July 2007
This is in response to a query on another thread about parts required to improve handling on a Legacy (and also Forester & Impreza).
First off, a bit of background.
All the Subaru suspension layouts are very similar. In fact a Forester is an Impreza 'on stilts' and a Legacy is a 'well fed' Impreza. The overall design and geometry is very similar on the three models.
Now, all things being equal, any AWD is going to tend to understeer - that's their basic trait. Subaru want their cars to drive maximally safe and stable even with an idiot at the wheel, so they build in lots of understeer by biassing roll stiffness to the front of the car, about 70-30. 'Conventional' suspension tuning wisdom says that biassing the vehicle roll stiffness to the rear will reduce understeer because it will increase front end grip and reduce rear end grip. So leaving the front ARB as it is and fitting a stiffer rear anti-roll bar will reduce understeer - this is what a lot of suspension tuners do - just fit a bigger diameter rear ARB.
However, this argument doesn't take account of the fact that when the car rolls the suspension geometry changes. On Subaru's design the wheel camber actually changes quite a bit, more than you'd really like - this tends to reduce grip. Fitting stiffer anti-roll bars back AND front, and choosing sizes to shift the vehicle's roll-stiffness bias away from the front a little, therefore reduces overall roll (and so increases grip by improving tyre contact and getting the tyres to work better) and also can remove most of the understeer characteristic.
Of course one way to do this is just to fitter stiffer springing and damping all around, this maintains geometry (because the wheels can't move about as much) and works great on a track or very smooth roads. The snag is that on UK roads you are quite likely to hit a bump or hole on a corner and then everything goes to pot because the suspension is insufficiently compliant and the car skits and jolts as it loses and then regains grip.
It is much better (for UK road driving) to retain the reasonably soft OEM spring and damping rates, but significantly increase roll stiffness.
For a 2003-on Legacy you need the following parts:
22mm Front ARB - BSF35
22mm Front ARB poly-u bush W040622
20mm adjustable rear ARB - BSR39Z (this has three settings to give roll stiffness equivalent to 18, 20 or 22mm solid ARB).
20mm Rear ARB poly bush W040620
That will set you back a bit over £200. I have generally bought from Balance Motor Sports www.balancemotorsport.co.uk/
The front standard ARB links are generally OK. If you want to fit improved rear ARB's (less compliant than the OEM ones) then you can, but they are about £80 I think and not essential. beware of using the spherical end links because they are quite dear and my experience is that they can start to knock after a few thousand miles.
Fitting the ARB's is about 1/2 hour each end and easy. Any small garage will be able to do it for you. Put plenty of the (supplied) silicone grease on the bushes otherwise they will squeak.
Initally set the rear ARB to the softest (endmost hole) setting. You will have an overall 50-70% increase on roll stiffness, and less understeer than with the OEM setup. This setting will give greatest amount of understeer with the new configuration, but the car will corner flatter and feel less 'nose heavy' with less understeer than previously. Drive the car around for a week or two to get used to it and how it feels in corners. Try and drive the car 'balanced' through the corner, brake firmly before the corner and then ease of as you enter into the corner - its a Subaru AWD, so although you can floor the pedal and it will hold on (which is how the typical WRX numpty will drive), for fluid driving you should really just apply a little throttle as you go through the apex, just enough to overcome drag so that the car is balanced and neither accelerating nor decelerating. Accelerate as you come out of the corner and straighten up. If you still feel that there is too much understeer for your taste then move the rear ARB to the centre setting and try it there for a couple of weeks. If there is still a bit too much understeer then increase front tyre pressure by 2-3psi and see how that feels. It should not be necessary to go to the third (stiffest) setting. Making the rear too stiff can provide a very 'neutral' feeling car on a good road but can lead to a loose feeling or snap oversteer in difficult situation and could catch an unwary driver (your wife?) out on a slippery road - so always live with a little understeer.
The only downside to this mod is that you are increasing the lateral coupling between the suspension units and therefore making the suspension 'less independent' - this can manifest itself as slight 'corkscrewing' when one side of the car hits a bump or pothole. All suspension work is a compromise though, and its not something that is unpleasantly noticable. Read more
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if you only want words why not cut and paste to word and then print it if you wish,this way you can jiggle it as well
Many backroomers will be aware of the liturgy of problems we have had with our Renault Scenic - and here is another one!
