isn't...er...in the best state...  s:) s:)   Not blocked though. Maybe that helps.

Then the whole lot made use of by the emanage with the open loop trickery. The latter is what makes the emanage worthwhile on the N/A setup.
It was mapped with gutted precat, TTE exhaust and 57i intake on another car, but I have played with the map on the emanage a bit to resolve some rougher running when toodling around town (decreased airflow map) and advanced the timing a bit smoother coming up from 2750-4000 rpm instead of just bringing it all in at 4000.

That's it really. I should take it to a dyno sometime. I think the overall HP figures won't be massively different as I'm still running a stock cat and gutted manifold. But the power is much better placed for sure.

[jonty]

Cheers for your thoughts Schnazzle, I do like the way the rear grips with this camber setting, hopefully the UJ will clear the front float.

[shnazzle]

Oil change time. Sparks were changed 6 months ago so no point and air filter...well...see above  s:) s:)  Bit pointless to change that now.
Some nice Fuchs Titan Race Pro S 5w40 in there. She runs looovely.
Finally got the nappies back on and all. Looks so much better.