Green V8S / Mr Humphries

Green V8S / Mr Humphries

Author
Discussion

kerniki

Original Poster:

430 posts

289 months

Saturday 22nd February 2003
quotequote all
Thought you might be the guy to answer this one, I have a 5.0 Chimaera with the 14 clicks adjustable Nitron shocks.

I have wound them to the softest setting through the winter and cannot remember what settings they should be set to for track work, would you or anyone else for that matter have any idea what they should be set to for track work? (goodwood)

Any help appreciated. Nik

ro_butler

795 posts

278 months

Saturday 22nd February 2003
quotequote all
Not wishing to discourage Mr Humphries from replying but isn't finding a good set up yourself part of the fun?

Have a bash at setting it up yourself and then compare with Mr Humphries' recommendations.

Mind you if the adjusters are hard to get to then wait for the answer set them up once and leave them alone

kerniki

Original Poster:

430 posts

289 months

Saturday 22nd February 2003
quotequote all
Not hard to get to at all really, just need a bench mark, and I'll adjust from there, but thanks for your help anyway.

Leadfoot

1,905 posts

288 months

Saturday 22nd February 2003
quotequote all
Nik, I run the following on my Griff with Nitrons:
Road: F 8 clicks, R 10 clicks
Track: F 10 clicks, R 12 clicks
All above = clicks from fully soft.
The road settings are how Peninsula set it up, I haven't found a better one for the road.

Thought you were gonna sell the Chim BTW?

GreenV8S

30,478 posts

291 months

Saturday 22nd February 2003
quotequote all
Can't tell you the exact settings because they will vary from car to car, driver to driver and to some extent from day to day. But I can help you find a starting point. The first thing to recognise is that Nitrons are individually valved to suit the springs and car. The range of adjustment represents the range of sensible settings for that application, so you can explore from min to max without getting too far off the mark. (Not all dampers are like this, for example AVOs, Spax etc have almost nil damping at the min setting and go almost rigid at the max setting. They have a huge range of adjustment, because the same dampers are used for all applications.)

Second thing to bear in mind is that it is very tempting to go overdamped, especially with Nitrons where the damping is so good at filtering out the hashness, and you should use the minimum amount of damping that controls the body movements to an acceptable level. For example if you dab the brakes firmly the car should settle nose down and then come level again without overshooting.

Based on this, I would suggest you start at say 6 clicks and explore a couple either way. You will find higher settings work better on smooth, grippy surfaces on warm tyres, and lower settings work better on rough surfaces, cold tyres etc. The whole subject of suspension settings, handling and car setup is one that I find very interesting and which I've been studying for many years, with no feeling that I've got to the bottom of it yet. I'm still trying to bridge the gap between theory and practice. If it interests you, I'd encourage you to experiment, but the most important thing to do is keep a record of the settings you have and the changes you make, for example tyre make/condition/pressure, suspension ride height, camber/toe settings, spring rates and of course damper settings.

Hope this helps,
Peter Humphries (and a green V8S)

kerniki

Original Poster:

430 posts

289 months

Sunday 23rd February 2003
quotequote all
Leadfoot - cheers m8 gone for a setting between yours and Peters for the mo, I'll see how it behaves tommorow @ Goodwood. On the getting rid of it front - tried everything 993/996, evo6, skylines, scoobys. Nothing came close, so here I am! cheers again.

Peter - Thanks for the info, big help and much appreciated, it's always an education reading your posts.

Nik

Leadfoot

1,905 posts

288 months

Wednesday 26th February 2003
quotequote all
What settings did you end up with then?

Kerniki

2,474 posts

28 months

Friday 2nd June 2023
quotequote all
Wow! Looking back,,

20 years ago, fond memories of how this place used to be..

GreenV8S

30,478 posts

291 months

Friday 2nd June 2023
quotequote all
Doesn't time fly!