The paint work on the rear tailgate of our Scenic has been attacked by a large bird dropping. It could only have been there for a couple of hours, but it has seriously damaged the paintwork (the laquer has lifted).
No problem, I thought (how naive!), it should be covered under the paint work warranty. How wrong I was - bird droppings are an "external influence" so the damage isn't covered.
I know bird droppings are corrosive - this is why I use a quality wax, and wipe them off when they occur, but surely paint should stand up to a dropping for a couple of hours?
What isn't an "external influence"? Air, rain, dust? Unless I keep the car in a sealed bubble, its exposed to external influences!
My father in law rarely washes his Lexus, and it is always peppered with droppings, but when it gets washed there is never a mark on the paintwork!
Obviously comparing a Renault to a Lexus is like comparing a Lada to a Jaguar, but paint is paint, and if Lexus (Toyota) can get it right, why can't Renault?
I'm tempted to get a signwriter to cover the Renault in our list of problems, and then I'll park it outside the dealership! (obviously I would have to choose my wording carefully to avoid being sued).
What can I do? Renault only seem to address "safety issues" (their excuse for refusing to fix our squeaky brakes) with faulty cars - but anything that makes me want to strangle the dealer, has to be a safety issue!! (And I'm a laid back, placid guy!)
Would it be worth getting the paint work done at a local body repair centre, and persuing a small claims court action against Renault UK for the cost? It would be a real David and Goliath action, but I'm so fed up with the whole Renault owner experience that I'll try anything.
If Jez Clarkson ever reads this - PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE blow up our Scenic on your next DVD!
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Colin-E Read more
Primera Man I have had 5 Hondas over a period of 15 years and have never had any problems with stone chipping or bird poo.
I am not denying I have had stone chips, but the few I have had never turned into big ugly rust blisters like they do on some cars I have seen including Mercedes!.
And don't forget the severity of stone chipping is down to driving style such as speed and how close you drive to the car in front.
One of last week's tasks was a garden overhaul for aged relative. On with the gloves, out with saw and clippers and the hedge trimmer and secateurs, and then, inevitably all into a van to get the mountain of debris to the composting centre. Bits of dead furniture to be removed at the same time, so a hired van would earn its day's rental.
I would probably have done best to get a Transit, but underestimated the loads involved, so I asked for an "Escort-sized van", not knowing sort of model what to expect these days. I paid my money and got a Citroën Berlingo, to which I paid little attention initially: my interest was mostly in keeping up my energy levels for what turned out to be 24 hours of humping-and-dumping, and the brand of van was about as relevant as the brand of saw I was using to chop down the leylandii.
However, the journey back from the hire centre made me focus a bit more on the van than I had intended. First, I had a hard time finding a half-way decent driving position: I'm no giraffe, but this machine seemed to have been designed for someone with stubby legs and huge arms. Then the gearbox drove me mad; like my much-missed old 1980s Peugeot 305, it had a gearlever 20 feet long with huge travel in every dimension and a spring in its mechanism which was so overpowered that I started to keep an eye out for Jeremy Beadle as I missed gears at very opportunity, starting in third, changing up from first to fourth,and learning that I had a much more colourful vocabulary than I knew. As I got back to the house, a friend's call came through on my mobile headset to ask how I was doing, and the answer was simple: fine, except for this hideous, evil van. Bring back the Ford Escort, says I: French (snipped the insult - PU) should stick to making their bad wine and leave the mechanical things to the Japanese. Or the Italians, or anybody other than the French.
I took out the hammer to smash the discarded flatpack furniture, and was tempted to use it on the van, but what with the way our dearly-departed leader has enhanced our liberties, I reckoned that would more likely win me an orange jumpsuit than a replacement van. And orange really washes out my skin tones.
Off to the dump, and after a few more expletives, I figured out the gearshift: floor the gas, then block-shift from first to third. And in doing that, I found that the diesel engine was remarkably flexible, and that even well-laden, this van had a lot of voomf. Even better, it rode like a proper French car, and was remarkably grippy: I could push it through roundabouts a lot faster than my Almera. (Although, to be fair to the Almera, I don't flog my own car the way I flog a hired van).
By the time the dump closed, and I scrubbed myself up to go out for the evening, the choice of wheels was easy: the van. My aged relative said she hadn't been in such a comfortable vehicle for ages, and I found that I actually enjoyed the 15-mile journey each way to a very fine meal.
