Xsara VTS suspension overhaul plus upgrade (hopefully)

[budd]

There as been some interest in my proposed suspension overhaul on my '02 VTS, so I’ll post some pics and write a little about the progress (or not as the case may), but first some background.
I bought the car a year ago with the intention of using it primarily for road rallies (night rallies) plus the odd trackday , the trackday part was really a afterthought, my thinking been if I prepare for rallies then it should be OK on the track to, while this is broadly true it’s not quite that simple, sure uprating the brakes, loosing some weight in the form of ditching sound deadening, A/C, airbags etc helps both disciplines it’s the suspension that as caused problems, my previous experience with circuit racers tells me to stiffen and lower and having been told road rallies are mainly on public roads this is basically what I did, however some of these ‘public roads’ are anything but the smooth tarmac I was expecting, the reality been that much of the competitive mileage is rough, poorly surfaced B roads with a varying amount of roads called ‘whites’ which are essentially little more than farm tracks more suited to tractor than a car, so my ‘lowered & stiffen’ approach perhaps wasn’t my best idea, in the 4 events we’ve done this year the cars as taken a right old battering, fortunately I had the good sense to follow advice and fit a sump guard or I don’t think the car would have survived, some of these roads really are very testing.
So bearing in mind this year was my first involved in road rallying, what have I learned? well mainly my half arsed approach to the suspension really isn’t cutting it so a rethink is required, to that end I’ve made a start today by getting the car up in the air, removing the sumpguard and dropping the gearbox oil, I’d hoped to accomplish more but I’m in the hands of the weather and got rained off, hopefully I’ll get the whole lot off tomorrow if the weather is better.
Once it’s all off I can have look at what needs replacing as basic repairs, P bushes, ball joints etc and what needs upgrading, I’ll then have to workout my options in achieving the best solution to my specific needs.
pic of it this morning just before the rain


suspension as it is now Koni dampers cut down OE springs not ideal


pic of sump guard as you can see it's taken a battering


another pic of it in action on the Garstang - Preston rally

[budd]

Managed to strip the front end on Sat, removed everything struts, drive shafts the lot, I thought I may as well check everything and replace parts as required, the shafts & CV joints etc are all in good condition so they require no attention, hub bearings also are fine, I’ve found 1x lower ball joint and 1x track rod end with excess play so for what it costs I’ll replace the lot.
The ‘P’ bushes and front lower control arm bushes were badly worn the ‘P’ bushes in particular were completely separated so these will be replaced, I’ll be fitting Powerflex black series bushes in the front of the wishbone and probably OE berlingo /partner ‘P’ bushes, I’m not sure whether the benefits of fitting Powerflex poly ‘P’ bushes are worth the cost (best part of £100 for the pr ) so at the moment I’m favouring these ebay items
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/330439783888?s...1423.l2649

The above is essentially service work to keep the basic structure of the suspension sound, so now it’s time to look at the struts and springs.
When I built the car it was done on a strict budget, the target been get the car ready for it’s first Rally (inc tax and ins) for £1000 , and while the budget was tight we didn’t exceed it by much but keeping costs down invariably meant corners were cut, one of the main ‘bodges’ was using cut down coil springs which is never a good idea, but at the time I didn’t know what was required for road rallying and choose to take the risk and re the cut springs until A. we could afford some more suitable replacements and B. we had enough experience to make a better choice.

Before removing the suspension I was getting grinding / rubbing / twanging noises from the struts, I’d assumed this was coming from the strut top bearings but when I removed and stripped the strut I found these were in fact OK the problem was actually the spring which had half popped out of the top spring retainer and was rubbing on the strut turret, (like I said cutting coil springs isn’t a great idea), also when I removed the strut from the hub I’ve noticed some damage in the from of a crease at the bottom of the leg (the part that goes into the hub) see pic the damper below

seems to be still working fine so at the moment I’m planning on reusing it, I’m guessing the damage as been caused by landing from a jump and the forces have bottom out the suspension and the base of the strut is where the energy as been transmitted to causing the slight crease.

So what’s the best solution? In a perfect world I’d be fitting some nice AST or Ohlins coilovers but budget is still a serous consideration so this won’t be happening and I need a more budget oriented solution, I’m not even considering ‘cheap’ coilovers as in my experience they are not only cheap but generally nasty to, Skip Brown do some dedicated Road /Night Rally spec springs which on the face of it would be the perfect solution but I’m not sure if they will rise the ride height, which isn’t desireable for track use, EIbach also make a quality spring but I don’t really want to lower the car much as this isn’t good for use down the lanes, what I really need is a cheap (but not nasty ) coilover, so I’m looking into something like this
http://www.rallydesign.co.uk/product_inf...ts_id=3450

