Mazda Rotary Club

I\'m looking at doing some sprinting next year as I\'ve ran out of money for racing and having just purchased a house that\'s unlikely to change ;)

But thinking of getting some adjustable ARB\'s just as a quick and easy way to tun the suspension to a circuit then still be able to drive home.

So I\'ve seen mention of the Racing Beat ARB\'s but also read about the front not being too great and crack in places / bend.

What\'s the prices on the MazdaSpeed ones? And are they adjustable? Cusco or the like an option?

Advise as always, is greatly welcomed!

Tony C recently obtained some rather nice adjustable ones, I\'d ask him!

good luck getting racing beat ones, i asked Reworx to get me a set in jan, still havent seen them!

We spoke to the Manufacturer a while ago and they have agreed for us to sell them for them here and in europe.
I\'ll get pictures and prices up on site.

The racing beat ones are only adjustable on the rear, got a set off WGT last year.

Just put the rear onto the soft setting to see if it decreases my oversteer. Car was aligned on original Antiroll bars.

Shaun

Unfortunately I do not know of any adjustable ones however you should be able to make up some links with spherical bushes quite easily if thats what you want.

We do have have a Racing beat front anti roll bar available at the moment, at £141 plus vat and £10 delivery but not the back bar.
 
We can also get proper Mazdaspeed roll bars in around 3 weeks at £420 plus vat per pair if required.

when i looked into them i was recomended an uprated roll bar brace, i think dragon used to make one but cant find them on thier website anymore, are they still availalbe and if so worth it?

I\'ve got  a cusco set front and rear as after doing my research....as I do........these were the thickest of the bunch.....amoung other things...like quality......however you will only find adjustability on the rear...when looking for Fd ARB;s........the cusco rears are not adjustable...................................................The car fells like its a go-kart on rails..................FOOOOKing amazing......well worth doing.....believe me!!!!

I\'ve got  a cusco set front and rear as after doing my research....as I do........these were the thickest of the bunch.....amoung other things...like quality......however you will only find adjustability on the rear...when looking for Fd ARB;s........the cusco rears are not adjustable...................................................The car fells like its a go-kart on rails..................FOOOOKing amazing......well worth doing.....believe me!!!!

Well done Ed, forgot about Cusco.


Trouble is we have become distributors for so many company\'s over the years we forget just how much we can supply for these cars.

We can supply Cusco Anti roll bars for £192 plus Vat for the front and £140 plus Vat for the rear,

Cheers all, plenty of options, and I guess if only the rear is adjustable it should be able to alter the handling of the car enough for my purposes.

I\'ve got the Dragon ARB mount replacement / brace so no worries about them bending with the extra strain :D

But I\'m not to worried about losing body roll, as it\'s handling well at the mo\', but just want a quick and easy way to alter the handling, so not going for the hugest bar available as it\'s still my road car ;)


So let me see if I\'ve got this right:

RB - Hard to get (Gary may have them however) - Only rear adjustable. I\'ve heard mixed things.

MazdaSpeed - Not adjustable.

Cusco - Not Adjustable

Is that right? Gary, are you getting the RB ARB\'s available?

Ahem:
(http://www.justgofaster.com/gallery/gallery/tonys_mg/arbtestfit.jpg)

(http://www.justgofaster.com/gallery/gallery/tonys_mg/arb1.jpg)

From Tri-point in the US. I put Gary into contact with my contact there so he should be able to sort you out. I got front and rear, but you can buy just front. not only does the arm have adjustment, but the tube can be bought in varrying thicknesses as well.

what kind of damage are the ones from tripoint?

Quote from: marcowhat kind of damage are the ones from tripoint?

Life threatening!

Ah, and in there lies the rub! Two main reason, I\'m not very flush at the mo\' what with lack of funds due to new house and second I\'ve not got huge amounts of time or the skill to do all the calcs to get the right thickness ARB, so would like something a bit more "plug and play" (moon on a stick I know ;) ).

But happy to see a final price on the Tri-Point ;)

Quote from: MazdarotarypartsUnfortunately I do not know of any adjustable ones however you should be able to make up some links with spherical bushes quite easily if thats what you want.

I see Mazdatrix make adjustable front links... If I understand this right, shortening the links would load up the ARB and make it "stiffer" and visa versa? So a similar effect can be had from those?

Quote from: RemarkLimaI see Mazdatrix make adjustable front links... If I understand this right, shortening the links would load up the ARB and make it "stiffer" and visa versa? So a similar effect can be had from those?

Yes you would shorten them to load them, indeed you could make links to go on stock bars and adjust those to some effect,

Personally I would really say adjustable roll bars are a little way down the wish order, above would come good dampers as these are the things that actually make the tyres stay in contact with the ground and the tyres work correctly, geometry, as this has a huge effect on the way a car achieves a corner, tyres, and then Tyre pressures.

