running without wheel liners

[MAROK]

just got H&R suspension on my 182 it handles like a dream now although its a bit more nervous in the wet now but still superb. It looks fanstastic 2 but i'm quite low and starting to rub the liners on @ full cornering speed, i want to remove them and go lower but a friend recommends that i dont. whats the pros and cons in doing this anyone shine a light for me?

PROS:.... lower centre of gravity (enuf to improve handling)?
CONS:.... dirt in my engine (how much) ?

hope you clio drivers can shed some light, saw a clio driver tonight on the A45, M42 tonight bout 10ish and had a little mark of respect lights flash, was this any1 from here?

 

[edde]

PROS:.... lower centre of gravity (enuf to improve handling)? Define better handling?
CONS:.... dirt in my engine (how much) ? Not an issue if you underseal the car and keep and eye on it you have the issue that you can catch on speed bumps etc if you go very low also the suspension will hit the bump stops at the limit which can unballence the car.
Also there is a limit realy to how you you may want to go jacking is annoying when its very low as you have to have pieces of wood to drive onto or get a very low jack (£££) or jack the back of the car first etc.

Then there always the fact you cna go to low Cp racers show ultra low ins't the best thing ever.

 

[f0xy]

PROS:.... lower centre of gravity (enuf to improve handling)? Define better handling?
CONS:.... dirt in my engine (how much) ? Not an issue if you underseal the car and keep and eye on it you have the issue that you can catch on speed bumps etc if you go very low also the suspension will hit the bump stops at the limit which can unballence the car.
Also there is a limit realy to how you you may want to go jacking is annoying when its very low as you have to have pieces of wood to drive onto or get a very low jack (£££) or jack the back of the car first etc.

Then there always the fact you cna go to low Cp racers show ultra low ins't the best thing ever.

exactly what edde said really............ive ran no arch liners for ages now, just clean it every once in a while and its fine...............mine hits the stops all the time due to it being low, but i put up with it....................also jacking is the worst bit, at the moment i have to go onto wood, then bricks then use the jack..........annoying!

 

[MAROK]

good points there, have already cracked the liners from the back of the front bumper..... eek

 

[MAROK]

so not all bad then, except for the jacking then.......sounds good

 

[Ex-User (19928)]

I doubt you'll go faster with H+Rs than you could've with the stock setup anyway unless you're a real loon so handling is a bit of a moot point.

Suspension upgrades are never going to let you do anymore than a few mph extra round the same corner.

How low is the car before you have to remove arch liners to go lower ?

 

[StevieP]

My car has had no arch liners for about two years now and its still ok!

 

[jamojamojamo]

Having no arch linings doesn't really make much of a difference, but then it depends where you drive.

I was always under the impression though that the majority of cars are set up for handling as standard so by putting 'most' after market kits on to lower the car won't actually help much. Actually effect the balance of the car? Maybe someone else could shed some light on this?

 

[R20 CWH]

i would bin the arch liners as they scrub LOADS of tread off your tyres when giving it full beans into corners.

f**king pisch!

Plus sounds crap when your going round bends

 

[Ian_182]

Get them in the bin

 

[Fletcher]

How low is your 182?

 

[Diesel_Power]

Arch liners ok, lowering more wont improve handling.

 

[GordonD]

I was always under the impression though that the majority of cars are set up for handling as standard so by putting 'most' after market kits on to lower the car won't actually help much. Actually effect the balance of the car? Maybe someone else could shed some light on this?

The manufacturer sets up the suspension to provide the sort of balance between ride, handling and ground clearance that the typical purchaser of that vehicle would want. So an off-road vehicle is going to be set up standard with a higher ride height and softer ride than a sporty car.

