I've got some 250lb springs out of my 1200. At least that's what I was told they were when I bought them. I'm not likely to use the 1200 for a while yet so if you want to borrow them for testing you're welcome. Then return or replace them when you're finished. Just pay for courier and I'll send them down to you.

Hi Morgan,
Thanks for the kind offer. I'll pm you once I know what direction I am going to head.
Cheers
Dave

Right, finally getting on top of all this.
New gas Konis arrived on Tuesday but it looks as if we are going to have to get the shafts shortened as they are too long and the spring will no longer be captive.George Stocks here in Auckland tell me this is relatively easy for them to do.
10mm sway bar spacers made up to hopefully avoid the bar hitting the bottom of the inner guard.
RCA's purchased to put some angle back into the bottom arms.
I've decided to take things slowly re radical changes to the overall suspension rates so at this stage after originally ordering a 22mm new front bar that was going to be a 180% increase I have opted for a 20mm adjustable with 3 settings on each end.
At the moment I am looking at options for swaybar links and have found a rather nice aftermarket Mazda setup with ball joints both horizontal ( which will nicely fit into the bottom arms ) and vertical ( which will fit nicely into the blade ends of the new bar )Rod ends are an option but this setup looks nice and easy and relatively robust so I think that its worthwhile pursuing.

One question comes to mind when looking at the overall setup and that is the RCA's are 33mm deep. The swaybar links that I am looking at are around 25mm longer than the standard 1200 pedestal pivot point to pivot point.Could this potentially be a problem or should I be looking at extending the length of the swaybar pedestals to compensate for the extra 33 mm that the bottom arms will be pointing downwards once the RCA's are installed?
Cheers
Dave

Well,finally got a chance to test all this new setup today at Levels very much mixed results but a strange new problem has emerged- with the RCA's having lowered both the bottom arms and steering arms the edge of the steering ball joint and the inside edge of the lip of the mag are touching each other under high load, hard cornering yet with the car stationary there is about a 10/15mm gap between the two. Something must be flexing or moving!Anyone else come across this?
Car felt okay- definitely no quantum leap and if anything I would say it was not quite as good as before- Maybe I should have backed the front bar off from the middle to the softest setting.
Car was still competitive but once again the right front ( brand new today ) is pretty much stuffed on the outer edge- this is with 4 degrees negative and the car essentially handling pretty well. I certainly wont be buying Dunlop Direzzas again as they simply do not seem to be able to last( medium compound ). Even the right rear is well down ( right across the tyre )By the sounds of things they are very good for Targa type events but cannot stand the continued high loadings of a race track.The Bridgestones that I had previously were just so much better and lasted.
So, sort this and a leaking l/h rear axle seal, find whats causing a slight miss, give it a clean and oil change and we should be good to go again.
Cheers
Dave

Dave I read this earlier today and have try to think of all of the things that cause the gap to close between the tie rod end and the rim itself. I have the RCAs on my car as well. The one thing that came to mind was the bolts attach the strut to the steering knuckle. The bolts run through the RCAs and it occurred to me that if the shoulder on the bolts didn't have a near interference fit it would allow the strut assembly to move in relation to the steering knuckle potentially causing problems with the toe but also the issue you have. Is it possible that the bolts either do not have a long enough shoulder or are slightly undersized?
Using my crap trig skills I figure that if the bolts were .5 to 1mm under size strut and more importantly the spindle, could at the outer rim edge be swiveling as much as the 15mm you mention?
I've tried to envision where else the gap could change but can't think of how other than at the join between the bottom of the strut and the knuckle.

Tom

Hi Tom,
Thanks for the input. You raise a very valid point. I know that the rca's are captive at the bottom of the strut and can't move but where they bolt to the steering knuckle needs to be checked out although its all clamped together very tightly and I would have thought that it couldn't really move.
There is definitely some flexing going on as I need to tap the brake pedal coming out of hard corners to make sure that I've got a solid pedal waiting for me at the next braking point ( but I don't think that is unusual.
I'll pull it all apart this weekend and try to figure out exactly whats going on, although something tells me that I may well end up shaving 5-10mm off the rca's to get that steering ball joint away from the lip of the mag.


Cheers
Dave

scary to think what might be going on under there to take up that 10mm gap to the wheel! lol

How many laps do you run in a row? Bit surprising mediums are simply too soft for such a light car, in what I can only assume are pretty cool conditions.

I'm not a fan of RCAs at all. I think they have no place on a track car. 35mm is a massive adjustment. Are the arms near level or are they about 35mm lower at the wheel end now?
My rule of thumb on Datsuns with live axle rear is to just get the LCA near level. Seems to be about the sweet spot for roll axis inclination and setting up a proper handling platform.

Hi Harry,
You are not joking! But if you are using the stock 120Y struts surely you must be experiencing the same thing with the calipers being backed off after hard cornering?
I put the rca's in to get some angle back into the bottom arms as they were virtually parallel when stationary with no-one sitting inside and the advise was to get some angle into them.
I did a 15min practice where I carefully ran the new R/F in then 3 x5 lap races. Interestingly enough I checked the r/f after races 1&2 and it looked as if it was wearing evenly across the tyre- it was race 3 ( when the track definitely offered more grip ) that the wear seemed to happen.
Perhaps its time to stiffen the spring rates up but I have been loath to do this as the car feels so sweet with its present rates- it hooks up, its supple and nimble and if ever required to be used in hillclimbs or rough roads can handle this with ease.
The arms have definitely dropped down on an angle since fitting the rca's.
I have been told from someone who I have a huge respect for that the Dunlops are absolute crap. I originally put this down to being a bit biased as Dunlop over here do not have the best of reputations but it looks as if every I was told is about right, although to be fair whats going on with the outer r/f has to be setup related.
Cheers
Dave

Hi Dave - still working through the same issue with my FWD car down here except it is the left front chewing out. Current thinking is that because we may have added too much caster that the ackerman/slip angle/toe out with left steering input is causing the tyre failure that you are also describing. I was convinced to try Direzzas and was extremely disappointed with their overall tyre life - back to 888's now and, other than the left problem, there is plenty of life left in them after a full season and a work out at the Clubsport Nationals too.

I use 120Y struts, but no issues with pad knock-off yet. Always a nice firm pedal first time.

5 laps shouldn't really be a problem for a medium compound tyre. The same as the sprints we do over here. Surprised at the Dunlops, but I have no experience with them. They were considered the fastest tyre over here before the Yokohama A050 and Hankook Z221 came along, but I don't know what compound those guys were using.
Then again, some tyres are particularly setup sensitive. Kumhos are a good example. They suit some cars and can be unbelievably fast, others they're absolutely horrible on, and some like my old 180SX just delaminate them! I did 3 fronts in 2 sprint days - 2 of which blew out on turn-in to corners... Toyo R888s and Federal FZ201 had no problems with the same setup.

My rule of thumb with Dattos is to get the front LCAs near horizontal. Seems to be the sweet spot for setting up a nice roll axis front to rear. But maybe it just suits my driving style. There's certainly more than one way to skin a cat...