Ride height

[hammie]

After buying some Team dynamics 15x7 the edge of the side walls rub very slighlty on the arch in compression, as they came off a Westfield i naively assumed the off set was correct. It isnt marked on the wheel either so i cant check. This has prompted me to looking at the suspension settings which has highlighted  the ride height is out. Too low at the rear and too high at the front. 150 and 155 respectivily. So some adjustments to be made. I couldnt find however should the standard 170mm and 145mm be with weight (the driver) in the car or empty. My other way to prevent this is to loose a couple of stone, which will help with accelerating.

[Dave Eastwood (Gadgetman) - Club Chairman]

First question, and easiest, always consider all geometry figures to be with the driver in the car, that includes ride heights. There are a range of suitable geometry settings you can use on Westfields, depending on whether the car is mainly road, mainly track or a combination of both. These settings can then be tweaked further to take a drivers preferences into consideration - some like a very stable, planted feeling car, others prefer something more aggressive/nervous almost, with instant turn in etc. (this is where going to a specialist can pay dividends. It’s not just that they have the equipment to measure the geometry, more importantly it’s that they have the experience to work with you and find out what you want.)

However, Westfields should pretty much always have a rake (the difference in heights between the front to back) of around 15 to 35mm. (20/25mm is quite common). In other words, with the drivers weight in the car, (jerrycans or similar of water come in handy for simulating this), whatever the front height is, the rear should be around 25mm higher. (Or at least in that 15 - 35mm range)

Note that there are specific points to measure the front and rear ride heights from, so that everyone is using and comparing, the same points.

Wheels. That popping sound you hear, is the sound of a can of worms opening! If only it was as straight forward as that! It isn’t, I’m afraid.

Different current Westfield models use different offsets. But over the years, a big range of offsets have been used on the cars, for various reasons, from the factory. Some, will simply not work at all on other cars, as they foul wishbones, at the rear of the car. Some can be used, though perhaps requiring front cycle wing carriers to be packed out or bent, but have a slightly negative effect on steering geometry.

Sadly, it’s not really possible to just look at a car and say, oh, it’s a ‘99 or a ‘07, therefore it will be etXX at the front and etXX at the rear. The factory can often help, going off your vin number. But the most reliable method is to measure. However if you have a set of wheels that currently fit, then this is perfect. Measure those, work out what the etc is, and the size, (diameter and width); then changing wheel style but keeping the size the same is easy, and if you want different widths, there are on-line calculators we can point you to, that will work out what the eat of the new wheel would need to be...

[Onliest Smeg David]

As Dave said - a bit of trial and error trying out other owners known size wheels/tyres combinations can help. A good project 'tyre kicking' exercise for a club meet. 

Mines a factory built yr2000 SEiW, and came from factory with et35 15" 6.5 and toyo 195*50. The last owner had the ride height far too low also, which once set correctly 'for this individual Westie' made a heap of difference with better handling. I now run et35 15" 7.0 with toyo 195*50 which actually have slightly less but still plenty of clearance, but have also run et24 13" 7.0 with 185*60 Avons without issue. You don't say what tyres your running, and that can also impact - tbh imo many owners run far wider tyres than necessary for a road going Westfield to the possible detriment of clearance and handling.

[Dave Eastwood (Gadgetman) - Club Chairman]

Agreed Dave, you do see some seriously over-tyred Westfields, (and a lot of over-tyred Seven type cars) around.

Its very telling if you look at the Caterham range, just what size tyres they have at the different power levels, and these are cars that have had a lot of development and fine tuning done, to the extent that some are running Tyre versions developed especially for Caterham.

However, even the extremely high power 620R is not running on huge wheels!

[hammie]

14 minutes ago, Dave (OnliestSmeg) - Manchester AO said:

As Dave said - a bit of trial and error trying out other owners known size wheels/tyres combinations can help. A good project 'tyre kicking' exercise for a club meet. 

Mines a factory built yr2000 SEiW, and came from factory with et35 15" 6.5 and toyo 195*50. The last owner had the ride height far too low also, which once set correctly 'for this individual Westie' made a heap of difference with better handling. I now run et35 15" 7.0 with toyo 195*50 which actually have slightly less but still plenty of clearance, but have also run et24 13" 7.0 with 185*60 Avons without issue. You don't say what tyres your running, and that can also impact - tbh imo many owners run far wider tyres than necessary for a road going Westfield to the possible detriment of clearance and handling.