Don\'t get me wrong though as roll bars can have a huge effect on handling and personally I feel the FD could do with a stiffer front bar as standard, downside is a bigger front bar will induce understeer, mind you understeer is safe and this is why passenger cars have big front bars.

A stiffer rear bar will make a car more prone to oversteer and feel much more nervous on entry to a corner and will be much more likely to catch out the unwary however this can be used to aid "turn in" at times and result in a faster car..

As you will have realised suspension is one huge black art that compounds further when you put a driver behind the wheel because of differing driving styles.

One that always springs to mind is a guy who I raced against who could not dial out the understeer, the solution ended up being putting a "slow" steering rack on the car because it came out that he was just turning the front wheels too far on  entry to as corner with a "quick" rack,  thus inducing understeer due to the slip angles of the front wheels, and if you put the front wheels at too sharp an angle into the corner the tyres cant grip to turn the corner and try to go straight instead of going around the corner, i.e. understeer.

 The moral being that the suspension set up was fine until you put a driver behind the wheel!.

Another is that you get the car handling real nice then you get some more power and then you screw your nice handling up  !

One thing I found that was an advantage was to have a mechanic film the car, not the race but just the car as this way I could make adjustments on not only feel but also could physically see what the car was doing in a corner.

Sorry to bore you all but they don\'t describe suspension as a black art for nothing!.

Quote from: TonyCAhem:
(http://www.justgofaster.com/gallery/gallery/tonys_mg/arbtestfit.jpg)
 
(http://www.justgofaster.com/gallery/gallery/tonys_mg/arb1.jpg)
 
From Tri-point in the US. I put Gary into contact with my contact there so he should be able to sort you out. I got front and rear, but you can buy just front. not only does the arm have adjustment, but the tube can be bought in varrying thicknesses as well.

 
 
I toyed with the tri-point idea....but the difference in spending the dough between this and the cusco one didn\'t warrant the purchase.........Nice bit of kit though.....but a bit more than i needed TBH.
 
 
Suspension techniques is another one....Adjustable rear....however i have seen some people advertising them as Tein...(coz they are green).....seem to be ok though.
 
I think you should ask yourself...why would you just have the rear adjustable?.........surely you you have that functionality on both the front and the rear?...Also ask yourself....why Mazdaspeed didn\'t have any adjustability in their bars?........I\'m sure they done enough research to warrant that decision.:yes

Cheers Clive, makes sense to me. A bit of background may help a little as well... I\'ve done some competing in the past couple of years but ran out of money :( So sprinting is a nice option for a bit of fun copetition and keep the car as a road car!

It has got freshly refurbed Ohlins, and on the whole I\'m very happy with the handling. I\'m happy with the power and will be keeping the twins, a project is to redo the rats nest and I have the Viton check valves so it\'ll all be working as Mazda intended *touch wood*

I don\'t "need" thicker ARB\'s, I don\'t need the car to stay flatter, maybe a bit but not much so don\'t want massive bars. So I\'d be happy if it was just the rear that\'s adjustable as then it allows me to give a rough tune of understeer / oversteer but changing a couple of bolts.

I\'d imagine the MazdaSpeed ones (as I understand there\'s 2 options as well?) as a plug and play type item, so you just pick your bar and you know it\'ll work!

I\'ll have a look at Suspension Techniques as well I think, I did mention I have no money ;)

Good to hear you have good dampers, if you really have no money make up your own links on the stock bars or using the pictures Tony has shown make your own as many racers do but as described a little above you can alter your cars handling in many ways other than just bars.

Indeed you may find that by inducing understeer or oversteer you may then need to make certain other changes to compensate so you get the best from your bars anyway.

Another "no money" trick is to take the bars off and scourer the local breakers yard for thicker bars off any car where the bar looks similar enough to be adapted.

BTW I used to disconnect one link on the rear bar in the wet so the bar didn\'t work as I found it aided traction off the corners, goes on and on and on this trying to make cars go around corners quicker thing :rollin .

Quote from: RemarkLimaI\'d imagine the MazdaSpeed ones (as I understand there\'s 2 options as well?) as a plug and play type item, so you just pick your bar and you know it\'ll work!

 ;)

Not necessarily bolt em on and away you go, in testing depending on your driving style you may even find you want a stiffer bar at the back with stock at the front or vice-versa, time in car around a set track is the only way you will find this out.

See, can o worms this supensioney stuff :chat

LOL! Thanks again Clive, I know what you mean, it just takes so much time but is ultimately worth it!

