TeamSwift

This thread will be for all of those who have information to share in regards to Suspension set-ups, spring combos, etc. If it is useless information I will delete the post and it can be started in a different thread. Pictures, advice, tips and information will all be very useful and left on.<br><br> <p>-Kyle Jones <!--EZCODE LINK START--><a href="http://www.angelfire.com/de/ksj/myswift.html"><br><!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong> Junk-Yard Turbo set-up, formerly NOS-fed, constantly evolving 1989 Suzuki Swift GTi</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--><br></a><!--EZCODE LINK END--><br></p><i></i>

<!--EZCODE FONT START--><span style="color:navy;font-size:x-large;">Suspension set up for very aggressive driving or race use</span><!--EZCODE FONT END--><br><br>Poly bushings to keep everything where its supposed to be<br><br>Rear sway bar upgraded to presaude rear end NOT to sway.<br>a larger rear sway bar will help your car turn in better. it will make your car more stable thru out the corner and help transitions alot.<br>only down side < will cause lift off oversteer if one panics<br><br>Springs - use stiffer springs as speed increase. ie auto-x ing you would use a 200xx spring. And a road course like calgary you would use a 450xx spring < numbers for comparision><br>the usual set up is stiffer in back <to allow better turn in like rear sway bar. <br> I have witnessed 750lb springs in the back of a production Civic si and 450lb in the front. How do find the optimal set up for your car??? have a shelf full of race springs.<br>COIL-over /screw adjusters... a must. the only way to add/dedrease wedge and properly scale a car.<br><br>Shocks< the single most important thing to make your car Handle. buy the best prefferable adjustable. NOTE: when increasing spring rate it is most common to increase the shock stiffness too. when you get into very stiff springs the time and force on a shock is very large. and they wear out very quickly<br><br>Camber> very important for race cars. more negative camber is usually always a good thing. 4deg front and 2.5 deg rear to start with. increasing camber will increase your cornering speeds and help with turn in. this is a must for a low horse power car.<br>BUT camber is just that> leans the top of the tyre in. So when going down a straight you have less tyre on the road WHICH will provide less rolling resistance BUT...<br>your acceleration and deceleration will go down due to less tyre contact patch on the pavement/cement/dirt<br><br>hmm anything i missed yeah lots but i have to go work on my HOLT<br><br>One last note < UNSPRUNG weight. this is the MASS of all components that move with suspension. ie tyres, rims, a-arms, shocks, springs, tie rod ends, and lug nuts. I won't get into why you want to lower this but it will drastically effect your handling. < you can spend a few years in engineering like i did to explain it <br>here is a simple way of figuring it in your head, well kinda but hopefully you get the picture..<br><br>Take an object of fair mass. ie a bumbell or case of beer. hold in close to your body now spin around fast <360 degs or 2 radians> pretty easy ... now hold thatcase of beer in your hand with your arm out stretched rotate... what do you find... its harder to rotate and its harder to stop, and it "feels" heavier... thats Netwon <Fnet=MA<br><br> hehe a note for above. unsprung MASS is like removing MASS off a flywheel. for every .5kg off the outer most edge of a flywheel is the equivanlent to removing 100LBS from your car <in 1st and 2nd gear gradualy decreasing thru higher gears<br><br> <p>MURR<br>1990 Suzuki Swift GT<br>TOY racer</p><i>Edited by: <A HREF=http://pub83.ezboard.com/bteamswift.showUserPublicProfile?gid=murr@teamswift>MURR</A> at: 1/9/03 8:40:29 pm<br></i>

One thing I have been told, the swifts, because of thier lack of weight, actually prefer a little body roll for traction in corners. Guys have gone too stiff on springs and found it results in less traction, almost keeping the tires from getting any weight transfer or grip.<br>Also, I have the stock steel wheels and am wondering what a good 14" alloy would be that is a good combo of cost and weight. Has to be 14 x 6 for improved touring.<br> <p></p><i></i>