They in theory convert a normal fixed seat strut to a adjustable platform, and on the face of it seem a perfect solution, and given the slight damage to the strut I won’t feel to bad a bout chopping the spring seat off a new(ish) Koni damper, I’ll do some measuring and a little more research before I order anything, I’m guessing choosing the right spring rate and free length will be the biggest challenge to getting it working properly, but I’m thinking it could be worth the effort for the adjustability and the fact 2 ¼ “ coil springs are cheap so changing springs as necessary also becomes a option to further help tune the spring to changing requirements.
Anyway, I’ll look into at some more before deciding which path to follow, and of course I’d value any input / suggestions/ comments etc

[kentiiboii]

Good read. Id love to do a rally like these. But im never going to do them in the '6 think the '6 is going to be for track day use

[Rippthrough]

That bent strut is going to give dodgy camber at one side, if it goes much futher it'll crack and let the damper oil out, I wouldn't re-use it.

It'll be from bottoming out due to the cut springs, not enough suspension travel.

[budd]

Good read. Id love to do a rally like these. But im never going to do them in the '6 think the '6 is going to be for track day use

I've seen a few 306s on events there was a really nice white Rallye on the Garstang & Preston Rally, unfortunately it retired with a fuel leak

That bent strut is going to give dodgy camber at one side, if it goes much futher it'll crack and let the damper oil out, I wouldn't re-use it.

It'll be from bottoming out due to the cut springs, not enough suspension travel.

yeah I'm a little concered about that and I agree I'd say it was definitely caused by the spring bottoming out, that'll teach me for cutting springs down, but I think I have a solution, although if your a good engineer and looking at your sig I'd guess you are, you probably won't like it I was thinking I could grind the locating tab off the strut and weld on a collar maybe 1/2" further up the tube this will allow the strut to go slightly further into the hub past the crease and unto a straight bit of tube returning the camber back to spec and moving the load area away from the weakened crease , I can compensate for the lower ride height with either a Skip Brown Rally spring or by fitting a coilover conversion kit and adjusting to the desired height, I told you, you wouldn't like it

[budd]

I've prdred some Powerflex front wishbone bushes and some of the alloy type P bushes from ebay, they are cheap at under £16 the pr so I'll see how long they last, I may have to go for the Powerflex one if they fail premuturely, but they'll do for now, I'll get the track rod ends and ball joint from my normal parts supplier I can't get them any cheaper online.
One of the other things I knew needed some attention was the rear lower engine mount, I understand they are quite weak and allow the engine to rock back and forth, it's something I've noticed with the Xsara I'm not sure if the 306 suffers from the same thing but it needed sorting, I've already stiffened up the O/S upper mount as it was allowing the engine to lift so much it was hitting the strut brace not ideal !!! the easy fix is a poly replacement which at £30 ish isn't to bad but I thought I'd try another fix and save some money by making my own well not really making my own more filling the old one with resin
first job is to cu away some rubber from the OE bush to allow the resin to flow around it

then I sealed up one side of the bush to keep the new resin in place, then I mixed up some resin adding some red dye to give it a better look

then I poured it into the old bush, pouring it nice and slow so it gets into all the corners

the finished article which looks good and well hopefully set to around 95A shore hardness, this should beef up the OE bush nicely

it should be cured by tomorrow so I'll see then if going to work or not

Also while I was stripping the brakes I found some tell tale signs of how hot they’ve been getting, notice drips or rivulets along edge of the pad, this was the wear indicator which as simply melted, all the wear indicators suffered the same fate although the melted plastic came off no problem and they cleaned up fine and still having plenty of meat left on them they’ll be retained

[Rippthrough]

You should have heated the housing first in an oven, and applied a load to the top of the polyuthethane to give it some compression set, you'll probably find it starts to peel away from the old rubber in a few months.

[budd]

You should have heated the housing first in an oven, and applied a load to the top of the polyuthethane to give it some compression set, you'll probably find it starts to peel away from the old rubber in a few months.

obviously time will tell, but all it as to do is suppport the OE rubber joint and as it's moulded in one piece it should still do that even if it does seperate from the OE bush,

[Rippthrough]

Yeah, it'll still work, just get a touch of initial slack.

[budd]

Yeah, it'll still work, just get a touch of initial slack.

if it doesn't last I'll just wait till I can feel the engine movement again then knock it out and fit a Powerflex or similar bush if it does last then happy days either way I certainly won't be removing the big alloy bracket again it's a proper PITA.

[Jonny81191]

A word of warning regarding the bottom mount: Do NOT use a rubber mallet as a "solid" bottom mount, it'll crack in under a week of use and will be rendered useless.

[Grant]

Just out of interest, what resin did you use?

[budd]

A word of warning regarding the bottom mount: Do NOT use a rubber mallet as a "solid" bottom mount, it'll crack in under a week of use and will be rendered useless.

not sure I fully understand your point

Just out of interest, what resin did you use?

