Hills & Sprints

[gav]

Hi all

This is a question primarily for drivers running in hills & sprints (where the surfaces aren't always as good as circuits) although it is a free for all for anyone who has experience of the subject.

I'm planning the restoration of my modsports car and am going to use it for hills & sprints running on slicks/wets.

On the suspension front, I'm running double wishbones at the rear and I'm thinking of running a combination of rod ends where I need adjustment and poly bushes where I don't.

My questions are:

Does anyone run a similar combination of rod ends and poly bushes and if so, how succesful is it?

How long is a set of rose joints likely to last (this is also relevant to cars running rose joints throughout)

What ride height is good for hills & sprints?

Thanks
Gavin

[MintSprint]

Since your questions don't relate to a 'standard' Elan, you may be better off asking them in the Hiilclimb and Sprint Associations forum. By their very nature, Mosdsports cars are highly individual, though, so no one is going to be able to give hard and fast rules.

However:
1) No reason the the polybush and Rose joint combination shouln't work. I've set up several cars that use this approach and, certainly, it was never identified as a problem. You'd have to be an exceptionally sensitive driver with an exceptionally well set-up car to notice the difference between fully Rose jointed and partially poly-bushed in terms of suspension compliance.

2) Life of rose joints is very variable, depending on quality, how well they are looked after and how heavily loaded they are in a particular application (which again partially depends on sizing). If you are only using the car for H & S (hence minimal mileage), I'd suggest that if you look after them properly, you should check them on a yearly basis as part of the winter overhaul and replace any that are the slightest bit rattly.

3) Ride height is goint to be variable, depending on track and - on a ModSports car - things like splitters and diffusers and how stiff your suspension is (also anti-squat and dive geometry). Obviously, splitters and diffusers are usually the first things to kiss the tarmac under acceleration (squat) and braking (dive). If they kiss the tarmac too hard, they'll start to upset the handling and will be damaged/worn very quickly. I'm afraid it's going to be trial and error on that one, but perhaps start at 65-75mm (with a slight nose-down rake) and play around from there.