I know you can change loads with Tyre pressures and damper settings and it\'s funny what you say about disconnecting the rear ARB in the wet! I\'ll be back asking plenty about all these tricks to try out!

I\'ve raced Mk1 MR2\'s, but their suspension setup is a bit more basic with the McPherson struts plus we weren\'t allowed adjustable dampers and had to run stock ARB\'s so havn\'t had as much of a chance to really play with these things, so time to start now!

Liking the idea of heading to a breakers as well, sure there must be a few that can be modified to suit, otherwise some adjustable ends is also worth a try.

I\'ll happily buy something if it\'s really worth it but I\'d rather not have to buy 3 pairs of ARB\'s to find out what\'s best ;)

Thanks again for the info and if there\'s any more options out there I\'d be interested to hear.

I will go the Auto exe way. but they and Cusco arn\'t adjustable...

very interesting stuff :D How much are decent dampers ??

Shaun

Quote from: shaunwilvery interesting stuff :D How much are decent dampers ??

Shaun

Hi Shaun,

For "decent" dampers you could easily spend £5K


However all is not lost as the Tein Mono Flex damper works very very well on these cars for much less than that, have a follow of the link below for more info.


http://www.mazdarotaryparts.com/bfd-suspensionb-282-c.asp

Adjusting the length of the drop links to the standard bar won\'t have any effect on the stiffness - an ARB is basically a torsion bar spring that is twisted by the suspension as it goes into bump or droop at one side. The stiffness is goverened by the bar thickness, etc, but also by the length of the arm (the short bit after the bend that goes to the drop link). Lengthing or shorterning that arms will make the same bar softer or stiffer (thick of it as undoing tight wheel nuts with a 2 inch bar and a 20 inch bar- one stiff, one soft to undo).
The standard bar has a drop link down form the suspension A arm to the ARB arm. By lengthing that drop link you just make the bar point furthr down. No effect on stiffness. The onl time that would be useful would be if the bar was pre-loaded (was already in tension) when mounted to the car and you would adjust the drop link so there was no (or equal) tension in the bar.

I was going to say last night - but Clive has beaten me to it - that the problem with adjustable suspension is that you have hundreds of wrong choices and only a few correct ones.
All the kit I have for mine is becuase it is a pure race car - it will never be used on the road. This is also relevant your post Ed, the mazdaspeed ARB\'s are just bars for \'fast road use\' or maybe the odd track day. They aren\'t adjustable so you can fit and forgot and buyers get a consistent response from their purchase.

Makes sense Tony, so really adjustable drop links are just to keep the ARB level when lowering the car, so they work at their best right?

So when you can move them up and down, closer to the main bar and they\'re stiffer? Or is it the otherway round as then the suspension will have greater leverage and affect the otherside of the car more?

As said, I would just like some basic adjustability, I\'d prefer drilled holes, so I know "This holes makes it go like this, that hole like that" ;) And I\'m happy to play around with the settings to get things as they should be.

The links are just to get rid of any pre load - the holes in the arm (as in my pic) are what allow you to shortern or lengthen the arm (shorter = stiffer, longer = softer). Unless you have a drille dmounitng arm you can\'t make any adjustment to the bar stiffness.

In all honesty I\'d forget about an adjustabls ARB for now, there are greater gains to be made in ride height, dampers, springs and geometry. And tyres, pressures and techinque. Adjustable ARB will just add complication to you starting to compete.

You\'re probably right Tony, sometimes you just need someone to spell things out a bit ;)

Cheers for the advise!

I see you\'re in the Nippon Challenge for next year, I\'d have liked to join in that as I was in the MR2 Challenge. Are you planning doing all the races with that?

Hopefully, but then again I was hoping to be racing this year!

[QUOTESee black art all this stuff, interesting though :rollin .[/QUOTE]

"Good handling is not a black art, but rather exacting science fraught with compromises. To develop a basic understanding of it components and the role they play in a performance chassic." quote by Rick Titus

Quote from: RotorHeid"Good handling is not a black art, but rather exacting science fraught with compromises. To develop a basic understanding of it components and the role they play in a performance chassic." quote by Rick Titus

Your right, good handling these days is very achievable with all the info out there, this is fine on paper until you have a track surface that is changeable or even worse a thing called a driver inserted into the car who then goes and plays with the steering wheel and pedals whilst attempting to get car to corner at it\'s limit:D .

Tony, you were right about the links as these can cause the bottom arms to "fight" the bar and yes the arm lengths need to be shorter or longer to tension the bar more or less on a circuit or road car(brain on)

 I have adjusted the bars one side high and one side low before but this was on Oval racers, the other way is to tension the bar itself by twisting it as they do with incar adjustable bars via cables on many single seaters.