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Kangoo Compact (aka Racevan3)
- Thread starter Brigsy
- Start date
Brigsy
Media Mogul. Instagram legend.
Long time no update
All has been well with the Kangoo.
Just before xmas i took it to Cooksport for a rolling road day/catch up with a few good friends. It was a long journey approx 600 mile round trip but no issues at all.
Had a run on the rollers whilst there
The main reason for the journey was to measure up a custom Ast rear coilover to replace the current separate spring/shocker fitted.
On the lift for measuring up.
A design was made and i put my order in, including front megane 2 rs coilovers/solid mounts. Spring rate of 70NM all round which should be decent for road use.
Waited patiently for them to arrive and a nice large box turned up this morning.
Quality looks fantastic. Cant wait to get them fitted and set up for some fast road/track use.
Thanks for reading!!
All has been well with the Kangoo.
Just before xmas i took it to Cooksport for a rolling road day/catch up with a few good friends. It was a long journey approx 600 mile round trip but no issues at all.
Had a run on the rollers whilst there
The main reason for the journey was to measure up a custom Ast rear coilover to replace the current separate spring/shocker fitted.
On the lift for measuring up.
A design was made and i put my order in, including front megane 2 rs coilovers/solid mounts. Spring rate of 70NM all round which should be decent for road use.
Waited patiently for them to arrive and a nice large box turned up this morning.
Quality looks fantastic. Cant wait to get them fitted and set up for some fast road/track use.
Thanks for reading!!
nice work
Duncan Grier
Well-Known Member
Ooooh serious upgrade stuff.....does look quality
Be interesting also to know service offering as Andy mentioned
Van looking great
Be interesting also to know service offering as Andy mentioned
Van looking great
Brigsy
Media Mogul. Instagram legend.
Cheers all.
Great service by Cooksport. They looked at the current rear setup and removed the shocks, measured droop and travel required. The rear is similar to megane/clio so the decision was made to ditch the inboard spring and go for a coilover leg, to save the aggro of custom springs. Its an eye to eye shock so was a case of selecting the parts required from the Ast catalogue to suit.
Spring rating was chosen on current weight and by experience. They recommended that if i wanted a more dedicated track setup, 80nm springs all round could be a good option.
Regarding custom stuff, they can cater for anything if they have a drawing or they can design it if you pop down, which is defo the safer option unless your really clued up on suspension.
Great service by Cooksport. They looked at the current rear setup and removed the shocks, measured droop and travel required. The rear is similar to megane/clio so the decision was made to ditch the inboard spring and go for a coilover leg, to save the aggro of custom springs. Its an eye to eye shock so was a case of selecting the parts required from the Ast catalogue to suit.
Spring rating was chosen on current weight and by experience. They recommended that if i wanted a more dedicated track setup, 80nm springs all round could be a good option.
Regarding custom stuff, they can cater for anything if they have a drawing or they can design it if you pop down, which is defo the safer option unless your really clued up on suspension.
Brigsy
Media Mogul. Instagram legend.
Updates
Finally pulled my finger out and started fitting the Ast's, rears first.
Started with bushes as got some powerflex in stock
Done
Shocks trial fit and fit well. No issues bolted straight on.
Im no expert on setting up coilovers but ive went with the approach of leaving 1/3 shock travel for droop and 2/3 for compression when on the floor. Ride height slightly lower than before. It will be getting cornerweighted and setup at some point.
Remember that large ballast weight i talked about ages ago? Pulled it off earlier. I gunned the bolts off and it suddenly dropped with a bang luckily was not in the way. Its in 2 parts removed both bits, as light is fast?
Grabbed the scales to weigh it
53kg!! Thats 8.5stone in old money or 2 bags of cement with change!! Crazy saving.
So from last weigh in it was 1380kg, it should be down to around 1327kg which is quite a result id say.
Fronts to fit next weekend and driveshaft oil seal to change as weeping.
Thanks for reading!!
Finally pulled my finger out and started fitting the Ast's, rears first.
