Fitting Protechs

[Pvapour]

doing a DIY on a new set of big body protechs I bought for my new Chimaera, Kevin was a little vague on basic spring position for std, lower, lowest ride height.

anyone got some pointers on where to start with spring position?

cheers

Edited by Pvapour on Monday 15th March 22:26

[Toma500]

I would measure between rose joints on your old shocks as they come off and start from there. I set mine up when fitted by putting on full soft and gradually clicking up harder till it felt okay .

Edited by Toma500 on Tuesday 16th March 20:09

[Pvapour]

trouble is the car doesn't look like it's sitting right at the mo, looks bit low at the rear, I dont want to duplicate what could possible be a 'saggy' set up

my set up (Nitrons) on previous cars was considerably lower than standard but think I want to be fairly near standard ride heights then play with front to rear balance.

[Toma500]

The rear shocks on mine have 395mm between holle centre of rose joints give that go easy altered on adjusters .

[Pvapour]

thanks for that, wondering if the Griff would be different in that department though

[SMB]

Pvapour said:

thanks for that, wondering if the Griff would be different in that department though

Hi, I've just gone through this aswell,
the rears come set with a visible thread beneath the adjustable platform of about 24mm, for me (95 chimaera) this was too low, so with the wheel off, I've raised the platforms using a c spanner to 34mm of visible thread, now the car is just about right, I might go up 1-2mm more but will wait and see. As for damping, I find 4 clicks too under damped so when I get a chance I'm going to go to 6 clicks. I haven't done the fronts yet. Kevin and co supplied a c spanner on request.

[Pvapour]

SMB said:

Pvapour said:

thanks for that, wondering if the Griff would be different in that department though

Hi, I've just gone through this aswell,
the rears come set with a visible thread beneath the adjustable platform of about 24mm, for me (95 chimaera) this was too low, so with the wheel off, I've raised the platforms using a c spanner to 34mm of visible thread, now the car is just about right, I might go up 1-2mm more but will wait and see. As for damping, I find 4 clicks too under damped so when I get a chance I'm going to go to 6 clicks. I haven't done the fronts yet. Kevin and co supplied a c spanner on request.

Thx SMB, when you say just about right, is it lower than std? any chance of some pics? will start at 4 clicks and take it from there then

[SMB]

Pvapour said:

SMB said:

Pvapour said:

thanks for that, wondering if the Griff would be different in that department though

Hi, I've just gone through this aswell,
the rears come set with a visible thread beneath the adjustable platform of about 24mm, for me (95 chimaera) this was too low, so with the wheel off, I've raised the platforms using a c spanner to 34mm of visible thread, now the car is just about right, I might go up 1-2mm more but will wait and see. As for damping, I find 4 clicks too under damped so when I get a chance I'm going to go to 6 clicks. I haven't done the fronts yet. Kevin and co supplied a c spanner on request.

Thx SMB, when you say just about right, is it lower than std? any chance of some pics? will start at 4 clicks and take it from there then

I think at 34mm visible thread I'm pretty close to standard ride height, hard for me to be sure on a before and after as the old spings that came off were tired and sagging. However the default was definately too low. I measured both sides , from the floor to the centre of the wheel line to the arch, lowest point when set to 34mm is 26 inches ( sorry mixing formats) As expected the body doesn't quite sit square so on one side it is just over 26, the other just under 26.5 . Unscientifically I looked at loads of early press pictures in books to gauge where it was when new, some show too big a gap so I set to a level I was happy with. The 1cm radius difference between a 225/55 and 225/50 tyre is very obvious when you look at that many pictures!

[Del 203]

Measure/set up from the main chassis rails front & rear !!!

[JR]

Del 203 said:

Measure/set up from the main chassis rails front & rear !!!

Just behind the front wheels and just in front of the rear wheels; IIRC rear is taller by 10-15mm (or 1/2" =/- 1/8")

[Pvapour]

thanks for info guys, found this now which never showed up in search engine before

http://www.pistonheads.co.uk/gassing/topic.asp?h=0...

