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Team GTR - Leon Cupra R

Demon1781

Active Member
Sep 1, 2012
83
0
It's a Raceland strut brace. Not sure if they are still making them though




Great suggestion. Recently I have been thinking about camber adjustments. Would you only recommend doing this on the fronts?

Thanks mate. I'll do some research And see what comes up
 

t0m

LCR 225
Apr 29, 2007
8,133
7
Kent
Makes me very happy to see your car finally on track mate! :D

Great update. Very pleasing to read. I had no doubt the car or driver would do badly on track ;)
 

8bit

Active Member
Feb 11, 2010
3,401
3
Aberdeen
Great suggestion. Recently I have been thinking about camber adjustments. Would you only recommend doing this on the fronts?

There's no camber adjustment on the rears. As standard the car comes set up with a bit of negative camber on the rear, this is based on the assumption that being a hatchback it'll be used for carrying a couple of passengers and a boot full of shopping etc. around most of the time, so the weight that's supposedly in the rear will push the tyres down and increase the contact patch. Personally I hardly ever do any of that in my car so I found that the inner edges of my rear tyres wore quicker than the outers.

Lowered cars may not suffer this so much though as the geometry at the rear will change as a result of the car being lowered in the same way that weight on the back axle will, i.e. the angle the rear wheels sit at on the ground will "flatten", so to speak.

This is my readings from the last time I had mine aligned. I'm still on standard shocks and springs but you can see how much -ve camber there is in the rear as standard, it's more than Ronin was suggesting for the front!

alignmentafterp.jpg


I'm not an expert on this stuff but from what I understand -ve camber is applied to the front wheels in order to improve turn-in response and contact patch while cornering at speed. Under those conditions the rears are just trailing along behind so adding (more) negative camber on a FWD car with prehistoric rear suspension like mk1 Leon's, mk4 Golf FWD's etc can't really help much.
 
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EL

Forever Alive
Mar 17, 2008
2,931
1
Bickley, Bromley
There's no camber adjustment on the rears. As standard the car comes set up with a bit of negative camber on the rear, this is based on the assumption that being a hatchback it'll be used for carrying a couple of passengers and a boot full of shopping etc. around most of the time, so the weight that's supposedly in the rear will push the tyres down and increase the contact patch. Personally I hardly ever do any of that in my car so I found that the inner edges of my rear tyres wore quicker than the outers.

Lowered cars may not suffer this so much though as the geometry at the rear will change as a result of the car being lowered in the same way that weight on the back axle will, i.e. the angle the rear wheels sit at on the ground will "flatten", so to speak.

This is my readings from the last time I had mine aligned. I'm still on standard shocks and springs but you can see how much -ve camber there is in the rear as standard, it's more than Ronin was suggesting for the front!

alignmentafterp.jpg


I'm not an expert on this stuff but from what I understand -ve camber is applied to the front wheels in order to improve turn-in response and contact patch while cornering at speed. Under those conditions the rears are just trailing along behind so adding (more) negative camber on a FWD car with prehistoric rear suspension like mk1 Leon's, mk4 Golf FWD's etc can't really help much.

Thanks for sharing the info mate, appreciate that. It's a bit of a unknown area for me so trying to get my head around it so I can try and make this hippo car to handle as well as it can :)
 

8bit

Active Member
Feb 11, 2010
3,401
3
Aberdeen
No worries, don't take it as gospel cos as I said, I'm no expert, but the above is my understanding. There definitely isn't any scope for adjusting the rears tho, without using shims, spacers etc. anyway.

You've got a rear ARB fitted, haven't you? That plus a modest drop at the rear should be enough to improve grip there. The rear is entirely passive so all you can really do to improve it is reduce roll, increase stiffness and maximise contact patch size.
 