A few years ago I approached some polyurethane resin suppliers for samples, basically I contacted their marketing people told them I intended to make some custom poly bushes and asked for a sample, one company John Burns were very helpful and agreed to send samples of the most appropriate resins, I expected some little pots but they sent a big box of 3 different resins, probably 6 litres in total, after a bit of trail and error I made some bushes for a Impreza race car I was building, the actual product is called Ultra Cast 10/95 and seems to do the job just fine. The result is I’ve still got quite a bit left over, I was worried that the resin may have ‘gone off’ because it’s just been sat in the garage for the last couple of years but it seems to be fine, so it’s a big thanks to John Burns

[Jonny81191]

I tried to cut costs by making a solid bottom mount from a rubber mallet head. It seemed like a good idea at the time. But it didn't last long..

[budd]

I tried to cut costs by making a solid bottom mount from a rubber mallet head. It seemed like a good idea at the time. But it didn't last long..

right I understand now, although I can't really see why it would fail, the Powerflex replacements are pretty stiff and I assume they are fine so why a rubber mallet head would cause a problem I don't know, hopefully mine will be OK

[Rippthrough]

Nah, the powerflex ones used to split and crack too before they started sending massive washers for the sides out. The diameter/width ratio is too high for a stable bush in solid material.

[budd]

Nah, the powerflex ones used to split and crack too before they started sending massive washers for the sides out. The diameter/width ratio is too high for a stable bush in solid material.

yeah I can see how a properly solid bush solution could cause problems,the polyurethane in my bush seems to be quite soft, certainly softer than I was expecting, I'm pretty sure I mixed the resin the same as I had previously but the result is a softer bush, but given the comments about bushes cracking and splitting then this may be no bad thing, I supose all I can do is to keep a eye on it and change it if it isn't up to the job or doesn't behave as intended.

[budd]

now ready to start reassembly, got the wishbones cleaned up and the 'cheap' ebay P bushes and Poweflex 'black series' bushes, re the cheap ebay P bushes they look excellent much better then the pressed steel things I took off.

I need to nip down to the motor factors for some new lower ball joints and track rod ends then it can all go back on, well everything apart from the struts, Which are a major cause for concern, the damage to the Konis is a real worry, I initially thought about removing the locating tab and allowing them to be pushed into the hub a little further, in theory this would remove the access camber caused by the bent strut base by allowing the hub to clamp it on a straight piece of tube, but in reality I don’t know if there’s any internal damage, in the end I don’t think it’s wise to refit them at all, which leaves me with a problem I need a suspension solution on the cheap, well contrary to my previous statement about cheap and nasty coilover kits I’ve gone and bought a set of cheap but hopefully not to nasty coilovers.
So why the change of heart? Well as usual it’s all about money or lack of it for this project, to replace the Koni dampers I’m looking at around £160 each, then I still need a pair of springs which is another £100+, then add the P bushes (admittedly cheap at £15 the pr but it all adds up ), £35 for the for the Powerflex bushes, track rod ends £12, pr £20 pr of ball joints it starts becoming quite a list and adds up to over £500, also I’m still using the OE rear dampers so at some time down the line these to need to be changed and would add a further £200 to the bill.
The original plan was to sort the front suspension problems and uprate the springs replace any worn or damaged parts, my estimate for this was around £200 (or £100 each as costs are split between me and my navigator) obviously the damage to the Koni dampers was unexpected and while I could risk refitting them it simply isn’t worth it.
With all this in mind I did some searching and have found various cheap coilovers kits on ebay (where else  ) there are quite a few kits ranging from £170 up to £500 plus, I’ve just ordered the cheapest on offer from a trader called Hot tuning, the kit is a TA Technics kit for which the vendor accepted £150, now to put this in perspective that’s £150 for front and rear dampers, coil springs and a C spanner, on the face of it that’s exceptional valu. plus it adds a pair of rear dampers I hadn't budgeted for on the first place..
OK it’s only good value if they work and don’t fall to bits within a week, but honestly how bad can they be?
Prior to ordering I did some research on various forums and found quite a lot of positive comments on this particular kit, admittedly there was some negative comments to so it’s not all good news but the neg comments were largely concerning harsh ride with most saying that the build quality and service was very good, so I figured they were worth a punt, tie will tell if they are OK or are cheap and nasty.
I’ve always being a believer in ‘you get what you pay for’ and in general I still do but £150 is £150 and a massive saving, it’s the difference between halting the project till and re thinking / finding more money etc, in the end I’m reserving judgment till the kit as arrived and is fitted, obviously I’ll post my findings good or bad.

