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Suspension bottoming out



  Clio 172
Hi,
I had standard shocks with Eibach Sportline springs on my 172. At Thruxton my n/ front suspension looked like this.....
3D4FDD00-4026-498D-BAB1-AFD081D4FE8A.png


So I changed all 4 shocks with new cup shocks from Renault Parts Direct.
At Castle Combe last weekend I had the same issue. It wasn’t quite as bad but was still bottoming out on right hand corners, which felt and sounded aweful.
I’m thinking it could be a faulty new shock, but any advice would be appreciated.
Cheers!
 
  PH2 172
Hi,
I had standard shocks with Eibach Sportline springs on my 172. At Thruxton my n/ front suspension looked like this.....
View attachment 1380337

So I changed all 4 shocks with new cup shocks from Renault Parts Direct.
At Castle Combe last weekend I had the same issue. It wasn’t quite as bad but was still bottoming out on right hand corners, which felt and sounded aweful.
I’m thinking it could be a faulty new shock, but any advice would be appreciated.
Cheers!

Remove what you have and sell them to someone that want`s a nice comfy road car.

GAZ GHA with 400/300 would be a minimum requirement if you are on a budget.

The front Eibachs are only about 240 lb.

PMS rear ARB might also be worth considering.

https://www.kamracing.co.uk/car-tun...2-gaz-height-adjustable-gha-coilover-kit.html
 
  Clio 172
Remove what you have and sell them to someone that want`s a nice comfy road car.

GAZ GHA with 400/300 would be a minimum requirement if you are on a budget.

The front Eibachs are only about 240 lb.

PMS rear ARB might also be worth considering.

https://www.kamracing.co.uk/car-tun...2-gaz-height-adjustable-gha-coilover-kit.html

I have a Whiteline ARB fitted.
There is definitely something not right on the near side though as it’s fine cornering left but bottoms out cornering right.
It’s just a budget track toy so don’t want to throw lots of money at it.
 

Brigsy

ClioSport Club Member
  T.Turbo
Do you have the bumpstops fitted ? I think its fairly common to be on them under hard cornering on cup shocks & lowered springs.
 
  PH2 172
I have a Whiteline ARB fitted.
There is definitely something not right on the near side though as it’s fine cornering left but bottoms out cornering right.
It’s just a budget track toy so don’t want to throw lots of money at it.


Are there any real committed left handers at Thruxton?
 
  Clio 172
Not running spacers.
There is definitely an issue with it, a track marshal even came over and mentioned that the near side looks like it’s collapsing when braking and cornering.
 
  406 V6, Race Buggy
It's wrong though, with a Mc strut your pivot against the spring is the bottom balljoint, not the wheel.
Spacers will generally reduce roll slightly from the wider track, but it's bugger all in the scheme of things.

Not removed the bumpstops have you? Should generally be sitting on them under heavy loads, they're basically a spring assister on modern cars rather than a stop.
 
  406 V6, Race Buggy
You've got your pivot points wrong there. Try a load of tripe yourself, if you're going to correct someone at least know where you should be applying the forces.

Your travel never changes, even if you put metre wide spacers on the car. All you're doing is changing the leverage trying to bend the upright.
I'd probably refrain from calling someone else an idiot if you have to revert to online calculator that's not relevant.
 
  406 V6, Race Buggy

Wider track often means you miss a lot of the tramlines put into the road by other traffic, especially over speed pillows, etc.

Very easy thought experiment - say your bottom wishbone is 10 inches long, and your car sits 6 inches off the floor at ride height.
If you then put 10 inch spacers on the car - would your car would now sit 3 inches off the floor?

No.

If you didn't have a lower balljoint and a top mount, it would.
 
Last edited:
  406 V6, Race Buggy
Unlikely but it could be lower.

It's even worse on the MX-5 link you posted, as it's even easier to visualise on a double wishbone setup:

Spacers1.jpg
Spacers2.jpg


Now, if you have massive amounts of camber gain/loss built into your suspension, you can get a jacking effect there, but on a strut (and 99.9%) of setups, you'd have more variation from the friction in the strut/damper than the effect from that.
 
