Hi all,
you probably all know I went wider with wheels and arches recently. This revealed/pointed out the awesome amount of give in my suspension :(
I did a 160 mile round tip at the weekend and I got rubbing a grand total of twice (at high speeds going over cr@ppy road undulations), considering the large size of the existing wheel arch gap, rubbing suprises me (see picture at the bottom of this post that shows said gap).
The suspension is all stock.
Can this be rectified with replacing the stock springs with aftermarket stiffer springs? I would guess they are stiffer as well as lower. I would only replace the rear springs and would ideally not want a ride height reduction.
Tein have their S.Tech (http://www.tein.co.uk/detail/fd3sdetail.html#S.TECH) which would drop the rear 25mm which should be okay; I don\'t know what the stock spring rates are so I can\'t compare - looking for comments from people who have fitted them. Is it a straight swap or something more?
Chris.
Any reason you cant go lower Chris?
Mine is a lot lower than that, and I dont have any problems on speedbumps or anything. I just need to watch I dont take the front out on kurbs however.
You think it might still be rubbing on the old arch rather that the very outside?
I\'d rather not go lower because of the steepness of my drive :( But I think lowering the rear a bit is okay, it\'s the front that catches if I get the angle wrong.
I think it\'s rubbing on the new arch now but not the top of the arch, because that clears the wheel now, rather the side parts of the arch, because they cut back in. It only happens rarely but I want to sort it.
If you\'ve got the £s spare you might be better off getting a fully adjustable suspension setup as you can compensate for height adjustment and play withthe damping until you get a suitable ride.
After some fiddling I\'ve discovered that, for road use, the Tein Flex \'standard\' settings are really nice as the damping compensated the higher spring rate and you always have the option of upping the damping for track work...
I\'ve noticed that I also get less issues with ground clearance now even though i\'m a little bit lower than before!