Hi,

Looks like the same as you, Seiw with 15x7 and 195x50 Toyo's.

 

I agree with your view on over wide tyres. I had a Fiat Coupe a few years back handled badely and tramlined , when went to manufactures spec it was transformed.

[hammie]

"Wheels. That popping sound you hear, is the sound of a can of worms opening! If only it was as straight forward as that! It isn’t, I’m afraid."

I thought it was the Gel coat on the wheel arches cracking. Good to know it was worms in a can.

[Dave Eastwood (Gadgetman) - Club Chairman]

6 minutes ago, hammie said:

I thought it was the Gel coat on the wheel arches cracking. Good to know it was worms in a can.

To be serious though, yes, you can find some, perhaps more extreme, more track orientated set ups, or just those that want to run good compliant road suspension, and have ther ear arches filled right to the edges, do sometimes find they need to “relieve” a little bit of material from the GRP return lip on the wheel arch. I wouldn’t go too far taking it off on a road car, as it does add strength. But you can certainly reduce it a bit, safely.

[Ali and Gail]

1999 SEiW et35 6.5 195/50/15 toyo's soon to be fitted. Ride height currently 140 at the front and 160 at the rear. This seems to be working well with the new Spax shocks and coilovers we've just fitted. The progressive springs on the rear are so much better as well.

[tc3nitro]

Where are the points you should take ride height readings from ?

[hammie]

23 minutes ago, tc3nitro said:

Where are the points you should take ride height readings from ?

I found a good write up in FAQs page 2 at the bottom before i posted but it didnt say with weight or not hence my post. There are some diagrams too.

[NigelO]

1 hour ago, hammie said:

I agree with your view on over wide tyres. I had a Fiat Coupe a few years back handled badely and tramlined , when went to manufactures spec it was transformed.

Hi Hammie - were you on the Coupe forum? I still have my modded Coupe, but the Westie is taking over as my go-to fun car

For what its worth, I also run 195/50 on my Westie - perfectly adequate for the power I'm running. To echo what others have said above, over-tyring a car is a common mistake. In fact, to repeat something I've said on the Coupe forum many times, wider tyres do not give any more grip, they just change the characteristics of the grip. For this reason, I run 215 section tyres on the Coupe, despite having close to 500bhp - it simply doesn't need any more width

[hammie]

24 minutes ago, NigelO said:

Hi Hammie - were you on the Coupe forum? I still have my modded Coupe, but the Westie is taking over as my go-to fun car

For what its worth, I also run 195/50 on my Westie - perfectly adequate for the power I'm running. To echo what others have said above, over-tyring a car is a common mistake. In fact, to repeat something I've said on the Coupe forum many times, wider tyres do not give any more grip, they just change the characteristics of the grip. For this reason, I run 215 section tyres on the Coupe, despite having close to 500bhp - it simply doesn't need any more width

I wasnt although i have searched on there not so long ago. A colleague had a 20v which was moth balled and he needed shot of it for garage space. Cleaned the mould off and sticky dash, second hand fuel cap and it went straight through the MOT after 3 years in the garage. He was gutted. Took me back 15 years plus. Sold it on eBay. I still have a couple of good fuel caps if there is a market for them.

The only other i use now are a Jaguar forum as i have an XF and 3 XJS's (my pension fund) 1x a4.0 coupe and 2 V12s convertible and a shooting forum as i shoot competively.

[Dave Eastwood (Gadgetman) - Club Chairman]

3 minutes ago, hammie said:

The only other i use now are a Jaguar forum as i have an XF and 3 XJS's (my pension fund) 1x a4.0 coupe and 2 V12s convertible and a shooting forum as i shoot competively.

Calling @Stuart Faulkner - Shows & Events Coordinator !! You too seem to have rather a lot in common!  

[hammie]

6 minutes ago, Dave Eastwood (Gadgetman) - Club Secretary said:

Calling @Stuart Faulkner - Shows & Events Coordinator !! You too seem to have rather a lot in common!  

Is that good or bad?

[Dave Eastwood (Gadgetman) - Club Chairman]

Stu's a big Jag fan and chairman of his local shooting club!