EL

Forever Alive
Mar 17, 2008
2,931
1
Bickley, Bromley
Yeah I have the car on coilovers, rear ARB plus rear upper strut brace and 15mm spacers each side. To be fair the rear seemed very planted around brands hatch where I pushed it hard. I just thought I'd look into all of this more now so gathering info from all over mainly from those who have first hand experience and will be asking a few of the pros I know in the industry to see what they say
 

Ronin225

Active Member
Jan 17, 2008
4,652
22
Worcester
Not sure where the the numbers for your tracking came from as muttley put them up the other day and OE camber is about 0.3 negative +or- 0.3 or something similar
My sheet was full of red after setting due to it being done for a fast road/track setup as advised by the setter who did quite a few of these setups
This sacrificed about 1000 miles of the tyres, they also said for better turn in to put 0.2 degrees of toe in but this is only for track
 

8bit

Active Member
Feb 11, 2010
3,401
3
Aberdeen
Not sure where the the numbers for your tracking came from as muttley put them up the other day and OE camber is about 0.3 negative +or- 0.3 or something similar
My sheet was full of red after setting due to it being done for a fast road/track setup as advised by the setter who did quite a few of these setups
This sacrificed about 1000 miles of the tyres, they also said for better turn in to put 0.2 degrees of toe in but this is only for track

Do you mean mine? Or EL's?
 

8bit

Active Member
Feb 11, 2010
3,401
3
Aberdeen
Ah right. I don't know if the limits there are the OE limits or those defined by the garage - the place I use is Clark Motorsport, they do a lot of fast road and track cars, in fact they set up and maintain a lot of track and rally cars, the owner is an ex rally driver. Quite possible those aren't the OE limits at all. I only posted it to show the sorts of rear camber that these cars run as standard.

Think mine needs some work on the steering (I won't clutter EL's thread with my woes, it's in my own thread) so I'll need alignment done again after that probably, I'll ask then. Edit - thanks for pointing that out tho :)
 
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EL

Forever Alive
Mar 17, 2008
2,931
1
Bickley, Bromley
Don't mind me mate. Post away. I didn't even know what the OE values were. I get them done and get talked through by whoever does it all for me and then after I just get put the print out somewhere and forget about it all. Will see if I can dig out my last print out when I got it all done and see what they are at. I remember before he started I had major toe out and be sorted all of it but don't remember the values
 

EL

Forever Alive
Mar 17, 2008
2,931
1
Bickley, Bromley
I keep saying the big exterior clean up will start and finally I can say it is on the way. Firstly a tidy addition to the OEM splitter which is being made up by my good mate D.K. (stealing his update to show what is being made) :)


The Mk1 & 2 were both made from 6mm ply,
cb1242a1.jpg


The Mk1 was just primed and sprayed gloss black,
121aa4e1.jpg


6ff2e4bb.jpg


The under side of this soon worn down due to rubbing on speed bump's.
The sole purpose of the Mk1 was to get the shape and size right before making the the Mk2 which would be wrapped in Carbon Fibre.

Mk2, Carbon Wrapped.
IMG_3374.jpg


IMG_3352.jpg


To try and limit the wear on the under side of the Mk2 both side's were wrapped in Carbon Fibre, On the underside he used a cloth that had Titainium reinforcement strand's and then applied several layers of clear resin, this has held up very well to being rubbed on speed bump's so he will be doing the same on the Mk3. The top side was then wrapped in 2 twill Carbon, the only problem was he didn't wrap the Carbon over the edge which left the edge of the ply exposed, the edges were built up with layers of clear resin.
IMG_3332.jpg


But due to the punishment the lead edge takes the resin has chipped off in places allowing water to get into the ply and de-laminate it.


The Mk3 had to be made from somthing that would stand up to the weather better than the Ply, he wanted to use acrlyc plastic sheet but it is very expensive so opted for a hi density foam board.
IMG_4229.jpg


The foam board is pretty flexible but still strong.
941A93DE-AD4A-4B1F-8B37-0D3E61E2C352-2654-000004B58A74A7C3.jpg

After releasing it, it went beck to being flat straight away.