By the time I returned the van next morning, 150 miles of dump trips after I had picked it up, I was truly sorry to part with it. The cushioned ride and the magic handling made it feel like a sort of expanded Renault 5: quirky and French, flawed by adorable. I recalled how I had toyed with the idea of buying a Berlingo last year, and part of me really regretted not having tried one. This is a vehicle with real charm.
But it has one fatal flaw which made me realise that despite its charms, it would be a bad buy: my knees. No matter how I adjusted the seat and the steering wheel, the best I could do was to move my knees an inch away from the dashboard rather than having then touching it. And this was not a matter of them grazing underneath a sloping underside to the dashboard: they were stuck firmly in front of a wall of very hard plastic. In a crash, it wouldn't matter if the dashboard remained in its place rather than being pushed back; a small bit of movement from me would leave me with smashed kneecaps.
What a pity. In most other respects, the Berlingo is a flawed masterpiece, a testament to the French ability to produce vehicles with great character, machines whose talents in some areas are huge enough to outweigh their deep flaws in others. But in an impact, I fear that this eccentric genius might not be much more of a friend than an IRA knee-capper. I have no idea how Euro NCAP's assessment of the Berlingo at www.euroncap.com/tests/citroen_berlingo_2005/234.a...x gave it adequate-to-marginal results for the driver's knees. Does their test dummy have five-foot-long arms?
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bread van? now this is a bread van....
tinyurl.com/24ebj8
Well, I'm taking the plunge, going into business, and need a small van. Out of the lot, the Astra looks like the best to suit my needs, plus it tends to be fairly long-lived. Anything mechanical to look out for with this model (around 03 reg)? Which is better, the 1.7 DTi or CDTi engines, or even the 2.0Di? All comments gratefully received, as I know absolutely nothing about Vauxhall diesels! Read more
Well, I'm still undecided - even looking into the possibility of LPG, because I do like a nice quiet petrol engine (2 local petrol stations sell LPG, so supply isn't an issue). I imagine the 1.6 litre dualfuel Astravan would have more than enough power without the clatter (it will replace my nice quiet Almera!). Seem to be plenty of ex-council dualfuels about with low miles - any inherent problems with the LPG system used by Vauxhall?
Hi all,
I recently got a 2002 mondeo TDCI 130 LX 5 speed. I have seen on line that people can normally do 50+ mpg, but I am struggling to get 40 mpg. I am mainly driving on motorway and do about 80mph all the time.
The car just had a service done in the main dealer and I also used a wynn injector cleaner, but none of them helps.
Is there anything wrong with it? Shall I take it back to dealer where is going to cost £85 just for a look?
Many thanks in advance,
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Good Evening, I have just been reading through all the threads and had to giggle to myself. I have a BEng in Electronics and Mechanical engineering with years of experience in the Motor Sports industry. I now run my own business in this field and I have to add..... there is no accurate way of measuring fuel economy and that's a fact. I wrote my final year project on the subject which got published in a highly regarded motor magazine ( I can't give the name for obvious reasons ). I looked at the formula which someone has put on here and found two main problems with it...Number 1, you can't really relate the mass flow rate of fuel in the formula to modern injection systems because of its very tight yet variable control of fuel. Number 2, vehicle mass, does this take into account the weight of the fuel in the tank and the rate of the fuel being used by the engine over a period of time......ie, the weight is decreasing as the fuel is being used. Basically, you could sit and try to work fuel economy out using various formulas and calculations but the fact of the matter is....fuel prices is the main factor of our economy!
Kind Regards,...
I know this has been covered before, but can't find the thread on the forum search.
Just received a ticket from a private parking control company for parking on a retail park car park but left the car for half hour when I went elsewhere. I did also buy something from one of the stores. The 'fine' is £85. I know there was a legal way to avoid this but can't find the way to do it.
Does anyone remember?
TIA Read more
>>>It would be a good place to live if it wasn't so cold up there !
Indeed; particularly for the older generation. As long as they don't mind the weather.
Clk Sec
Number 2 son has just had his offer on a house accepted. Unfortunately the lowest he could get it for was £255k so he's into 3% stamp duty on the whole price. IIRC it used to be possible to pay for "fixtures and fittings" as a separate item so if he negotiated the f&f's at say £5.1k the house price would then come into the 1% stamp duty bracket. Is this still allowed and just what can be included in the f&f figure? Any other ways of bringing the price below £250k for duty purposes? Read more
Speaker Leads
It is unlikely your leads reference brings up anything that was not covered very well in the amplifier designs of over 20 years ago, when I was active, and so I have not read it. But I know of exceptions.