Started with bushes as got some powerflex in stock
Done
Shocks trial fit and fit well. No issues bolted straight on.
Im no expert on setting up coilovers but ive went with the approach of leaving 1/3 shock travel for droop and 2/3 for compression when on the floor. Ride height slightly lower than before. It will be getting cornerweighted and setup at some point.
Remember that large ballast weight i talked about ages ago? Pulled it off earlier. I gunned the bolts off and it suddenly dropped with a bang luckily was not in the way. Its in 2 parts removed both bits, as light is fast?
Grabbed the scales to weigh it
53kg!! Thats 8.5stone in old money or 2 bags of cement with change!! Crazy saving.
So from last weigh in it was 1380kg, it should be down to around 1327kg which is quite a result id say.
Fronts to fit next weekend and driveshaft oil seal to change as weeping.
Thanks for reading!!
Brigsy
Media Mogul. Instagram legend.
Cheers mate. Interestingly the rear calipers were starting to ever so slightly stick so should be ballistic next run out
Bushes are dead easy to do, meg are the same as this. The bushes have a plastic case so just a case of cracking it with a chisel and belt out. Powerflex just push in, i highly recommend powerflex purple for the megane, miles better than oem, nice and compliant for road use.
From what ive gathered its just to stop the back end bounce when unloaded for a bit of driver comfort, so it can go the journey. I believe the ml length do not have it.
Brigsy
Media Mogul. Instagram legend.
Updates
Front Ast's are fitted. I took an educated guess that megane 2 rs top mounts would bolt straight up and it absolutely paid off.
One issue i had noticed with the Kangoo is that the strut tops get covered in water, as they are under the scuttle panel which has loads of holes in. The oem ones were quite rusty, and not wanting these to follow suit as it might stand about a bit in winter, i needed a solution.
After sniffing round the clio3 has a strut top cover. Took another gamble and ordered one. Modified to suit and fits quite well, should keep most of the weather off them.
Coilover fitted. Was very straightforward bolt in no modifications required.
Next step was set the rideheight and camber. I can have this quite low but from a geometry perspective ive tried to keep the track control arms level and in turn that should keep the driveshafts a bit happier.
Had to dig some blocks out as too low to get the jack out initially :cautious: :LOL:
I took the same approach of setting the shocks so they have 1/3 travel for droop and 2/3 travel available for compression. Set camber at -1.5deg using some trigonometry and a spirit level. I also checked driveshaft plunge available at the rideheight, and there is around 12mm per side at least so thats all good.
Whiteline adjustable droplinks fitted. Probably didnt need these as the drop link height is adjustable on the coilover. Fitted anyway, set the arb with zero preload when at the correct rideheight. Tegiwa coilover sleeves fitted and everything coated in xcf50 corrosion block.
Initial rideheight set and cleaned the wheels as had black hand prints all over after removing several times whilst sorting rideheight. Its around 25mm lower than before and still has a bit of rake, with the shocks in the correct operating range. Rideheight is set equal side to side at the moment, might not be optimal from a cornerweight perspective but ok for initial running.
Toe not set up yet as will do it on the local hunter so it does not kill the tyres before i get it set up properly.
Initial test run and the difference is staggering. No more front end lift on boost. Back end still squats but totally acceptable/normal for the power. Turn in feels really sharp and you can feel the lsd working great. It actually feels like a fast megane.
The best thing is that you can actually lay the power down in 3rd gear now without it wheelspinning all over. Its still got a bit of torque steer but 90% improved and you can safely overtake stuff on full throttle without thw worry of it wanting to swap lanes.
The suspension overall feels solid as expected with the top mounts, but very compliant for road use, no crashy ride. In comparison to the bc's i fitted to our old 250 cup, this is leagues ahead.
Ideally it could probably do with more positive castor but that will involve modifying the strut tops to allow more movement. Thats one to leave to the people who set the geo up for me.
Sits quite nice too.
