Since getting the car on the road, a couple of years ago now, we've noticed some lack of steering feel. We measured the caster angle earlier in the year and noticed each side were not even the same and i cant remember what the actual measurement figure was but it could definitely be improved. Last weekends little project was to make some spare wishbones we had adjustable.
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Hmm I've been looking at Tension links
http://www.motorsport-tools.com/escort-mk1-mk2-rix-engineering-comp...
Not bad and I can see how it might even attach to a Dutton chassis. My Stylus doesn't have an antiroll bar at all although there are some racing types that have...
Does nothing for camber though....
one useful way to go if the ARB is binned is either a compression strut (or tension) this is the set up on many oval track cars (BRISCA F2) and i have seen it on many "7" style cars..
ARB is about double the thickness it needs to be for a Dutton, Caterham for example even on the 620r is only 10mm
Bottom wishbone is a good upgrade but would always run ARB
Guy on locust builders (I think) did a very good mod where he milled his ARB centre till it was a thin "blade" an worked very well
nteresting point about the ARB mounts. It's a pity that the chassis slopes uphill so sharply where it's attached so some serious bracketry would be needed to reattach.
On the other hand I seriously wonder if an ARB is needed at all on a Phaeton or Melos as they're pretty low compared to an escort.
So how about fabricating adjustable *lower* wishbones instead? (and doing away with the ARB which is only likely to cause understeer anyway). Anyone tried that on these chassis? I suppose the Track control arm could be retained so it would be only half a wishbone...
Not sure but I might have seen something relevant to this at Burton Power....
I have looked at this same problem on the later duttons.....i thought about your adjustable wishbone idea myself, but it occurred to me that the problem and solution might lie elsewhere. it turns out that if you release the chassis mounts for the anti roll bar the front end will naturally want to align its self....the anti roll bar mounts will need moving (forward on the two cars i have modified) that pulls the TCA forward which corrects the lack of castor.
I know the top mounts aren't wide enough to shim as standard but its very easy to move both pairs of brackets outwards to give 10mm of shimming either side of the bush
We are only talking a few mm movement at most, at the end of the wishbone, to alter the caster angle so unlikely to distort the bush much since it's only a few degrees.
Good point about shims on the mountings but unfortunately they wont allow that as they aren't wide enough
This way we can mod the angles a bit without doing anything the to the chassis. Also since they are spares the new ones can be swapped over for the original fixed ones in just a few minutes really
this is true but we are hoping it was only take very small adjustments to improve the caster angle so shouldnt make too much difference to the camber. I think we will also make the left hand side of the wishbone adjustable,meaning that a turn or two in opposite directions will make all the difference.
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