Mmmmm beer examples. A true engineer. Some suspension engineers over at Whiteline in Australia put together an excellent general FAQ, no beer talk, but still lots to read.<br><br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.whiteline.com.au/faqsprings.htm">www.whiteline.com.au/faqsprings.htm</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br>Whitelines springs for GTi are meant for your mild racer/auto-xer. They are not springs for 'looks'. 150 lbs/in front and in the rear 450 lbs/in. This may seem mismatched but with a spring-to-wheel motion ratio of 1:2.5, it becomes 180in/lb at the wheel. If you place the spring over shock it becomes 1:1. i.e. Coil-overs. Coil-overs you would then want the 180 lbs/in spring, to match your 150in/lb spring in the front.<br><br>A full coil-over set up on a GTi requires modifications to the rear of your precious GTi that you may or may not want to do. Front coil-overs will work, however if you want the rears, you must take a 'sawzall' and remove a good portion of the outer skin of the rear shock tower. If you are serious into racing more like Liam and have a dedicated car, you may want to go with coil-overs jsut for the adjustability. Height adjustability, flexibility to swap springs on different tracks, etc.. They arelikley to be noisier, and have a lower life cycle than street springs. There are some serious race Swifts out there like Jason Steinhards still using stock suspension in the rear well enough. <br><br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.speedoptions.com/features/cars.php?carID=84">www.speedoptions.com/feat...p?carID=84</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br>A message in a discussion with ESRworks Racing a long time ago. They have extensively researched and worked on the GTi chassis many different spring rates, playing around with removing front sway bar together, even removing the rear sway bar in favour of a custom rear design. <br><br>From what I gather for your average Swift racer looking for coil-overs using relative confines of stock suspension set-up. Go with a 10" long 2.5" ID spring. Around 350 front and 400-500rears. As mentioned, this will of course vary according to your own needs. ESR used 8" springs, and huge spring rates<br><br>-------------<br>From ESRworks...<br>Typical set ups are GIANT sway bars and like 500 to 1000 pound springs. I started with 350 front- 300 rear and rear swaybar and no front swaybar. I removed the rear swaybar and put inthe limiter i told you about which works awesome with such high HP i run. You might want to use 400-500 rears<br>--------------<br>Back to my mumble...<br><br>The big reason for coil-overs is just adjustability, and expirementing to find the right combination of spring rates could likely be a costly proposition and set up. What end result you are after, is up to you. But you now should definetely have some things to consider. <br><br>As for basic set-up for your average racer on a budget? Start with the simple things like Liam pointed out. Polyeurethane bushings, Adjsutable shocks, performance springs, rear sway bar, R compound tires if you race, and perhaps a little bracing (chassis flex isn't always altogether bad). If you are racing and want to stay in a lower class, you will have to find out what the rules are and figure out how you want to be competetive. For instance, according to WCMA classifications and ruling, The above mods would put you in something called Super Stock (S, SS, SP, M). Now taking the next step and having camber adjustments are an excellent idea, but the Swift does not come with the ability to adjust 'camber' stock and if you add them the preparation points required will just move your GTi up into the next class of Street Prepared. A much more competetive class, usually with exerpienced people with cars built to max out the points in the SP class (turbocharged, or perhaps maxed out with trick suspensions). Your car with the above mods would just be entering hte SP class and bottom of the points scale. Hard to compete. As for biggest improvement in lap times with the above limited mods, something like the adjustable Konis shocks I have seen decrease lap times much more than either a sway-bar or the springs. Hence adding to what Liam mentioned about shocks being so important. Certain springs will give better response and turn in than others available out there. My H&Rs tested against Intrax win in that merit. I'm sure there are other good options to chose from as well. The larger rear sway bar as a bonus is excellent for helping keep the front wheels planted around corners. Oh, of course an LSD is an excellent help in keeping one stupid tire from spinning coming out of the corner. <br><br>In essence decide what you are building. Decide where/ what class you want to compete in. If you want to compete at all. Decide if coil-overs are worth it for what you will be doing. And play around for how you like it. The above things are all proven to work wonderfully on the GTi. <br><br><br> <p>-Kyle Jones <!--EZCODE LINK START--><a href="http://www.angelfire.com/de/ksj/myswift.html"><br><!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong> Junk-Yard Turbo set-up, formerly NOS-fed, constantly evolving 1989 Suzuki Swift GTi</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--><br></a><!--EZCODE LINK END--><br></p><i></i>

