Advanced Suspension Mods

[Advancedynamix]

I get my springs through www.southwestspeed.com

You'll also need kia Rio (2001) strut bearings.

Also, I suggest a stiffer spring in the front, like atleast 180lb. With the b6t and g series your putting a lot more weight on the front wheels because the engine needs to be moved forward about an inch from the stock location. This added inch with the added weight of the heavier drive train relates to a lot more pressure on the front suspension. The 200lb springs on my car are very comfortable and perform well. The car rides smoother over bumps than stock

[Festevil3]

I would like to be the first in line for a full setup...seriously

[Advancedynamix]

Well, because I'm doing this as a hobby things take a while. I'm not going to take orders or make promises. I'm just going to make a few sets and it will be first come first serve, but if I sell out I'll put the money back into making more for people, so no need to panic. But I do give all my settings and test results freely too everyone. If I'm keeping secrets it's only because I don't have sufficient testing to prove my theory. By the time it's posted on here, its been tested to work. 43000 miles on this setup so far.

[rbrown]

If you say 180 Front would the 115-120 be balanced enough for the rear?

And looks like you use the larger diameter springs up front.

[Advancedynamix]

120 feels good in the rear, feels like stock. I run 150's now, but that's mostly because it feels a little better on the track and I can carry a large load in the car. I am always filling it up with engines and tranies and stuff. If you plan on carrying a load with the car I would go with 150's. They aren't really rough, a little stiffer than stock. I have been told by a few people that they are more comfortable than FMS springs. I have never driven a car with the FMS setup, so I can't verify this myself.

Yes, my front springs are 2.5"x10" 200lb black magic springs by southwest speed. My rear springs are 1 7/8"x8" 150lb black magic springs. The narrow springs are nice in the back because the 1 7/8" small body bilstein sleeves fit the KYB shocks very well and the narrow springs and adjusters allow for more tire clearance than stock, plus for ultimate handling they are lighter than the 2.5" setup.

[rbrown]

I think I will do the 175/120 setup for now.
If I feel it's too weak I can always get the next sizes up and swap.

Saying this made me think. Since I am using the Aspire rear arm and the much larger Rio front brakes these might need to be upped a little. Your 200/150 might end up being perfect for my added weight.

[90-666]

Okay, after promising this thread for some time now, I'm actually posting something. Lol. I'm just going to explain the basics tonight and put up a couple pictures, but there will be more as time goes on.

My Goal: To have a Festiva that is both street worthy and track worthy. By street worthy I mean it can be daily driven here in Arizona where we don't get much rain, the roads are well maintained and I don't have potholes to deal with. Track worthy means that the car should be competitive in Time Trials and be fun to drive in street specific run groups. This car isn't being set up for a race class because I played that game for years, with many many different cars that race in many different sanctioned classes and it now bores me to death to have to follow the rules. This car has no limits or rules other than the ones I set for myself.

Simple theory: I prefer to work withing the factory dimensions and with as much OEM equipment as possible before relying on one off, exotic, race parts. There are a couple good reasons for this. It lowers the cost of replacing parts and the factory has a much bigger budget than I do, and they weren't screwing around when they designed these parts to begin with. The chassis and suspension parts were designed to work together for hundreds of thousands of miles, that's much longer than most race parts last. So I like to push the limits of the factory components until they break and make improvements based on the failures. Most of the time, minor adjustments can be made to OEM parts to give the car a handling advantage. With this said, a great handling Festiva is not that far away! These cars don't require much to out handle just about anything on the road.

