Suspension etc

[Anonymous]

Guys

I am new here, looking into buying a V6 for track use. How adjustable is the standard suspension, or am I better of going for new shocks and springs...

Thanks Sean

 

[Andy luvs V6s]

I don't think it's adjustable at all on the Mk1, not too sure about Mk2 but you'd be better off buying new shocks and springs anyway as both Mk1 and Mk2 are not fully adjustable

 

[Anonymous]

General:
no heightadjustment, no bound and rebound adjustments.

Rs1 no camber adjustments

RS2 camber adjustments.

Both have toe adjustment front and rear.

Adjustable springcoilsets: Leda and K&W.

Although I don't advice the K&W, due to the fact that I tried to get inquiries from them and they never replied to me, not even when we posted them officially through Renault Sport.
We just wanted to knowhow they came to the springrates used, and the upper mount construction and stiffness.
I supose they didn't test their setup on any car, so they couldn't provide us with any testdata.
From what I know, the rearsusupension of the RS2 could be better of with the springs of the RS1 which are a bit stiffer.
In general the front lacs a bit of suspensiontravel, you hit very easy the bumpstops so lowering there isn't any good. IMHO


I don't know anything about the Leda units and their design trajectory.

And when you're looking at just a trackday car, try to get a trophy, they should be available since the series ended a long time ago.
They have a fully adjustable suspension, and come with a noisy seq gearbox.

 

[Peter255]

Guys

I am new here, looking into buying a V6 for track use. How adjustable is the standard suspension, or am I better of going for new shocks and springs...

Thanks Sean

standard mk2 is not adjustable in the motorsport sense.

They have quality components tho as standard eibach (spelling?) springs and koni dampers.

Peter

 

[Anonymous]

As long as I can add Camber to the Mk2 then sounds like the standard suspeion is fine.

 

[Mike T]

KW are the route - ask v6max

 

[Anonymous]

Ok MikeT or v6max, maybe you guys can then answer my questions I still have with this suspension.

Which springrates are being used front and rear.

Are the rear upper mounts turnable or fixed units. (the standard units actually are derivated from Espace front units, so adapted to turn) This gives extra flexing under cornering.

Also what is the Roddiameter, because the standard roddiameter seems to bend a bit under extreme cornering. (impression from a testdriver)
All in all the standard suspension on the rear is a bit too sloppy for serious track use.

Also I would like to know the top end diameter and length of the fixationthread, to see if I could addapt the trophy top fixations.
The standard units are too short for this.

 

[v6Max]

harry - I'll see if I can get the information for you. I've, in the past, spoken directly to KW in Germany (and at Autosport) and they've always been good at responding.

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks V6max, let's hope you're able to get more, shouldn't be too difficult, since we didn't get any.
I still didn't buy, and with me several french Vee owners because they just didn't answer any questions.

Let me be clear on this, for the phase1 there is no question about it, the KW, and for that matter, ANY upgraded coilover improves the carhandling.

But, for the phase2, it is in my, and with me some experts at Renault sport, doubtfull if the KW or any other coiloverset is an improvement, worth the investment. (It's not only buying the set, but also mounting and aligning afterwards)

This can be better judged if I can see the info required.

Also in their catalog they speak of a set intended for a production range from 2000-2004 and one starting from 2004.
This is confusing, since it would mean that the first productiion series of the phase2 would require the same as the phase1.
The production of the phase2 started in 2003.
This can't be true. So which set would a 2003 phase2 require?

The Phase 2 can benifit a lot at the rear from any upgraded coilover, if the damperrod construction is much stiffer, and the upper mountingrubbers are stiffer. This is at the moment the weakest point in the phase2 suspension.
This causes sudden oversteer on the limit, which can be leathal to the control of the car.

The front end is much more difficult, because the suspensiontravel is too short anyway. In a weighttransfer through corners, you're riding the bumpstop on the front outerwheel all the times. I wouldn't know how to solve this much with an upgraded coilover.
Any stiffer and you bounce out of the corner. IMHO.

The only thing you could do to improve the situation, and which I'm going to try, is to raise the lower triangle pivots by 20 mm on the rearhandside and 10 on the frontendside. This way the weighttransfer would increase the camber a bit, instead of decreasing now, prevent any added toe in from suspensiontravel and it would prevent the diving into the bumpstop.
This is not too difficult to experiment, since the base subframe on the front is the same as the normal clio.
All these info doesn't come just from my brain, it is info I gathered over the time with people who were very close involved with the phase2 project at Renault Sport.

Hereby, I also invite Leda to provide some data from their tests, so we can compare, and see if they are both worth their money.

Designing a suspension, based on other cars with similar weight distribution just doesn't work. You need actual testdata to take in acount the flexing of the chassis, the overall suspension mountingpoints and so on. They give total different input to the required optimal suspension.