Lowering a car lowers the centre of gravity which reduces the lateral weight transfer and tends to improve cornering power. But a lower ride height decreases the amount of remaining suspension travel before the car bottoms out, so the spring rate has to be increased, which gives you a less comfortable ride over bumps. And "handling" is something else again. That includes things like whether the car understeers or oversteers, how rapidly it breaks away when it reaches the limit, and how it handles transients like the famous "elk test" that that A-class Mercedes rolled in. Stiffer suspension makes the breakaway more abrupt, and only able to be caught by a more expert driver. So in race cars you soften the suspension settings in the wet. The other aspect of handling that lowering can affect is suspension geometry. The Clio Sports suspension geometry is set up for standard ride height and stiffness. The amount of camber in the rear wheels for example is there in the expectation of a certain amount of body roll in corners. Ditto the MacPherson struts in the front. If you simply lower the car without making the appropriate suspension geometry changes you may well get better cornering power and worse handling. I'd suspect the ride height in Cup cars is chosen to be as low as possible before the geometry changes start stuffing up the handling. It would be a good guide to follow their lead, because they're the experts with the experience in getting the best cornering power out of a Clio sport.

 

[RichRSi]

Here's a quicky, as i know f.all.

Is a clio cup (road going car) suspension set up exactly like the clio cup racers (track going car) ie same shocks, springs, camber etc etc? Effectively making a clio cup a road going replica of a track car? What suspension do the S1600 rally cars use apart from what I assume is a wider rear track?

 

[Ex-User (19928)]

Here's a quicky, as i know f.all.

Is a clio cup (road going car) suspension set up exactly like the clio cup racers (track going car) ie same shocks, springs, camber etc etc? Effectively making a clio cup a road going replica of a track car? What suspension do the S1600 rally cars use apart from what I assume is a wider rear track?

No. There's a lot of things that a race car can sacrifice to get benefits on a race circuit.

Firstly there's the whole ride comfort, in a race car you're on smooth tarmac, so the suspension doesn't need to deal with speed bumps, dodgy road surfaces or potholes. As such they can use hard damping and lower the car a lot, doing this as a modification on a road car will make the car very responsive, however when you run out of grip, it will break away fairly suddenly. With 100-200bhp FWD it's not a major issue, but the principle is the same whether it's a Clio Cup or a GT3 RSR.

However you then add racing slicks to the equation, these will make the car even more useless in day to day situations, as they need to be warm to get any grip (this needs hard driving to warm them up). But it also takes the limit of grip higher allowing higher corner speeds.

Brakes are the same, they need some hard use to get heat into the discs and pads to make them efficient, normally on the road you don't do a few emergency stops before you get to the end of your road.

The other issue is weight, the more money you spend, the lighter things get. Weight is a huge issue in racing, as every hp counts (sure for thousandths of a second, but they still count). This is also the main reason race cars don't have ABS.

As far as I was aware, the reason the 172 Cup doesn't have ABS is to save costs, although the weight factor is indeed a benefit.

 

[MAROK]

How low is your 182?

i just kept lowring my clio evenly until it started rubbing so not sure of dimensions, just working on logic. It prooper holds the road like a go kart @ the mo and i just want to see if i can get more grin factor. to be fair i smile everytime i go round a corner fast

 

[MAROK]

you boys really know your stuff here, lots of interesting opinions thanks very much form your time. I think i might take them off drop it another 5 or 10 mm and see what happens, i can always put the liners back on and raise it again but have seen pictures of foxy's car and want mine THAT low now!!...... got team dynamics pro race 1.2 in black on my car an they look sweet buried into the arches

 

[realnumber 1]

I dont think the car would last 2 miles that low on the roads round here lol.I think they can look nicer lowered to an extent but I dont see the point in having it so low you have to think about the roads you are going on before you set off because of speed bumps and pot holes etc.
Theres one for tomtom "What type of route should be planned?" Smoothest Route

 

[Ian_182]

I went through a phase of lowering my cars back in the day.I had a mini cooper ,fiesta XR2I and an RS1800.All fealt the blow of me lowering them and actually destroying them because of this.

When i got my 172 and later my 182 i left them as they were made and was very happy with it.Sometimes being lower to the floor just makes you feel more confident,it doesent actually improve anything

 

[edde]

Is a clio cup (road going car) suspension set up exactly like the clio cup racers (track going car) ie same shocks, springs, camber etc etc? Effectively making a clio cup a road going replica of a track car? What suspension do the S1600 rally cars use apart from what I assume is a wider rear track?

Nope Cup racers ahev a completly different setup realy.

S1600 cars run a wholy different setup as well. The cup race rally cars do run a similar to stock setup though.