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Back with the rally people to get those Noltec adjustable strut tops fitted today .
No time to do anything except adjust the toe setting so don't know exactly where the camber and caster is yet .
The steering feels a little heavier but turn in is much better and understeer is much reduced .

For second hand these tops are good and have no play , rattle , in their spherical joints .

While the struts were out the roll pins and height adjuster nuts were removed and placed upside down above the lower spring seats . I estimate the height has gone down 10-12mm .
Surprisingly those OE type dampers are gas and in quite reasonable condition too . They have been apart at some stage because someone had one of the steel washers in the wrong spot .
they also fitted some proper bump stops because one was shot and the other non existent .

I may look into higher rate std replacement springs because they are a bit soft at , according to the 86 F-WSM , 157 in/lbs .

Slowly getting there , cheers A .

RALLY!!!
awesome whered you get them second hand??

They were Impreza ones someone had in a Forrester GT , been sitting around here for some time .

Cheers A .

ahh forgot you were running liberty.
im making up some for the L seires

Spike, disco is playing with an L RX

RX Turbo L Series , all Ls and MYs have terrible front suspension geometry from a handling viewpoint - and that's at the standard ride height . If you go higher they get worse .
As a rough measurement my front strut tops have gone backwards and inwards approximately 14mm and 10mm so it will be interesting to see where the camber and caster is now .

I think I could use uprated front springs that give the standard or just a smidge lower ride height . A bit more front roll resistance would give less roll camber change and make the front tyres grip better in the corners .

The rear ride height needs to come down a little , Ls are famous for that butt up in the air stance and I think that has to do with having long supple rear springs and dampers .
My car is totally different to drive with a full vs nearly empty fuel tank and I think the rear springs need to have a much higher rating than std to support the weight and not vary so much with ride height .
I think its a juggle of having the right spring rate and dampers that keep them trapped at full droop but not too much preload .

I think with anti roll bars you have to think Ls have short suspension links so the lever ratios are not going to be very high meaning big diameter bars are needed to control the roll - if that's what you want .

In time , A .

Are you rally bound with these suspension upgrades or tuning road handling?
M

Pure road .

A .

I had the opportunty to play a little on a faster, tar, bendy road and was impressed with the improvement the 195 50 15 and unknown scrub radius Performance rims gave the little Grief. Old Skool upgrade of little known engineering approach - happy.

I got a wheel alignment early this morning and the numbers come up 2 deg positive caster each side and half a degree of negative camber . The toe was set to 2mm toe out .

The fella that did it is a car nut and as it turns out owns a very much modified R33 GTR so turbocharging is in his blood .

He was saying he's never aligned an RX Turbo before and is more used to Libs and Imprezas , he commented that they have usually about 2 degrees of caster but its negative rather than positive .
I'd actually like more positive caster but these adjustable tops are about as far back as they can go . To get more would mean pushing the struts further forward at the bottom and my control arm inner bushings are already pushed and not too flash . Must ask the rally people about modified arms with more angle at the inner end . Probably also need adjustable compression rods as well .

Cheers A .

more information please.
I'm about to do mine and would like to be able to play in the hills without accidentally wiping the car out.

actually pm me your phone number.

also did you do the bushes in the rear end? if so what did you use?

im a bastard like that =)

got some pics to keep us going?
im still planning on getting some camber for the rally car, not sure whether to go camber pins or plates, after re reading this plates might be the go

No I have a set of new urethane rear arm bushes but in a L Series they are an engineering no no . The reason being that properly engineered cars with semi trailing arm rear suspension have the pivot points aligned on the same axis - like say a Datsun 1600 180B IRS 200B etc . The L rear arms put the pivot axises in two plains so the bushes have to flex to work properly .

When you use bushes with much less compliance than OE style rubber ones you overload the arm or cross member fixing points and can actually crack them . This happened to me years ago in the rear of a Jap five link live axle car , cracked right through the floor pan ...

The L rear links are designed to use bushes with compliance so I reckon new genuine is going to be as good as it gets .

A .