Very nice work Morgan. I might get you to make me up a set.

Yep nobody will notice, especially scrutineers as they are usually a bit thick
So this pic is the stock LC arm with 25mm added right??
This should give you around 2 - 2.3 degree negative camber whilst rataining the stock strut tops - is this correct or is my old brain not doing the maths correctly
If your regs allow its good insurance to plate the bottom of the arm to enclose the box for added strength.

Thanks Paul, I'm quite enjoying the build. Hopefully these things will give the car nice handling in the dirt, even if it won't be a fast car with only a standard A14. But more power can always be added later. I think this will be a good learning car.
Here's the first arm I lengthened, will hardly be noticeable when painted. I am also going to add an extra layer to the bottom side of the arm, just for a bit of insurance.

Quote:

Excellent - your depth of knowledge is good.

I had the exact same issues and although I didnt remove my front bar altogether I did modify both the mounts and the bushes to soften the front roll characteristics and get around the steep angles on the sway bar mounts. This still allows some additional front end tuning but I generally dont touch it these days and leave it at the softest settings cause Im not driving flat out anymore.

One thing that hasnt been mentioned is the option of modifying the LC arms with adjustable rose joints, this gives you large amounts of track adjustment to go along with any other front geometry mods. My coupe has 16mm high tensile rose joints fitted to the inboard ends of the LC arms. Maybe possible mod for others to consider if it is within their motorsport regs.

Morgan - good thread with some good info. Your progress is good on your new venture. All this sort of work now will pay off in your stage times in the future and the amount of fun you will have behind the wheel will be greater. You can tell that you are keen to overcome problems and remedy them yourself. Well done.

An easy way to check whether the car handles better with the sway bar connected/disconnected is to remove one of the link pins from the sway bar to the lower control arm on one side. This will have the same effect as having no sway bar. It's what I tried first.

Another reason I removed the sway bar was because I use to run 5 deg. castor at the front. When you screw this much on the link between the sway bar and l.c.arm is on a way to much of an angle and it just didn't look healthy

wow, might have a go at leaving the bar off at some point.
so standard rear springs might not be too bad then considering you set them up so soft?

btw i did the cut and shut on one of the control arms today, once it's painted I doubt anyone would ever pick it has been lengthened. I might try and put a pic up.
So now front track will match the back- which will have the wider diff.
I also shortened the castor rods but not by as much as I had originally planned as with 25mm longer track rods the castor rods will pull the bottom arms forward too. Proof will be when I bolt it all together I guess.

Thanks Paul, My thoughts exactly.

wow thats a spin out...i'll have to do alot more reading about dirt stuff.

Craig,
I would imagine that Gary doesnt run a front bar. Its not uncommon for rally Datto's to race without any sway bars at all.
This can be an advantage on rough stages where efficient tyre contact patches can mean big time advantages in stage.
The biggest mistake a lot of people make when rallying is to run suspension and chassis settings too stiff. This doesnt help when the object of the exercise is to get as much grip as possible on an often rough undulating slippery surface.

Gary which sway bar did you remove?? the rear one ???