[Rippthrough]

Even paying trade prices for the parts, tubes and re-using pistons and valves out of something else, I can't build even a cheap set of coilovers for rally use for less than £600, so that should tell you how good they will be

If they're anything like the old set I took apart, they're pretty similar to a very old Koni design with rubber piston seals etc, and a lot of stiction/friction in the system (the reason for the poor ride, it doesn't let the suspension move properly until they get a big enough whack)

[budd]

Even paying trade prices for the parts, tubes and re-using pistons and valves out of something else, I can't build even a cheap set of coilovers for rally use for less than £600, so that should tell you how good they will be

If they're anything like the old set I took apart, they're pretty similar to a very old Koni design with rubber piston seals etc, and a lot of stiction/friction in the system (the reason for the poor ride, it doesn't let the suspension move properly until they get a big enough whack)

yeah I fully agree, although there's quite a bit of difference between a bespoke kit you would produce and a generic kit produced by the 1000s in a thrid world sweat shop,
but I guess there are more than one business model you can pursue , ie build up slowly using top quality components and supporting motorsport this is where the likes of Ohlins, AST have come from and now over many years have built a enviable reputation as market leaders which allows them to charge what they do, I remember around 10 yrs ago buying some Nitron dampers for my TVR, at the time Nitron were a relatively new company with a limited product range and when I made my order I was quizzed by Guy Evans (the company founder) re how the car was to be driven, what brakes and tyres were fitted how I drove, what my expectations were etc, they basically built me a custom set of high quality dampers, now Nitron have grown from these humble beginnings and are right up there with the best, have an extensive range and excellent reputation, I suppose that’s the best way to build a business, but it’s not the only way, knocking out 1000s of cut price units to people who simply want to lower there car 100mm and sod the consequences also seems viable or they wouldn’t do it, the margins must be incredibly tight and I’m sure designs have been pinched from more reputable / established manufacturers, but what like I said how bad can they be? The worst case scenario is they are proper rubbish and not up to the task, well in the case I’ll run them till I can workout better solution and then sell them on ebay, I’d guess I’m likely to recoup around 60% of their initial cost so it’s not like I’m risking a great deal.

[Rippthrough]

Unless you f*ck them and they're scrap like the Konis, then you have to buy yet another set.

[budd]

Unless you f*ck them and they're scrap like the Konis, then you have to buy yet another set.

cheaper than scrapping another pair of Konis , seriously though I believe the damage was caused by me using cut down springs, my fault I should have known better it won't happen again, with the correct springs fitted the new dampers should at least have a fighting chance of survival

[budd]

well the cheapo coilovers arrived today and apart from opening the box to check everything is there I've not had time to do much with them, first impressions seem good no obvious problems, although having assembled one unit the springs are as I thought very weak, I know the helper spring is supposed to be weak and is really only there to stop the main spring un-seating but winding up the adjuster to get a some pre load on the main spring simply compressers the helper to the point it's no more than a spacer, I think this kit is intended for people how want to go very low regardless, I don't want to low so my thoughts are that I need a stiffer but longer main spring if I've any chance of making it work in the way I'd like, the supplied spring is 7" free length and I'd guessaround 225 lbs so I'm thinking a 10" 325 lbs spring and removing the helper will be a worthwhile improvement, although I'm going to put it all together tomorrow and see what I've got before doing anything,

[budd]

not done much in the last few weeks so I better get my finger out, unfortunately my DIY lower rear bush as failed as predicted (ripthrough) the resin did indeed break away from the rubber oh it was worth a try, spoox uprated item ordered, another job that as been started and not yet finished is the relocating of the battery to the boot, battery is now mounted in a sealed battery box set in the boot floor today I've been making up 175amp Anderson plug terminated cables so I can easily jump start the car if required I now just need to run the main power cable to the front of the car I just need to work out where to fit the cut off switch, it needs to be in a position so that both myself and my co-driver can reach it while harnessed in I'll have a sit in tomorrow and see where would be suitable, anyway more in line with the original thread I also decided to strip down my damaged Koni struts

placed strut in vice undid retaining collar, looking at the collar I'd guess there's a special twin pronged tool probably like a angle grinder tool but in a absence of a dedicated tool some big stillsons soon had the retaining collar off and insert out

construction is much like a motorcycle fork, damping insert with oil in the bottom of the strut leg,

looks pretty straight forward (although I'm not sure what the spring around the base is for??) and despite damage to the strut body the internals seem fine and while I'm sure the internals could be stripped further I can't see much point tinkering with the damping valve assemblies, the basic characteristics of the damper can be tuned by changing the oil viscosity and air gap just like a basic m/c fork, for further adjustment I'd have to differ to someone who knows what they are doing.
Next step is to get one of the coilovers off the car and strip the insert out of that and see if there's any chance of inserting the Koni internals into the TA technics body, I know it's a long shot that they would be even broadly similar never mind interchangeable but it worth a look, although I'm not holding my breath