The 'leads don't matter' exceptions area was one I avoided due to the amount of time it needs to explain it. I just covered leads with well designed amplifiers.
Here is an explanation, my last. Amplifiers use large amounts of negative feedback. At certain frequencies, and under certain load conditions, they risk that feedback will become positive, due to the phase shift caused by the load and by overdrive peaks. (An oscillator is often an amplifier with positive feedback -- it provides its own drive signal)
If it does, it will almost always occur at very high frequencies, usually well above audibility, and the output (as seen on a 'scope) can then display a range of effects, from occasional transient oscillations on the audio peaks, to full blown oscillation, and that in turn will affect amplifier bias points and that in turn cause distortion. Note, you will NOT hear this oscillation. Only the audio.
Having to drive inductive/capacitive cross-over networks, that are inside the speaker cabinets, is one of the most difficult design areas to cater for. Any well reputed manufacturer will know of this problem area and will have taken measures to minimise the risk, but there are rogue amplifiers that get through. The parts used for manufacture have spreads and transistors driven into overload (on peaks) exhibit difficult to predict behavior! And there will be a variety of speakers used with it.
One solution, used almost universally, is a small choke in series with the amplifier output followed by a resistor of about 10 ohms that is not effective until frequencies above audio where this oscillation is most likely to occur. At that frequency the resistor comes into play to control the phase and hold it in the stable region until the loop gain drops below unity.
If you have a rogue amplifier, that is prone to doing this, yes, altering the speaker leads can make a difference.
What you are actually doing, is altering what was happening at much higher frequencies than audio, that should never have be there in the first place, and stopping that has made the amplifier stable again. That in turn has improved the audio.
Many will use this to continue with their religion. Me? I bow out here.
hi i hope someone can help me (please bear with me i a female!) my hubby purchased our 52 plate tdci mondeo estate around 18 months ago. we had a problem as everyone else with glowplug and had 4 injectors replaced, then glowplug started again, had the computer read says diesel pump failure, we then fork out for pump(after waiting 4 weeks and no work as hes a taxi driver!) have it fitted and the damn glow plug still comes on !!! now reading on here it seems that there have been some mistakes with the diesel system made by ford and some have been fixed (i read the memo on here) now can some one advise me what we should be doing next? i have found out that our car hasnt been in for any adjustments so far, and is it just the 02 plate cars or is it the 52 plate cars which may be faulty too? many thanks
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There are 2 rather large threads on this forum about this.
Basically, it comes down to a couple of things. But yours sound like the common issue that I had. Basically one of your injectors is leaking overnight and when you start it up it is flushing out the leak. If you go to a ford garage they will advise removing them and sending them off and then replacing the faulty one(s) for about 900 to 1500 quid depending on how many injectors. OR do what i did and run it until the glow plug warning light comes on and then have it hooked up to find the injector that is at fault. That cost me 400 quid but obviously it meant I purposely made my car fail.
Do not ignore it as it will get worse. It is a common issue for TDCI 130's of this age. Do a search on these forums and you will see what I mean.
In the mean time there is a quick check you can do by buying some Injector Cleaner for you diesel that you pour into your tank, if that sorts it then don't worry so much. Also, I have heard that the crank position sensor can also cause this but I am not sure if that is true or not.
Best of luck.
Moved in here for the OP's information - he has been e-mailed - PU
Hello All,
Just got a quote from Audi and I was shocked to say the least (not really !! ) at the price for a set of ignition leads for my car, £25.40 + vat per lead x6 (A4 2.4 V6). I've had a good google and I can get a set of resistive leads for £40 delivered or a set of copper core leads for £76 delivered (still dear ! ).
I'm guessing that resistive leads do not generate as good a spark ?
Has anyone used both types (on any car) and could you tell me if there was a noticable difference,
many thanks
Benno Read more
Copper core leads wont work well enough with the modern electrical requirements of the engine.
Dont fit them, may be cheap but will be wasted money
Browse
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I got the impression that they were running over time and didn't want to do any more than I had stictly asked them to do,viz., check it out.
I didn't ask what kind if machine they used, but I think that I once saw the company recommended in the HJ site under recommended places to go for that kind of thing.