Only one casualty, lost a centre cap out of my front wheel on test run. Got several spares so not to worry.
To add to the updates, Chris @ Efi reprogrammed my shift light last week. Im running clio 200 clocks and you could see the shift light flash on occasionally when clipping the limiter. After a bit if head scratching he sussed it out and i get the shift light flashing around 6900rpm with the limiter around 72/7300rpm. I believe im the first person to have a shift light working on megane s3000 ecu and clio 200 clocks. Nobody else has ever asked Chris to look at adjusting it, and as usual he managed it easily, excellent service.
Thanks for reading!!
Front Ast's are fitted. I took an educated guess that megane 2 rs top mounts would bolt straight up and it absolutely paid off.
One issue i had noticed with the Kangoo is that the strut tops get covered in water, as they are under the scuttle panel which has loads of holes in. The oem ones were quite rusty, and not wanting these to follow suit as it might stand about a bit in winter, i needed a solution.
After sniffing round the clio3 has a strut top cover. Took another gamble and ordered one. Modified to suit and fits quite well, should keep most of the weather off them.
Coilover fitted. Was very straightforward bolt in no modifications required.
Next step was set the rideheight and camber. I can have this quite low but from a geometry perspective ive tried to keep the track control arms level and in turn that should keep the driveshafts a bit happier.
Had to dig some blocks out as too low to get the jack out initially :cautious: :LOL:
I took the same approach of setting the shocks so they have 1/3 travel for droop and 2/3 travel available for compression. Set camber at -1.5deg using some trigonometry and a spirit level. I also checked driveshaft plunge available at the rideheight, and there is around 12mm per side at least so thats all good.
Whiteline adjustable droplinks fitted. Probably didnt need these as the drop link height is adjustable on the coilover. Fitted anyway, set the arb with zero preload when at the correct rideheight. Tegiwa coilover sleeves fitted and everything coated in xcf50 corrosion block.
Initial rideheight set and cleaned the wheels as had black hand prints all over after removing several times whilst sorting rideheight. Its around 25mm lower than before and still has a bit of rake, with the shocks in the correct operating range. Rideheight is set equal side to side at the moment, might not be optimal from a cornerweight perspective but ok for initial running.
Toe not set up yet as will do it on the local hunter so it does not kill the tyres before i get it set up properly.
Initial test run and the difference is staggering. No more front end lift on boost. Back end still squats but totally acceptable/normal for the power. Turn in feels really sharp and you can feel the lsd working great. It actually feels like a fast megane.
The best thing is that you can actually lay the power down in 3rd gear now without it wheelspinning all over. Its still got a bit of torque steer but 90% improved and you can safely overtake stuff on full throttle without thw worry of it wanting to swap lanes.
The suspension overall feels solid as expected with the top mounts, but very compliant for road use, no crashy ride. In comparison to the bc's i fitted to our old 250 cup, this is leagues ahead.
Ideally it could probably do with more positive castor but that will involve modifying the strut tops to allow more movement. Thats one to leave to the people who set the geo up for me.
Sits quite nice too.
Only one casualty, lost a centre cap out of my front wheel on test run. Got several spares so not to worry.
To add to the updates, Chris @ Efi reprogrammed my shift light last week. Im running clio 200 clocks and you could see the shift light flash on occasionally when clipping the limiter. After a bit if head scratching he sussed it out and i get the shift light flashing around 6900rpm with the limiter around 72/7300rpm. I believe im the first person to have a shift light working on megane s3000 ecu and clio 200 clocks. Nobody else has ever asked Chris to look at adjusting it, and as usual he managed it easily, excellent service.
Thanks for reading!!
Mark_L
Well-Known Member
Brigsy
Media Mogul. Instagram legend.
Updates
Fitted some lock stops to the steering rack as had slight tyre to coilover rub on full lock. This appears to be a known issue on ast coilovers on megs from a little research. The stops are double the thickness of oem and knock onto the tie rod ends tight so quite a nice bit of kit.