The Mk3 has been made 5mm biger to give it a better profile edge where it joins the OE LCR splitter back towards the wheel arch.

Mk2
IMG_3441.jpg


Mk3
IMG_4230.jpg


IMG_4231.jpg


I decided against the full carbon wrap on my version and will have it painted gloss black which I believe will look smart with what I am planning with the OEM splitter. Yesterday I popped round and we trial fitted the Mk3 splitter to make sure all lined up and were happy with how it will sit

ACE49E69-D79D-4758-B79C-F5F9F900C468-3173-000001A4FADE9B41.jpg


F04C0565-9108-4373-B596-86CF2DBD86BD-3173-000001A516D47959.jpg


37C7F2C5-CDDF-41AD-ACF5-DC8D27FCC72E-3173-000001A50C1F31B2.jpg


All looking good so time to get the finishing touches done and will get it on the car once it had been in and out of the body shop which I want to book soon. Once again top work from D.K, really looks great in the flesh and really stands out. Can't wait to get it all together and looking fresh on the car
 

EL

Forever Alive
Mar 17, 2008
2,931
1
Bickley, Bromley
And now the big update....................my sexy canvas thanks to Nick at topmotors. My car was chosen as car of the month in August which I am still very chuffed about. Still keep starring at the canvas even though I have had it a few days now :)

P1000652.jpg


The famous mug shot lol

P1000647.jpg
 
Oct 21, 2006
1,226
1
Norfolk
Congrats buddy. The canvans looks great; really shows the car off. More track days to come then by the sounds of things...

The splitter looks great. I hope you don't mind me making a suggestion with regards to the colour selection, but I'd go for a satin black with a nice lacquer finish; it blends in well with the other plastics already on the car if they aren't painted. This is certainly what I'd choose for the outside, as I have done with my engine bay bits that have been painted.

What ever choice you're happy with, it'll make a great addition to your car. Top work by Darren as usual!

I look forward to the pictures :)
 

EL

Forever Alive
Mar 17, 2008
2,931
1
Bickley, Bromley
Congrats buddy. The canvans looks great; really shows the car off. More track days to come then by the sounds of things...

The splitter looks great. I hope you don't mind me making a suggestion with regards to the colour selection, but I'd go for a satin black with a nice lacquer finish; it blends in well with the other plastics already on the car if they aren't painted. This is certainly what I'd choose for the outside, as I have done with my engine bay bits that have been painted.

What ever choice you're happy with, it'll make a great addition to your car. Top work by Darren as usual!

I look forward to the pictures :)

Cheers buddy and thanks for the suggestion. Always open to suggestions so post away!! Satin black is another option which I will keep in mind. It all depends on what I think will go best with what I am doing with the OEM splitter.

More track days are definitely on the cards but also want to make the car stand out a little when I go to the 'posing' events/shows :)
 

t0m

LCR 225
Apr 29, 2007
8,133
7
Kent
Congrats on the canvas mate :D

Splitter is coming along nicely as is the car. Good to see the exterior finally take shape to go with a great wired car underneath. Good work mate!
 

EL

Forever Alive
Mar 17, 2008
2,931
1
Bickley, Bromley
Congrats on the canvas mate :D

Splitter is coming along nicely as is the car. Good to see the exterior finally take shape to go with a great wired car underneath. Good work mate!

Cheers buddy. Time to scrub these sheds up and get them hitting the shows properly. TED Tuning style ;)

Hey dude, could you tell me the details for the front wiper set up please.



Many thanks


Can't remember exactly where I purchased the front wipers from as it was a long time ago but it is the VW Golf Mk4 Aero Wipers. Loads on ebay. I didn't bother changing the wiper arms but believe some do
 

t0m

LCR 225
Apr 29, 2007
8,133
7
Kent
The actual Golf aero arms are like £90 from VW I think possibly more! I was going to do it until I saw that price. Lol.

The blades themselves will do :D

And yeah, time to scrub these sheds up for show next year mate, agreed.
 
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