ripp
ClioSport Club Member
182 FFAT
After some days of tiny adjustments to my gaz kit I decided to share my thoughts on what I found out.
First of all I fitted the suspension myself, took me an entire day to get the std one out and fit the coilies, so a good advice would be to have some buddy ready to give a hand.
I also took some measurements of the std strut vs the gaz strut. As you can imagine, the gaz one is couple of cm shorter:
the gaz strut set up as seen in the drawing above gave me about 22 mm lower ride height
Meanwhile I've seen that at rest the gaz strut had about 85mm of travel. when compressed this value drops to about 25 mm or less if you lower the car more than I did first.
Emailed gaz and bottom line I have cut the bump stops to get some extra travel, as they advised me to<br>I removed a large bit from the center of the bump stop, and a smaller bit from the lower area, reducing it's length by aprox 25mm (out of 45 mm initial length)
However this is a particular case, but I'd still advise to check the way your strut is assembled before installing and don't be carried away in lowering too much
The car sits aprox 30-35 mm lower now at the front which I think is enough for road/ track use, going lower will stress the driveshafts and the wheels will scrub like bi**es which brings on the second problem:
Arch scrubbing:
The 182 clio has to suffer more as it has longer wheelbase than the 172, and renault didn't bother to modify the arches according to that so the wheels sit closer to the front of the arches, being more exposed to bumper bracket scrub.
I modified the bracket (bent it upwards) and cut of the round area over the bracket in the arch
I have a thread on this for those interested, in this section
But still it scrubs a little at hard cornering and almost touches on the metal underneath the arch, not on the bracket mind you!
Will probably have to cut some excess metal in that area because being 30mm lower and still scrubbing is just annoying
I'm having 16" ultras and I know these make rubbing easier but still..
Bottom line:
Check suspension travel and sort out the scrubbing as you can, I just gave you some ideas
Most coilover kits saying 20-60 mm or lower height adjustments are talking s**t as the car would be undriveable resting on the bump stops
The gaz kit I'm sorry to say it won't even go 60 mm lower if the bumps are being left alone
Would be nice to see some H&R or bilstein struts being measured to compare against the gaz units for example
some recent pics as the car currently is
I hope I've been somehow helpful
Cheers!
First of all I fitted the suspension myself, took me an entire day to get the std one out and fit the coilies, so a good advice would be to have some buddy ready to give a hand.
I also took some measurements of the std strut vs the gaz strut. As you can imagine, the gaz one is couple of cm shorter:
the gaz strut set up as seen in the drawing above gave me about 22 mm lower ride height
Meanwhile I've seen that at rest the gaz strut had about 85mm of travel. when compressed this value drops to about 25 mm or less if you lower the car more than I did first.
Emailed gaz and bottom line I have cut the bump stops to get some extra travel, as they advised me to<br>I removed a large bit from the center of the bump stop, and a smaller bit from the lower area, reducing it's length by aprox 25mm (out of 45 mm initial length)
However this is a particular case, but I'd still advise to check the way your strut is assembled before installing and don't be carried away in lowering too much
The car sits aprox 30-35 mm lower now at the front which I think is enough for road/ track use, going lower will stress the driveshafts and the wheels will scrub like bi**es which brings on the second problem:
Arch scrubbing:
The 182 clio has to suffer more as it has longer wheelbase than the 172, and renault didn't bother to modify the arches according to that so the wheels sit closer to the front of the arches, being more exposed to bumper bracket scrub.
I modified the bracket (bent it upwards) and cut of the round area over the bracket in the arch
I have a thread on this for those interested, in this section
But still it scrubs a little at hard cornering and almost touches on the metal underneath the arch, not on the bracket mind you!
Will probably have to cut some excess metal in that area because being 30mm lower and still scrubbing is just annoying
I'm having 16" ultras and I know these make rubbing easier but still..
Bottom line:
Check suspension travel and sort out the scrubbing as you can, I just gave you some ideas
Most coilover kits saying 20-60 mm or lower height adjustments are talking s**t as the car would be undriveable resting on the bump stops
The gaz kit I'm sorry to say it won't even go 60 mm lower if the bumps are being left alone
Would be nice to see some H&R or bilstein struts being measured to compare against the gaz units for example
some recent pics as the car currently is
I hope I've been somehow helpful
Cheers!