FWD Theory: Many people seem to think that FWD is a handicap on a racetrack. They are sadly mistaken. More often than not, the advantages of a front drive chassis are lost when the cars are set up like rear drive or AWD chassis. FWD is the ultimate low cost chassis! The manufacturers have known this for half a century or more, that is why almost all budget cars are FWD. The concept is simple. Since the Front wheels are doing all the work, that is the only part of the chassis that gets the bulk of the strength, and suspension technology. Since the drive axle and the crankshaft are inline (sans Subie, Audi, some VW and older SAABs) the power delivery is up to 40 percent more efficient, requiring less parts and less driveline weight. This makes a more reliable car, and for my purpose, a car that responds much better to modification.
The FWD chassis main arch enemy is weight, especially weight rearward of the front axle. This is why the Festiva is such a gem. There is very little weight rearward of the front axle in comparison to many other FWD cars. The more weight you have to literally drag around the harder it will be to put down power without spinning, and the more grip you'll need to change directions or slow the car. Also, rearward weight will act as a pendulum when the car is asked to turn rapidly, which can cause oversteer. The goal is to be able to turn at a higher speed and use all the available grip without oversteer. Rather than forcing the car to rotate, like what is needed in a tight autocross coarse or in rally racing, on a road coarse we are looking for precise "turn in" and a chassis that is balanced and responds well to throttle as well as brake input. The best way to improve a FWD cars "turn in" is to remove weight from the back of the car, and add weight in front of the front axle. Weight in front of the front axle is transmitted to the front tires, the ones that will turn the car. Along with proper weighting of the chassis, you also need proper tires, brakes spring rates and dampening as well as a higher roll center and lower center of gravity (lowering the car). Things like 50/50 weight distribution work on some cars that use their back tires for more than holding up the fuel tank, but our cars are only using the rear wheels to hold up the weight we have behind the front axle. The more weight you have back there, the more work the back tires are doing and the less HP you can put to the ground without spinning.

Applying The Theory: Now the fun part, taking the simplicity of the lightweight and rigid Festiva and making it shine. The suspension on a Festiva is a sort of a grab bag of great ideas that were present on some of the most famous cars in the sport. When I first looked under a festiva I was amazed to see a simple integrated sway bar drag link strut suspension in the front, not unlike some of the fine German Vintage race cars that I have set up in the past. That's right, your festiva shares a front suspension design with an original Porsche 911, and a BMW 2002, and several audis and even the VW super Beetle (hated in this country, but sort of a racing icon in Germany). In fact, if I were to list all of the cars that have serious motorsport pedigree with this style of suspension in the front I would be typing for days. In the rear of the Festiva I found the most compact and efficient trailing beam that I've ever seen. Having tuned many of VW's early front drive cars I am very familiar with the benefits of this amazing and simple design. It's lightweight and integrates a sway bar, it's a trailing arm which is far more efficient at bump absorption than wishbone or A-arm. It's the perfect rear suspension for a lightweight car. So here we have it, the festiva is already just about perfect, all it needs is a little tuning to use these excellent components to their maximum potential. The challenge is to lower the cars center of gravity without losing hindering the working range of the factory suspension. For this, I had to make some modifications to the shocks. Since the factory units were not intended to be in their working range at the ride height I want to run, I had to use something different.

Front Shocks: On the front I used Raceland Coilovers intended for a MK3 VW. I modified them to fit the Festiva/Aspire/Capri/323 ect ect, steering knuckles and I made busings so that they would fit snugly in kia rio strut tops. Since the Raceland struts can be disassembled, they are easy to weld without risking damage to the strut assembly. This also makes it easy to change out the strut insert for a double adjustable Koni race strut or a monotube bilstein. I have actually had great luck though with the strut insert that came in the Raceland setup.
Since the Racelands were intended for the heavy Mk3 VW, they come with springs that are much too heavy for even a B6t G series swapped festiva. I opted to replace the 300lb springs they came with with 200lb springs. I'm still running the stock festiva sway bar, and control arms, but I've installed some MOOG blue sway bar end bushings. I'll post pictures of the front shocks later, but you can also check them out in my gallery on my profile page.

Rear Shocks: In the rear, I have modified KYB shocks that are sold for the Aspire (same thing as a KYB for a Festiva). I cut off the factory spring perches and installed some threaded adjustable sleeves intended for a "small body" racing shock. These sleeves use 1 7/8" springs, rather than the more common 2 1/2" springs. This gives me more adjustment without sacrificing tire clearance. I also shortened the bottom of the shocks by almost 2" and the shafts are shortened 1.5". Don't attempt to shorten your shocks unless you have a lot of fab experience or know someone trustworthy who does. As far as the 1 7/8" sleeves, it's a moderate difficulty job and anyone who has put on the "ebay honda" springs can do these. I'll post some pictures in a following post. I've found that for street tires, 120# springs seem to work good and for sticky R compound tires I'm using 175# springs in the rear. My car is gutted and I have a stock Festiva rear beam.