Last edited:
  PH2 172
I have more intelligent discourse with my dog.

If you fit longer wishbones, you increase the value of X.

No wonder that things always airbourne.
 
  406 V6, Race Buggy
You're not fitting longer wishbones. You're fitting spacers, which aren't part of your pivot. They're outside of your pivot, the pivots are the bottom balljoint and the top mount. All the spacers do is increase the leverage the hub exerts laterally on the wishbone and strut, trying to bend it.


And that thing is always airborne because we hit things at 100mph that a Clio wouldn't even crawl over. I've built more suspension and dampers from scratch than you've probably had hot dinners.

You should probably try cutting out the silly insults when you think someone else is wrong and try having a discussion.
 
  406 V6, Race Buggy
Here's a quick strut with the camber gain/loss taken out for simplicity:



Spacers.jpg


And here's the same setup with 100mm(!) spacers in, note the motion ratio.

Spacers2.jpg


Now, of course, a real setup has camber loss and gain, which affects things a little from jacking against the wishbone and damper - but to put it into context, if you were running 20mm spacers...the effect is about a 0.5% change in the motion ratio - you'd have more spring rate variation than that from the temperature of the rubber wishbone bushes changing...and you're not seeing it in a photo on track...
 
Here's a quick strut with the camber gain/loss taken out for simplicity:



View attachment 1380746

And here's the same setup with 100mm(!) spacers in, note the motion ratio.

View attachment 1380747

Now, of course, a real setup has camber loss and gain, which affects things a little from jacking against the wishbone and damper - but to put it into context, if you were running 20mm spacers...the effect is about a 0.5% change in the motion ratio - you'd have more spring rate variation than that from the temperature of the rubber wishbone bushes changing...and you're not seeing it in a photo on track...
'
@4:33
You can change the actual effective spring rate at the wheels. So not the spring rate itself that won't change but the effective spring rate at the wheels changes based on suspension geometry and by offsetting it your adding leverage to that wheel and so you're going to be reducing the overall effective spring rate of your suspension.
 

Greeny.

ClioSport Club Member
  440i + 182
@Chris172! are you sure the bumpstops/dustfilters are fitted as mentioned above? I'm fairly sure replacement OE shocks don't actually come with them so you would had have to move them over from your old shocks. I only remember this as I had to order some myself when I changed a set on one of my old 172's.
 
  PH2 172
Here's a quick strut with the camber gain/loss taken out for simplicity:



View attachment 1380746

And here's the same setup with 100mm(!) spacers in, note the motion ratio.

View attachment 1380747

Now, of course, a real setup has camber loss and gain, which affects things a little from jacking against the wishbone and damper - but to put it into context, if you were running 20mm spacers...the effect is about a 0.5% change in the motion ratio - you'd have more spring rate variation than that from the temperature of the rubber wishbone bushes changing...and you're not seeing it in a photo on track...

Well that`s jolly interesting and a tad over complicated for what was a simple question.

Anyway, if I have some nuts to crack, I will continue to pick a 48 inch breaker bar over a 36 incher.
 
  PH2 172
Hi,
I had standard shocks with Eibach Sportline springs on my 172. At Thruxton my n/ front suspension looked like this.....
View attachment 1380337

So I changed all 4 shocks with new cup shocks from Renault Parts Direct.
At Castle Combe last weekend I had the same issue. It wasn’t quite as bad but was still bottoming out on right hand corners, which felt and sounded aweful.
I’m thinking it could be a faulty new shock, but any advice would be appreciated.
Cheers!


Looking at your picture again, I`ve noticed you are running a much lower profile LHF tyre than the one on the rear ?
 
  Clio 172
Thank you for your replies.
I’m going to start with replacing bump stops to see if that makes any difference.
If it’s still crap I will replace the suspension with Coilovers. Am thinking BC BR’s after a bit of research.
 

Tomotek

ClioSport Club Member
Well this made for interesting reading [emoji23] .. I love how these threads asking for advice always go off on a tangent and the poor bloke asking the question is normally none the wiser..
 


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