corozin

I don't know anyone that has them, but I do know they're a popular choice with Jap tuners in the USA. I also talked to the UK HiSpec rep at Autosport International last year the the kits looked very good quality and they were clearly a professional outfit. I don't know how they price up, but I think you'll find they're more AP level than Wilwood price wise.

So Dom by that measurement - the time 5 years ago when I scrubbed not only the edge of my tyres off, but also the top half of the Toyo logos on them - that was bad ??

:wink:

I've only just noticed in your sig that you're running P-Zero Neros. With track tyres you need to be even more careful about the transition from braking to turn in, as it's easy to shred the edges that way. I shared this problem with an instructor at Combe a while back and the advice was basically to try and do more of the braking earlier and soften your braking pressure as you reach the turn point. This also helps the car settle a bit and takes the weight off as you start to turn. As you turn in, try not to 'grab' the wheel too much but try to feel it into the corner. The steering will definately reach a point where it starts to load up a lot more but you need to resist the temptation to force it further. This is the point where you'll be just scrubbing the tyres if you go beyond it. From there, use the speed/throttle of the car to adjust the attitude into the bend, even holding on half throttle if necessary to stop the steering loading up again too much, before finally pushing through and releasing the lock as you fall out of the bend. All sounds rudimentary enough, but this really is the quickest way to run with more track based rubber like yours, plus you'll preserve the tyre at the right operating temperature and preserve it for far longer. Although it's a little less dramatic than screeching about, you'll also be using the grip available properly and carry a lot more speed than is possible on normal road tyres. Using this style a few weeks ago I ran a fairly fresh set of R888's at Combe for over 2 hours of hard track time (over 120 miles) on the VR6 and still had tread legal enough to drive home with. I wasn't hanging about either!

Tell you what, why don't I go outside and disassemble mine to find out for you?

Just take about 2-3psi from your normal pressure. That should account for the heat buildup. It will also help preserve your rubber a lot if you try to be smooth on corner entry and feed the power in as you pass the apex. Don't try and chuck it about too much. And if you have them, take spare front brake pads. Have a good day & hope this isn't too late to read John

I'm old enough, and was lucky enough to have seen both Ayrton Senna and Roland Ratzenberger actually race. I saw Ayrton racing both in his season of British F3, in 1983 when he came third at the British GP in his debut F1 season at Toleman, and then again in 85-87 when he raced for Lotus. During his F3 season, Senna & Martin Brundle pretty much annihialated the rest of the field, and Senna took the title by only a couple of points. When he landed in F1 people talked about his talent, but it was his third place in the 1984 British GP at Brands which made everyone sit up & notice, and he was poached by Colin Chapman to drive at Lotus before the end of the 1983 season. For me, the years that followed at Lotus were I think his best as a driver. The car had the least power of the major turbo'd teams, but Senna always managed to use the car's excellent balance and driveability to full effect and make it competitive. Unfortunately Lotus' legendary unreliability meant he never capitalised on his pace and he never claimed the title that his skill deserved. Obviously he later did the business at MacLaren (fighting Alain Prost continuously for political dominance of the TAG-supported team) but it's the sight of that yellow helmet in the JPS Special coloured Lotus that I will always remember. That, and perhaps his performance in the wet at the Donnigton British GP (was it 1992??) when he essentially lapped the entire field within 20 laps... His death was a tremendous shock, but perhaps inevitable in many ways. Senna's 100% commitment to every corner and his apparent belief that he woudn't get hurt always had the makings of a tragic end, in the same way that drivers like Gilles Villeneueve had ended. However it known at the time that the death of his friend Ratzenberger the day before had quite shaken Senna's self confidence in that respect. Ratzenberger was a different story. Like Damon Hill he was a continuous front runner in Formula Ford during the mid 1980s (at the same time as Hill) but never seemed to catch a break and land a drive in F1. When he did finally arrive in F1 it was in a crap car and he was consigned to the back of the grid all the time. His death was caused by a wing failure from recollection - a similar failure had also killed Elio DeAngelis (Senna's Lotus team mate) a couple of years previously. All very sad. All great drivers. You really had to be around in those days & see how many racing drivers were killed in the sport right up until the early 1990s to appreciate how safe modern racing cars are these days.