Alignment Settings: The car seems to like 1/16" (overall, not per side) toe out in the front, neutral toe in the rear to 1/16" toe in. With the toyo proxes R888 tires it seems to work best with -2.2 degrees camber in the front and -1 degree in the back. This is just what worked for me, I'm not saying it's the best setup, but it is streetable and it is easy to drive at the limit. Rotate the tires every session if you drive the car hard and my fastest lap times were actually with the tires mounted backwards! lol.

Overview: I have a lot of experience setting up suspension on may different cars, but I'm not writing the Bible here. If anyone has a setup that could work better, or any hints to help then post it. I kept setups a secret on cars that I built for a long time, but now I just want to go fast and have a good time without a million dollar budget so that takes the help of friends and other enthusiasts. Thanks in advance for your input and interest. Sorry for the stuff I have left out. I just want to get this threat started. I'll update it as much as I can.

Hi I was wondering if the moog bushings you had mentioned are these ones MOOG Part # K9737

[Advancedynamix]

Hi I was wondering if the moog bushings you had mentioned are these ones MOOG Part # K9737

Yes, those are the correct bushings.

[Advancedynamix]

Okay, it's been awhile since I have updated this, but I have some exciting stuff to add. I have been developing an adjustable rear toe and camber system that is working well. I didn't take pictures of the latest prototypes before I installed them, but I will get some pictures soon. This car is responding very well to more and more negative camber.
Now that I have the cars balance pretty well nailed down, and I have optimized the setup with the stickiest DOT legal track tire I could get to fit under the car (185/60/13 Toyo Proxes R888 ) it's time for the next stage.

Team Dynamics U.K. has made me some custom 13x7" wheels with a 35mm offset. I had to use 10mm hubcentric spacers in the front to clear the knuckles (where the strut mounts) and I had to grind a little material off my strut mounting tabs (it wasn't supporting anything). The goal here was to run 20.5x7" racing slicks without rubbing, and It works pretty well. There is a little rub when the suspension is bottomed out (as seen in above picture) but it's not bad and may go away with less tire pressure. Since these Hoosiers are bias ply tire they stretch a little more than a radial with air pressure. I am starting out with 50psi.

Why go to all the trouble to mount these tires on my car? Well, these slicks grip about twice as well as my R compound DOT legal tires and they are much cheaper. They might wear faster than the DOT tires, but they may not because I was over working the DOT legal race tires pretty bad. Time and testing will tell. Another huge benefit to this setup is that it's extremely light. My wheel and tire together only weigh 20.5 lbs.
My initial impression of this setup after some street testing (I do not recommend that anyone drive their car on the street with non DOT approved tires, I'm an idiot, lol). This is unreal! I just did a quick n' dirty suspension setup and alignment for the tires and I can't believe how well this car handles even with cold slicks. Everything has improved dramatically (I did not try them in the rain, and will do my best to never try that), they are even pretty comfortable, though they do have some road noise.

[Damkid]

Advanced Suspension Mods

Awesome Charlie! I'm looking forward to the track results

[zoom zoom]

need pics of the rear toe and camber plates!!!!!!


what psi would be in your r888's on the track? I think you mentioned it before, i just dont want to dig!

[Advancedynamix]

I ended up running 32f 30r with 0 toe f/r and -.2.8 degrees camber f/r on the R888s. The R888s were awesome, but it only took 5-8 laps to overheat them. They are consistent when overheated, unlike most street tires but wear out quickly and at 160 a tire they eat my tire budget fast. Hoping the Hoosiers will be easier on my wallet.

[bhazard]

Re: Advanced Suspension Mods

I need to make a trip to AZ someday...I have some family out there anyway lol

[Advancedynamix]

I need to make a trip to AZ someday...I have some family out there anyway lol

Bring the Festiva, you've got the hp to pull the big bore cars on the straights. I'm getting there, but keep spending my engine budget on other things. Lol. Any member who shows up at the track gets a ride around the coarse at speed.

Edit: above offer is on a first come first serve basis and is time prohibited.

[Grey Vw]

You are bring light to something I usually wouldn't care about(road course) but now I am scheduled for a track day on Dec 23rd

And your car looks beast with those Hoosiers.