Welcome. Glad you joined us. I am going to beg to differ in the notion of it being a “shitsu”. At the risk of offending you some of you mods are going to have it turn out that way.
I realise you don’t know myself or my background. Listen to my advice and discard, consider, talk it through or adapt. If you just want it to “look” a certain way or fit in with trendy car culture appearances go you hardest. Stereo and “choo choo” noises do say more “hipster mobile” than fast, and there is nothing wrong with a hipster mobile if that’s your thing. So let me know and I’ll not reply with another word. (Tonight I am in a hospital bed and have nothing else to do. I don’t normally get so brash with new arrivals)
One suspension mod a at time. If not after “looks”, is a faster street car and or tracks days the aim? You seem to have a good automotive workshop at your disposal. In Australia you can’t get 14" tires unless you import your own. Biggest decent economical tire I’ve run from someone on these is a Nankang NS2R if on ever on the street or a AR1. Motorsport being bigger in Europe you might easily get a 185/60/14. Here I can get 185/55/13s in the NS2r and AS1 (that latter measure close to a 205). Going to a 205 front and 195 rear 45/15 I’ve only done for two race cars and did extensive tubbing of the inner and pumped out and blended guards. Tires are the first thing to address in handling. Settle on what “realistically fits” and what you can afford. if I knew you were going to stretch tires to fit I’d largely leave your thread be as such is static art and nothing to do with tuning suspension.
8" is too big and would take a 225 nicely. If that ET is positive the effect to the scrub radius will be detrimental (steer like a dog) to performance and will need massive body surgery to keep any steeriing radius.
Putting the same spring rate on the front and back, what does this achieve? Did it oversteer? If not it will now spin front tires more and understeer. If you can try the std from rate in the front and compare back to back, the ride will improve as will the braking. Try not to use those specificed new struts to keep the front springs in place or “captive”. It will end up with no travel, sit on bumps stops and be dangerous to drive. The front needs a shorter leg overall.
Machine the strut bracket off, make some new bits and weld back on extended through a new bottom bracket such that nothing hits the drive shaft. Gives a tad more travel. Then…
Were the springs and all measured at ride height before cutting? Those extra coils close together are a helper section and not really much to do with variable rate. True variable rate have tapered wire. Look at a car with them installed at static road height and you’ll see the close coil section will be compressed. This just keeps them captive. What you’ve done is cut off the…
part that works like the thin coil in the photo. No room for the adjustable collar up high so a helper is used. What you front will do now is ride on the bump stops. This is dangerous as it needs travel and it won’t enough. On a front wheel drive the front needs travel and it needs to be relatively soft. The sort end of the car gets grip, which should be the front. Make the rear still it takes grip away and make for neutral to oversteer.
Note the image of the VW Scirocco with wheel in the air. The inside rear wheel just hoovering off the ground is about right. Weight from that end of the car is transferred forward diagonally to give grip to the front. Front springs are soft and rear and stiff. Best to learn about spring rates.
What gained from a bigger front sway bar? What do you expect it to do? Will it make the car understeer or oversteer?
Find the right size Koni red or yellow, pull the insides out and machine down to fit inside the original, but shortened leg. It is possible to od this and add coil over springs but I was wanting to use absolutely std springs and have no visible mods.
Lots of measuring to figure this set up. Threaded collars for a coil over type spring can be used instead of the orig spring seat (which were lowered) 170lb/in should be a good start for yours (maybe low 200lb if the front sway bar removed which would suit rough back road rally stage type toads) and double that for the rear as a starting place.
Lots of other easy little stuff to make it drive like a race car. Expensive part is quickening the steering and going to good dampers.
Don’t do mods for the sake of a mod unless you pretest, fit test and compare results.