Its not the ideal solution as lost a bit of lock, its not clio v6 turning circle bad but have to be a little bit more mindful when parking etc, but tons of clearance on tyres now. The other options would have been to run a spacer up front or lower et wheels but i like the comps and not really a fan of spacers.
Lost another compomotive centre cap too but replaced from one i have in stock.
Had the toe set yesterday at my local for mates rates on the hunter anlignment.
Toe was miles out as expected. From memory massive toe in on drivers, toe out on passenger side.
Toe set close to parallel, the setup is not agressive, camber is a little bit less than planned -1.5deg but even so ill take that as i set that prior with a spirit level and some trigonometry.
Rear not bad at all, could do with a slight shim however will need custom shims as massive 60mm bolt spacing and 21mm bolts holding the stubs on.
I can report that for the first time since conversion it pulls straight on boost. The difference in drivability is amazing. All torque steer has gone which ive been fighting since converting it, you can hold the steering wheel with one hand on boost, where before it was hang on for dear life as the lsd would pull it about on any slight bit of camber. First time ive actually properly enjoyed driving it since getting it on the road, and dont need to concentrate on focusing on holding it in a straight line.
Ive been battling torque steer since conversion, with the old suspension setup it was all over the place if hitting camber on the road and lsd scrabbling for traction. It was that bad that it could put you into the next lane if hitting a bump on full throttle so had to be very careful. If it was wheelspinning then it would go straight but that defeats the object.
I renewed all the bushes and steering components up front and fitted r26 22mm arb, toe set parallel which made little difference on the old suspension.
Next step was purchasing the Ast's and fitting them made a 90% improvement although it would still be a bit skitty in certain circumstances and feeling like it was swapping power left to right although not pulling all over the place. I was at the point of pulling the box to get the lsd checked or replaced or getting the van on a chassis jig to see if the shell was straight, as had checked engine and box was mounted straight/level etc. Still can not believe the toe set up has cured all issues and on the plus side the steering has a nice weighted feeling as it used to go light before.
Its been an absolute ball ache to get right but we are 100% moving in the right direction now.
Thanks for reading!!
Fitted some lock stops to the steering rack as had slight tyre to coilover rub on full lock. This appears to be a known issue on ast coilovers on megs from a little research. The stops are double the thickness of oem and knock onto the tie rod ends tight so quite a nice bit of kit.
Its not the ideal solution as lost a bit of lock, its not clio v6 turning circle bad but have to be a little bit more mindful when parking etc, but tons of clearance on tyres now. The other options would have been to run a spacer up front or lower et wheels but i like the comps and not really a fan of spacers.
Lost another compomotive centre cap too but replaced from one i have in stock.
Had the toe set yesterday at my local for mates rates on the hunter anlignment.
Toe was miles out as expected. From memory massive toe in on drivers, toe out on passenger side.
Toe set close to parallel, the setup is not agressive, camber is a little bit less than planned -1.5deg but even so ill take that as i set that prior with a spirit level and some trigonometry.
Rear not bad at all, could do with a slight shim however will need custom shims as massive 60mm bolt spacing and 21mm bolts holding the stubs on.
I can report that for the first time since conversion it pulls straight on boost. The difference in drivability is amazing. All torque steer has gone which ive been fighting since converting it, you can hold the steering wheel with one hand on boost, where before it was hang on for dear life as the lsd would pull it about on any slight bit of camber. First time ive actually properly enjoyed driving it since getting it on the road, and dont need to concentrate on focusing on holding it in a straight line.
Ive been battling torque steer since conversion, with the old suspension setup it was all over the place if hitting camber on the road and lsd scrabbling for traction. It was that bad that it could put you into the next lane if hitting a bump on full throttle so had to be very careful. If it was wheelspinning then it would go straight but that defeats the object.
I renewed all the bushes and steering components up front and fitted r26 22mm arb, toe set parallel which made little difference on the old suspension.
