Discussion
Just done a driving course in the 400SE at North Weald which revealed that the under spoiler was being ground away under heavy braking and in a tight'ish left-hander. The damage is mostly on the right hand corner, which means that the lardy driver has knackered the front springs, especially on the off-side. What I obviously need is a new set of springs, but having tried a pair of fronts from Wedge Auto three years or so ago, which resulted in way too much ride height, I reverted to the originals.
Does anyone know what the spring rate and free length on these should be as standard, so that I can maybe have some modified coils made up to suit. I think the ride height is just about ok as is, but the spring rate needs increasing. The problem is that I haven't been able to find anyone locally (Kent) who can check the spring rate, and I don't want to spend several hundred quid on a checker, and I don't want to go too far from standard as this will affect the camber angle. Alternatively, I could go on a diet!
Any thoughts?
Paul.
Does anyone know what the spring rate and free length on these should be as standard, so that I can maybe have some modified coils made up to suit. I think the ride height is just about ok as is, but the spring rate needs increasing. The problem is that I haven't been able to find anyone locally (Kent) who can check the spring rate, and I don't want to spend several hundred quid on a checker, and I don't want to go too far from standard as this will affect the camber angle. Alternatively, I could go on a diet!
Any thoughts?
Paul.
PAUL GOTTS said:
Just done a driving course in the 400SE at North Weald which revealed that the under spoiler was being ground away under heavy braking and in a tight'ish left-hander. The damage is mostly on the right hand corner, which means that the lardy driver has knackered the front springs, especially on the off-side. What I obviously need is a new set of springs, but having tried a pair of fronts from Wedge Auto three years or so ago, which resulted in way too much ride height, I reverted to the originals.
Does anyone know what the spring rate and free length on these should be as standard, so that I can maybe have some modified coils made up to suit. I think the ride height is just about ok as is, but the spring rate needs increasing. The problem is that I haven't been able to find anyone locally (Kent) who can check the spring rate, and I don't want to spend several hundred quid on a checker, and I don't want to go too far from standard as this will affect the camber angle. Alternatively, I could go on a diet!
Any thoughts?
Paul.
No idea what the rates are (but I would have expected Wedge Automotive to have known - they do specialise in wedges after all). Tower View do a coil-over conversion which is one option, and since they're into this sort ofthing I'd have thought they were worth a shot on the standard springs. Have you checked the dampers are OK? If one was knackered the car would bounce around more than normal and might touch the ground more often?
A difficult question and you'll have to answer it eventually. The standard 400 was designed as a luxury sports car. Everybody said that they wanted performance but they weren't prepared for any comfort sacrifice. The standard 400 springs can be as low as 140 lb/in (I have some on my 350 which were fitted by the factory.) The 400 also has quite a high ride height so in summary I do not think that you would be happy with standard springs. It sounds like you probably need about a 250 lb/in spring. I can tell you the free lenght of a 350 spring if you would like. Once the spring is off the car it only takes 5 mins to check the rate. Unfortunately for you I'm in Manchester but a few hundred to check the rate is totally outrageous (£220/hour or is that London main dealer charges now?)
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