 

[v6Max]

harry - I'm taking a look at my car on Friday and I've emailed my contact at KW.

I spoke with KW when I was exhibiting at Autosport (and this was some 3 years ago now) - and at that time they did suggest that they had a full "competition spec" system for the V6.

As I'm sure you know the Variant 1 to 3 kits are basically your standard fast road/track day type equipment where KW have other ranges which have a "proper" motorsport focused approach and have, at least in theory, better engineering, more test data and will have likely been developed in a more thorough manner.

What I can tell you even without looking at the car is that the rod diameter is significantly larger than that on the OEM units - it's is probably safe to assume therefore that they are stiffer (as long as KW didn't make them out of something too soft!).

Now, it's important to state that all my experience is with the Mk1 and not the MK2. My knowledge of the MK2 is somewhat shaky so I don't know, for example, whether camber is adjustable on the Mk2s or not which is obviously something that the KWs will give you and I have found, in the context of the MK1s, to be very significant in terms of taming it's behaviour.

I'm sure you've already considered this - but is your car a "standard" Mk2? Have you considered putting a cage in it? I've a multi-point T45 weld in cage in mine which has helped enormously with the handling - the existing chassis is surprisingly (although I'm sure you know this) soft/flexible. With the cage using triangulated mounting points to the top of the rear suspension turrets and through the front bulkhead to the front turrets etc stiffness is greatly improved and at the limit on track there's a clearly detectable improvement.

 

[Anonymous]

v6Max, Over the years I've heard a lot of people talking competition spec crap and so on, but if you go a bit in depth with those people, they suddenly are very busy.
The only thing I can think about when they mention competition setup, is that they copied it from the trophy.

I stopped plunging money in those items, unless they can show me the facts. Also I can do a lot with your gathered info both on the track and road, since you need to be able to do both.

With the increased roddiameter it will surely improve stiffness.
Those are simple facts to conclude, and so will benifit the handling.
So that is one point added in favour for the KW.

The phase2 has standard camber adjustments.

I thought there was only a Variant3 for the Vee available.

Actually I didn't concider a cage in my Vee, BUT, as far as I know, has the phase2 more welding reinforcements on the chassis, BUT, to be sure I need to look into this.
The Trophy had a few extra weldings, which I have the plans of.
I didn't feel like ruining the dash for a cage.

I'm a bit surprized about the overall stiffness of the chassis, what you noticed is a lack of longitudinal stiffness, (based on the explanation of your cageconstruction) which seems a bit odd to me, torsional stiffness, yes I can imagine, latitudal stiffness on the front yes a bit, but on the rear??
Or did you also fix the cage directly with the top suspension spindles?
Did you also triangulate the front lower suspension mounting to the opposite top mounting? I was concidering doing this, and losing the totally useless crashbar construction which is now in place in the subframe.(it sits too low to help in case of an accident)

 

[TRW1]

Mk2 has stronger lower rear sub-frame and longer suspension trailing arms. It also has a slightly wider front track and narrower rear track.

 

[v6Max]

Harry, a picture (or 2) is worth a thousand words so...

Rear of cage

Inside

Mid bit

In the photo above you just about see that the large x shaped section behind the seats as well.

Connection points are top of rear turrets, immediately forward of internal firewall (where the tank is, behind seats), below A pillars, and then through bulkhead to front turrets.

I'll get a shot of the front as well...

 

[v6Max]

More stuff...
Yes you are correct only V3 is available for the Clio the comment was really that KW split their product into 2 types; fast road/track and then competition.

Have you thought about Penske as another company that could help out (depending on how much you want to spend).

We run Penske on our Spider and initial cost is very high but ongoing costs are very reasonable, it's hard to fault the quality of construction and there's a precedent for using them in Renaultsports - just a thought.

Given your concerns over the rod-diameter the pictures I've seen of the Leda system seem to indicate that theirs are relatively insubstantial but this may be an old picture.

 

[Anonymous]

Sorry for the bit late reply V6max,
Nice construction, adds a lot of torsional stiffness in the rearsection.
Did you datalog the whole modification compared to standard, or did you also log with just the KW in standard setup. it would interest me what came out with entry and exit speeds.

Yes I know the tailormade devellopers of shocks, there are also a few around my area, but it's not an option for me, the Vee is just a hobby for me. And for that matter I've got an old groupB rally car, which costs me more than I would like to admit to my wife :cry:
(just bought an old set of mag speedlines for 2000pound)

 

[v6Max]

Datalogging was done throughout the modification process. Now the problem is this was at least 2 years go and I've not got that actual data files.

The intention is to start the logging all over again when I get the car back later this year in what will be final form.

I've spent enough time at Donington to easily detect the net effect of changes to the car so whilst I'll not have empirical data any change will be obvious...