[SMB]

Del 203 said:

Measure/set up from the main chassis rails front & rear !!!

I agree this would be the ideal, but with different profile tyres fitted to different ages of cars, you can't have a blanket 150/160mm standard measure. The tyre makes a difference of 10mm at least, if you look at early press items on 4.0 and 4.3 chimaeras the rear is set much higher than later cars. For me the standard measures had the rear tyres well up into the arch and highly likely to bottom out. This is on an early 95 car.

[Pvapour]

Initially I thought the rear had sagged leaving the front where it should be but the history shows new rear shocks fitted and geo set up only 3k miles ago (possibly springs have settled then) I quite like the lower stance at the rear but looks wrong because front is sitting at a std height by the looks of it so I will drop the front to be 10mm lower than rear and see how it clears things, shouldn't effect the geo drastically either

mines a 98 & sits 155 rear 150 front at the mo, from what you have said SMB I think I'll start with the 24mm of thread showing for the rears and see how it sits compared to my existing 155mm clearance (doesn't bottom out at that) then do fronts according to that (ie 10mm lower) will apply 6 clicks same as you to start, the roads are a bit smoother here anyway so should be ok.

[Pvapour]

they must have changed the shocks or something, I had to wind them down so 2mm of thread was showing to get 155mm clearance, Kevin did say he had given me large body shocks at no extra cost, maybe the thread is different on these??

[haircutmike]

Taken from old thread.

http://www.pistonheads.co.uk/gassing/topic.asp?h=0... height


Sunday 4th October 2009 You must set the ride height correctly.
The suspension doesn't work properly if set to low, you will achieve better handleing when set at the correct height.

Reset ride height.

Rear 155mm.
Front 145mm.

Measured under the outrigger triangular plate welded to the outrigger corners.
I am using standard + 20% springs which are an improvement over standard springs and still are very compliant.

Rule of thumb;

One finger inbetween wheel arch and tyre, front.
Two " " " " " " , Rear.

Best results when set accurately.

Not a grief, but you get the idea!



Peter.

[Pvapour]

haircutmike said:

Taken from old thread.

http://www.pistonheads.co.uk/gassing/topic.asp?h=0... height


Sunday 4th October 2009 You must set the ride height correctly.
The suspension doesn't work properly if set to low, you will achieve better handleing when set at the correct height.

Reset ride height.

Rear 155mm.
Front 145mm.

Measured under the outrigger triangular plate welded to the outrigger corners.
I am using standard + 20% springs which are an improvement over standard springs and still are very compliant.

Rule of thumb;

One finger inbetween wheel arch and tyre, front.
Two " " " " " " , Rear.

Best results when set accurately.

Not a grief, but you get the idea!



Peter.

that is exactly what i set it to

[Del 203]

IMH(umble)O you need another 10/15mm rake

[haircutmike]

Del 203 said:

IMH(umble)O you need another 10/15mm rake

I use another 10mm on the rear for the track!

HCM.

[JR]

haircutmike said:

Sunday 4th October 2009 You must set the ride height correctly.
The suspension doesn't work properly if set to low, you will achieve better handleing when set at the correct height.

Amazingly most people don't bother about that.

Clearance to wheel arches is a very rough rule of thumb. Clearance of chassis from ground is better but really you should be setting so that the wishbones are as near to horizontal as possible when the car is at rest.

[Pvapour]

been our for a blast, tackled some speed humps and the twisties and am very pleased, sliding is way more controllable, ride is firmer (8 clicks) but more comfortable as it absorbs better. less roll, love em.

Wishbones are virtualy level at 155r 145f, to achieve this ride height (for anyone who may be doing the same) the rears looked like this (one line of thread showing)

with front showing about 15mm of thread between colar and shoulder of shock. HTH