C-spanners don't actually cost a lot. If you bang on them with a hammer & screwdriver "pikey stylee" then you do run a risk of damaging the collars if you smack them too hard. I always prefer to use the proper tool for the job myself.

The coilovers themselves should be maintenance free internally. However if the threads are full of crap then it's a good idea to scrub them down with a pressure washer or a wire brush before fitting them. You could consider diving them a good spray of WD40 which will free them up. The C-spanners aren't too hard to find either in motorfactors or on the internet. I can't recall the size you need but there are only a couple of sizes anyway and if you find a supplier they will help you find the right one.

When you tearing it apart? PM me a phone number and I'll call you later in the week

Ok, when you know they're coming off the car drop me a line and we'll set up phone call to discuss what kind of deal might be there to be done. Are you selling them because they were just far too hard for your liking? I can't lie that I'm disappointed like hell about the non-adjustment, but maybe a deal can be done. Perhaps before you tear the car down I could visit and sample the ride? Maybe you'd consider a bit of p/x for my Nothelle suspension to put you back on the road? (test drive also available) which is a lot firmer than standard but not quite up to it for monster track use. Check my track pics at http://eventpictures.fotopic.net/p40656185.html to give you an idea how little the Nothelle kit leans - maybe some use to you? No rush (seriously) on my side. I won't be changing them until after I get back from Le Mans.

You're kidding? No damper adjustment at all? That is absolutely ridiculous. Maybe I'm just getting old or something but surely the point to paying top whack for track spec suspension is that you can at least adjust the bloody dampers. I've read up a spec-info on VWSpeed's website but I have to admit I missed that omission. That is ridiculous. That really is a shedload of money for kit with no adjustment... This changes everything. I want "firm as hell" but it's got to be adjustable FFS. I'm on 17" because of big brakes, and have R888 fitted too so you're suggestion of sticking to 15" is a non-starter really. Double=6 are you a VR6 or G60?. I thank you for telling me about this (forgot to PM you as I promised in an earlier thread). If you pull the kit off the car then drop me a PM as I may still be interested in doing a deal if I haven't bought anything but I think right now I may reconsider going back to Koni coilovers, which are something I have previous experience with. Fuggit. I'm so pished off I almost want to photoshop Fozzie Bear with a frown :(

You wanna know the worst thing Andy, you're mate can make his road car sound EXACTLY like the race car if he wants to. It's only a performance exhaust away. On a loosely related subject, Practical Performance Car's cover car this month is an Escort Cossie that some guy got bored with and swapped the asthmatic 4-pot YB turbo engine for an LS1 (Z05 Corvette) lump. 500bhp/500lb torque and rear wheel drive. Apparently the engine/gearbox pretty much just drops into the engine bay.... fabulous...

Does anyone seriously not know what a Z06 looks like? Call yourself petrolheads Here's a picture of the racing one, which I think is the one both Andy & I actually want

I've obviously fitted all my polybushes wrong or something as I don't get any squeaks and the ride isn't crashy despite also running some quite firm springs and track tyres? Or maybe my big arse is absorbing the bumps and I've listened to far too much AC/DC and I'm deaf as well ! Happens in middle age y'see :D

Goodbye Andy, it's been nice knowing you on the forum. (I expect that after this test drive Andy will sell all his Volkswagens next week to fund a Z06). Le Mans here we come, LOL

I've replaced all my front wishbone bushes with Powerflex bushes and I have to say they sharpen the steering response up noticably compared with the (rubber) VW items. Not really crashy either, unless you like a boulevard ride quality. I have a set of the roll bar bushes in thier boxes but I haven't fitted them yet because I know they are a right bugger to do... I'll get round to it sometime I suppose... I didn't know you could get polys for the steering rack. Certainly if you're uprating the ARB already then you should definately consider fitting some Poly bushes at the same time. However if the basic problem is that the front feels unresponsive you could also consider whether your front tyres are giving you the grip etc you want, and what state your dampers are in.