Next step was purchasing the Ast's and fitting them made a 90% improvement although it would still be a bit skitty in certain circumstances and feeling like it was swapping power left to right although not pulling all over the place. I was at the point of pulling the box to get the lsd checked or replaced or getting the van on a chassis jig to see if the shell was straight, as had checked engine and box was mounted straight/level etc. Still can not believe the toe set up has cured all issues and on the plus side the steering has a nice weighted feeling as it used to go light before.
Its been an absolute ball ache to get right but we are 100% moving in the right direction now.
Thanks for reading!!
Duncan Grier
Well-Known Member
Great to hear all the effort and investment had paid off!
Had a similar journey back in the day with the vag 5, for me I was lucky I got some dedicated time with a koni suspension guru from America (long left now them now) my koni yellows were converted on site to coilovers with custom, travel, spring and damping etc. This was after all the weighing and dark art of suspension maths. The setting it left there with I never changed but was a perfect balance for fast road and more than capable on track.
Small changes can make a massive difference......guess why you get manufacturers sending their cars to likes of Lotus to fine tune/sort handling out
Had a similar journey back in the day with the vag 5, for me I was lucky I got some dedicated time with a koni suspension guru from America (long left now them now) my koni yellows were converted on site to coilovers with custom, travel, spring and damping etc. This was after all the weighing and dark art of suspension maths. The setting it left there with I never changed but was a perfect balance for fast road and more than capable on track.
Small changes can make a massive difference......guess why you get manufacturers sending their cars to likes of Lotus to fine tune/sort handling out
Brigsy
Media Mogul. Instagram legend.
Interesting that Dunc, i was on the verge of seeking similar advice on this and get somebody to measure all the steering geometry and see what the fuck was going on, as realistically its close to a megane, and its running all meg bits and meganes are the most stable thing going.
I done tons of research on this and it looks like a common issue with engine conversions in fwd, but many different solutions. Minis and mova's with xe or honda conversions really suffer.
I reckon if this was open diff, it would not have had anywhere near the issues it did, lsd made it 10x worse.
Interestingly on my Extra van on the high boost map after efi conversion, it was doing similar things with the quaife lsd and the old avo shocks. Ive since fitted the leda shocks, dialled in some camber, as much positive castor as possible and its straight as a die, and really tractable even with a little toe out. I just winged it to be fair though as read that more positive castor helps straight line stability. Get nice self centering on the steering too. The kangoo also has a little bit more positive castor on the ast solid top mounts so i guess its helped in this way.
I done tons of research on this and it looks like a common issue with engine conversions in fwd, but many different solutions. Minis and mova's with xe or honda conversions really suffer.
I reckon if this was open diff, it would not have had anywhere near the issues it did, lsd made it 10x worse.
Interestingly on my Extra van on the high boost map after efi conversion, it was doing similar things with the quaife lsd and the old avo shocks. Ive since fitted the leda shocks, dialled in some camber, as much positive castor as possible and its straight as a die, and really tractable even with a little toe out. I just winged it to be fair though as read that more positive castor helps straight line stability. Get nice self centering on the steering too. The kangoo also has a little bit more positive castor on the ast solid top mounts so i guess its helped in this way.
Brigsy
Media Mogul. Instagram legend.
Updates, not moved much as been mega busy but had the occasional run out. No issues to report running great.
Bought another set of compomotive centre caps to have in stock for when another one goes awol.
Give it a good clean up and a coating of Gtecnhiq c2v3, AG trim gel on the bumpers.
Need to start prepping it for cs festival soon. List is not too bad, oil and filter change, fit new front discs and ds1.11 pads/flush brake fluid and renew with motul rbf600.
Thanks for reading!!
Bought another set of compomotive centre caps to have in stock for when another one goes awol.
Give it a good clean up and a coating of Gtecnhiq c2v3, AG trim gel on the bumpers.
Need to start prepping it for cs festival soon. List is not too bad, oil and filter change, fit new front discs and ds1.11 pads/flush brake fluid and renew with motul rbf600.
Thanks for reading!!