Anywhere one can find camber eccentric bolts or something like that ? <p></p><i></i>

aligncraft here in canada sells the camber bolts for the swift gt. i found their link on the uk swift forum, but should be easy enough to locate. apparently the camber bolts on the top (attached to the strut don't actualy make much of a difference ? 1.5 degrees+/- ? <p></p><i></i>

you should be able to get it done at any GOOD alignment shop. <p></p><i></i>

Moog or TRW sells them too, i just brought some but not installed yet <p></p><i></i>

i actually have to loosen my sway bar, it's too tight and on hard cornering i am picking the inside wheel up <!--EZCODE EMOTICON START :( --><img src=http://www.ezboard.com/intl/aenglish/images/emoticons/frown.gif ALT=":("><!--EZCODE EMOTICON END--> <br> <p>www.geocites.com/rallysuzuki</p><i></i>

<!--EZCODE LINK START--><a href="http://www.ssracing.com/suzuki.htm" target="top">ssracing.com</a><!--EZCODE LINK END--> • URETHANE SUSPENSION BUSHING KIT • INCLUDES: 4 CONTROL ARM BUSHINGS, 8 END-LINK BUSHINGS $80.00 <br>i know the old mototrends article <!--EZCODE LINK START--><a href="http://www.angelfire.com/co/swiftGT/articles.html" target="top">(here)</a><!--EZCODE LINK END--> & the one featured on the <!--EZCODE LINK START--><a href="http://www.whiteline.com.au/articles/RH_SwiftGtia.htm" target="top">whiteline site</a><!--EZCODE LINK END--> mentioned changing to urethane for a really noticable improvement in cornering. <br>so is the 4 control arm bushings & 8 end-links all that are needed ? or are there other north american options ? i don't actually see the bushings as an option from whiteline in OZ. <p></p><i>Edited by: <A HREF=http://pub83.ezboard.com/bteamswift.showUserPublicProfile?gid=n1tr0>n1tr0</A>  <IMG HEIGHT=10 WIDTH=10 SRC="http://images.slashdot.org/topics/topicximian.gif" BORDER=0> at: 1/17/03 2:33:19 am<br></i>

It is common for front drivers to pick up their inside rear wheels in hard cornering. It is not necessarily a bad thing. Many SCCA racers have this with thier cars and some have tried to get rid of it, only to have handling problems crop up. The only true way to tell is with data aquisition to see what kind of G forces your pulling and lap times. <br>Camber has been talked about too, but dont forget caster. You want this for hard, sharp corners to maintain your camber in the corner. Whiteline sells the bushing for this I think. <p></p><i></i>

Big rear sway bars will pick up the rear inside tire. This is a GOOD thing. It puts all the side resistance on one wheel which makes it slide and have the back end come around. As mentioned earlier we removed the rear sway bar and added some suspension travel limiters. It picks up the wheel quicker than a swaybar. The reason it works so well is becasue on slow corners it picks up the wheel and lets the back end come around but on fast corners where the car does not lean as much, the back end has grip. Takes some testing to find the right height of the limiters but somewhere around 1 3/4 to 2 inches beffore the wheel is in the air. Rear spring rate depends weather you have coil over or oem spring placement. OEM spring placement requires much higher spring rate. Coil over work so well becasue you can corner weigh your car for optimal balance of the cross weight. Put the car on scales to cross weigh your car.<br>ESR <p></p><i></i>

Okay, ESR I have a question. I am not running rear coilovers, so I was wondering what do you suggest for spring rates in the rear. It will be a low horspower ITB car. I guess I am going to go with about 350lb/in on the front. <p></p><i></i>

You need to find some custom springs of about 700 lbs that will fit the stock location......these 800 lb springs will come out to around 500 lb at the wheel. You also need to install rear camber plates. This is very esential for these cars and nobody ever talks about it. If you cannot find any springs...let me know and i can have them custom built for you.<br><br>ESR <p></p><i></i>

