Tuesday 5th October 2004

New suspension for track and road

Discount offered by TVR specialist Joospeed

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TVR specialist Joospeed has developed an improved, bespoke version of his Nitron-based suspension kit that offers the best feel on both track and road. Intended mainly for Cerberas, the hardware is suitable for fitting to other Rover-engined TVRs. It's is available only through him -- and a discount is on offer to PHers.

Joospeed said, "I recently did a lot of testing with three-way adjustable Nitron dampers both on the road and track. I'm now on my fourth generation Nitron damper and the testing showed up some interesting things.

"The most important benefit from a customer point of view is that it's very easy to get a good road package that can be made to feel good on track too. Normally it's very difficult to get a track setup that's also good on the road, as spring rates for serious track use are such that ride quality suffers disproportionately, even with the low nose forces of Nitrons. Spring rates for road use however are much lower, but by ramping up the damping you can make that kit feel good for track use, a much better compromise for today's driving.

"On the back of this, Nitron has created a newly valved damper especially for me -- once again it's not available anywhere else like all my bespoke kits. It incorporates the valving for the soft road spring set-ups that we developed, but ramps up the damping at the hard end to closely replicate the feel of the three-way damper's track-day setup, without sacrificing day to day ride comfort.

"Best thing is that that prices are still the same as before, £850 (plus VAT) for the kit, with full alignment and corner weighting coming in at around £300 (plus VAT) depending how far out the basic car geometry is, and how many seized bolts there are."

Joospeed said that he was willing to offer a 10 per cent discount off the damper kit to PHers who have their car serviced at the same time as having the kit fitted.

Contact Joospeed through his PH profile.

[ceejay]

Ahh the next generation kit arrives after we spent loads of time testing them at Hullavington on my car.

We'd already tried some revised 2 way Nitrons with different valving to try to improve ride quality on what is effectively a track day set-up on the Cerb but although we could get a more compliant ride the body control at speed in corners was severely compromised.

The best way to improve the dampers was to test a fully adjustable 3 way Nitron to optimise the valving required for road, track and road/track hybrid. Have to say it was fun working with Joo on the car
particularly during the track day. We started the track tests with understeer in slow corners but by the end of the day we had an incredibly quick car with wonderful balance on turn in and exit.

The new kit is great on track but also has a better ride on the road than the previous Nitron kit I had fitted. My car also runs the upgraded grooved AP front discs which have never faded on a track day yet, certainly worth the investment if you hussle your beast.

Ceejay


>>> Edited by ceejay on Wednesday 6th October 16:25