I think we're talking about different ends of the car Judith! Seriously though I recommend activating the second rear foglight if you havn't done it already - it certainly makes me feel safer when the thick sea-fogs come in over Bournemouth (which usually happens when I try thinking about something)

Thanks for the tip. That price at SRBPower looks very aggressive. Muchos gracias :) John

Single rear fog lights are actually commonplace in Germany, which is why the Corrado only has one working one. But it's easily resolved if you want to spend 5 minutes doing the work. 1) Take a medium flathead screwdriver, undo (gently) the plastic trim bolts holding the plastic trim on the inside of the tailgate panel. 2) Locate the (left hand) foglight cluster and pop the unit out - it's only on clips. 3) The "non working" foglight is all there, but covered up by a plastic tab. Simply remove the tab and insert a bulb into the holder and you'll have both rear foglights running. Easy peasy :)

Well I had Koni coilovers on my previous Corrado which were absolutely excellent for both road and track work. I don't know the numbers but subjectively they were noticeably a bit firmer than the equivalent (road) H&R coilovers. The Nothelle comes with Nothelle's own spec springs with Bilstein dampers on the front and Koni adjustables at the back. That setup is a fair bit stiffer than a standard Corrado suspension and whilst it's a fabulous setup for road use (a lot better than OEM setup but with great small bump absorbsion) I've decided after a year and three trackdays that I want to upgrade it at the front. The reason I've not immediately gone back to Koni is that I ran them very low indeed on my first car and I want to run the same ride height as I have now. The other consideration is that now I run R888's all the time I suspect that the Koni setup will suddenly become "soft" when subjected to really serious driving. So - I'm on the lookout for a stiffer rating altogether. I've spent a bit of time on the phone with a mate of mine in the VW supply business to see if H&R will even supply a set of front Clubsports (just front) to me. The back is not a problem & I don't want to change it right now. I considered just getting stronger springs, but to be honest there's almost nothing out there for a Corrado that I'm aware of and the only way I'd be able to get what I want in terms of desired rate/height would be to get some specially made - so it's probably cheaper to buy 2x coilovers! That said I appreciate your thoughts on this Kev... lots of "mulling over" still to be done but if my supplier can do me the right deal on a pair of Clubsports I think I am going to take the plunge on them. I'll pop a PM in the direction of Double-6s and discuss with him also - thanks John

No problem - accepted.

H&R now seem to be doing quite a varied range of different coilover kits. The most extreme of these seem to be the track biased RSS Club Sport line, which have former setup for track based work than the normal Coilover & PCS Coiilover ranges. I'm looking to stiffen the handling at the front of my car quite a bit, to really reduce dive/squirm under braking, and reduce the inertia movement forward in these circumstances. However the Club Sports are a load of money so I can't afford to experiment to find out they're no good! Does anyone out here have experience running the HSS Club Sport kit on thier VR6 that they could share? What's the range of damping adjustment like? Are they bound/rebound adjustable? Are they great on track but awful on the public road? Questions, questions, questions... can anyone share any answers ? TIA, John

Jeez... I guess we'll just have to agree to misunderstand each other and leave it at that...

I disagree Kev. There's nothing wrong with the Brembo kits for track use at all - they're as good as anything else out there short of going up to full racing systems, which incidentally they also do very well with. In my experience it's all down to the disc area, pad area and pad materials and perhaps that's why the Evo guys feel the AP systems are better. The number of pots is very much a lesser factor in overall performance. I've found that switching from Brembo to Ferodo pads makes a really big difference to the depth and feel of the braking (it was Brockbank's suggestion to change them). I wonder if they tried different pads before dumping the whole system. Of course if you want real performance brakes then you have to skip past Brembo & AP and go for an Alcon setup, which are actually used by more Rally & Touring car teams than any other brand. But then they are expensive (and AP are quite a bit more expensive than Brembos too) I was at Combe all day Friday on a trackday, and was taking yards off almost everything else there under braking, and mine was easily one of the most "road" cars there. Even though I sintered the pads, and got the discs glowing red into Quarry (and I have photos to prove it!) the brakes never really started to fade, and the pedal didn't go soft either. I doubt that AP could be much better than that. I'm not saying all this to just be contrary, but I suppose what I'm saying is don't always just accept that AP is automatically better simply because the Evo boys dive off in droves to fit them. Most of the Evo driver's I've encountered at track days havn't got a bloody clue anyway - most of them seem happy just to hoon it down the straights, like the Lancer 2 & Evo 6 I overtook on Friday...