This guy always end his tip guidance with a selling offer, I´m not sure his going to honor!!!<br><br>Rik, still waiting for my injectors... The ball is in your field!!<br><br>Alex Jensen <p></p><i>Edited by: <A HREF=http://pub83.ezboard.com/bteamswift.showUserPublicProfile?gid=ajensen28>ajensen28</A> at: 4/8/03 11:15:02 pm<br></i>

Rear coil-over pic on ESRworksracing car, he sent this to me a long time ago.<br><br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.angelfire.com/ky3/teamswift/coilover.html">www.angelfire.com/ky3/tea...lover.html</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--> <p>-Kyle Jones <!--EZCODE LINK START--><a href="http://www.angelfire.com/de/ksj/myswift.html"><br><!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong> Junk-Yard Turbo set-up, formerly NOS-fed, constantly evolving 1989 Suzuki Swift GTi</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--><br></a><!--EZCODE LINK END--><br></p><i></i>

You know it's all about trust. When you take your car, or tranny, or engine (especially enigne) to someone for modification, you are just going on trust that the guy will do what he says he will. Your trusting that he will do a good job, or use the forged this or heavy duty that, in the building process. Your trusting that he will not put used rod bolts in your motor, or a used LSD in your tranny. <br>All of this bad press I've been reading about ESR has me worried. I live only about an hour north of ESR, so they would be the logical choice for all my swift needs (which are plentiful). But if they cant even send a product to someone after they have paid for it, then where is the trust?<br>I ended up taking my tranny to someone else for a rebuild, LSD, and 4.30 final, probably 1600 dolllars worth of work. Money that I could have spent with ESR. I am also planning on sending the motor out for a complete rebuild, blueprint and balance, with some minor mods. This is going to be thousands of dollars. <br>I would only send this to someone I trust. Wouldnt you?<br> <p></p><i></i>

I wasn't saying anything good or bad, just posting a pic in the sticky topic so I don't get asked for a pic of the rear coil over again.<br><br>I agree there should be the trust. ESR admitted to this being his fault for not being on top of it, but has yet to fix the problem. It would be nice if he would. <p>-Kyle Jones <!--EZCODE LINK START--><a href="http://www.angelfire.com/de/ksj/myswift.html"><br><!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong> Junk-Yard Turbo set-up, formerly NOS-fed, constantly evolving 1989 Suzuki Swift GTi</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--><br></a><!--EZCODE LINK END--><br></p><i></i>

I was referring to jensens post before yours, and to the posts in the wanted/sell section. Didnt mean to jump off subject, but ESR is supposed to be the suspension gurus, so I thought I would post my thoughts.<br><br> <p></p><i></i>

i currently have eibach springs koni strut setup with caster bushings and poly bushings runing -1.75 camber in front,-1.5 camber on the rear. what do you think? i have run this setup on light gravel sprints as well because i didnt have anything else and wanted to run. Does ESR have a gravel setup or could you suggest spring and strut combo for gravel? <p></p><i></i>

western gti,<br><br>how did you get the rear camber? if there are adapter plates could you email me the pic of what I need to do to make one. <br><br>thanks <p></p><i></i>

i did not use camber plates to get the camber, i think i got it from the car being so low.when i checked the rear alingnment specs it was there so i only adjusted toe <p></p><i></i>

Setting up a suspension is always a compromise.

A softly sprung car will have slightly better traction because the tires can more easily move with road irregularities. Also a softly sprung car will have more gentle breakaway characteristics.

However a softly sprung car will lean more so it will need more camber to keep the tires flat on the road. Also a softly sprung car will need more time to transition from side to side. Neither of those are particularly good things.

For example, my ITS Rx7 needed 5 degrees of camber when it had 350 pound springs but it only needed 3 degrees of camber when I increased the spring rate to 450.

But anyway, I just bought a GTi and it will be primarily a street car with only a few autocrosses and track days. I do not intend to buy camber plates so I will try setting my camber by ride height alone. (I have had bad experiences with "crash" bolts)

Can anyone give me a feel for about how much camber I'll get for different amounts of lowering?

For example: western gti mentioned -1.75f/-1.5r with eibach springs, how much does eibach lower the car?

Ed

yes how much does eibach springs lower the car

i'm running H&R springs with koni sport inserts (yellow)

are these koni's adjustable ...
the ride is a bit harsh .. but good turn in