New Dampers and Springs

The new Springs and dampers I purchased from SPAX look good. They were obviously built to order as they still smelt of fresh paint straight out of the box.

I've never used SPAX before but from what I've read and opinions of the people I've talked to they come with nothing but glorious reviews, matching AVO or GAZ the other manufactures I also considered for the Scimitar. 

The Dampers come with both an adjustable damping rate and adjustable ride height via the adjustable spring seat.

The disadvantage with this type of height adjustment is as the height adjustment is achieved via adjusting the position of the spring seat, this in turn manipulates the spring preload. This is one of the reasons why I chose the SPAX setup over my preferred choice AVO. The SPAX units came with helper springs.

Although I normally don't approve of helper springs and prefer a progressive spring on this type of damper without separate spring and ride height adjustment they do help to preserve the desired spring preload and while allowing ride height adjustment and not compromising right quality.

Obviously some detailed setup will be required in getting the damping rate and ride height correct on both the front and rear axle.

The Springs and dampers were assembled using the trusty coil spring compressor. This can be done with a smaller set of compressors, however this larger commercial grade compressors the whole coil with a single worm screw rather than two separate screws and  can be operated with a Impact gun and makes the  whole job quick and easy.

 A top tip is when using one of these large coil spring compressors is if you wish to avoid chipping the powdercoat on the brand new springs, you should wrap the coil in contact with the coil spring cups with insulation tape to protect it.

There is no need to compress the helper spring, they done add much to the total free length of the springs and have very little deflection. The helpers will be almost coil bound when the damper assembly is built  and will be fully coil bound on the car at normal ride height and only showing a small amount of deflection during droop.

An obvious upgrade on the original dilapidated KONI units.

Returning to work on Scimitar, Rear axle inspection.

Updates to this blog and work on the Scimitar have reduced somewhat due to working away from home a Masters degree and a few other projects and cars preventing me me from the work, including a 380bhp Lancer Evolution IV track car that kept me entertained for a while. However I'm going to attempt to pick up the work and update this blog periodically with the work that's been done the last few years.

My little 380bhp distraction

With the fuel tank removed the running from the zinc bath is clearly visible on the galvanized chassis.

I've inspected the rear axle and found its got a nasty knock and a few mm of unwanted play on the the NS half shaft.

 Apart from this knock and play it seems in relatively good working order and the gears at first inspection seem solid, no missing teeth, heavy wear or pitting of the steel, even the prop shaft seal and gasket around the inspection plate of the pigs head was tight with no oil leaks. it appears to be the part on the car in the best condition.

I'm still not sure what I want to do with it yet. I'm probably going to rebuild the car with the original open diff Salisbury axle and see how it handles, with the power I plan to put in the car, it may require a limited slip diff for any kind of track potential, but if I continue at this rate with major modifications ill never finish the car so for now ill overhaul the Salisbury axle. I will be fitting it with a rear disc conversion of my own design, more information on that to follow later.