suspention setup

[The Duck 4]

Hi All

I have a SE (Escort MkII Axle). Everyone I speak to mainly have SEIs. The odd few who have SEs all have different ideas on setup, anti roll bars front, not on the rear or the other way around, or both ends, or not at all.

Some people say that the diff makes a diffrence Plate diff or ATB diff. Some say wide track, some say narrow track.

Or is it plain and simply, the way i drive (no comments thank you, the people that know who i am) that makes the car over steer  all the time and makes it all very hard work to drive the thing.    

[Blatman 641]

If it really is VERY oversteery all the time, and not just in the crappy weather, there may well be something fundamentally wrong. If it's more prone to oversteer one way rather than another, I'd look for a leaky rear shock or a spring problem. If it's both ways, then comparative spring rates front and rear, and front camber/toe need looking at.

What are the fronts set to at the moment, and what are the spring rates?

[owlscastle 1]

I had the same problem with my SE when I first got it. I found the rear suspension was too hard, ie damper settings. I set the rear dampers too almost as soft as poss, front about middle setting. I assume you dont have the rear springs too stiff, because that will make problems as well. I have found best set- up is the same as a RWD escort, hard at the front soft at the rear. Dony use a plate LSD, use a quaife one.

PS Make sure the rear dampers are not reaching the endstop, because that will cause oversteer as well.

[Paul@Plays-Kool 1]

Oversteer is great, all the pics you see of me are the ones with the car sideways or backwards, cos I HATE understeer!

On a live axle car, if all else fails, check the axle case is straight.  If the rear axle has toe out, then the car will be a handful.  As suggested before, check shock, bushes & the trailing arm pickups as these have been known to break on older cars. Make sure the shocks have enough travel & set the car at full soft to see if it still oversteers.  That plate diff will induce power oversteer with ease, especially on a car as powerfull as yours (Yes Steve it is a VX so no need for any fires).

Have fun, not understeer!

Paul

[ACW 191]

When I drove you car it had a slight oversteer tendency but nothing I though could not be tuned a little.

Looking at pictures of you in the car It looked like you were really close to you bump stops.

If you are comressing the bump stops the spring rates will be 1000's lbs which should give wicked understeer. This would also explain why you have previous reported it suddenly snapping around as you bash the BS.

Also pictures of your car show a nose up attitiude. try lowering the front an inch and raising the rear an inch and a half or so and see what it is like.

if you slip a small length of rubber hose split down the middle and held in place with a loose tywrap on your shocker you can measure maximum bump to see if you are bouncing on the BS.

[JulianS 0]

I know that I am bouncing on my bump-stops occasionally ,  so what should/could I do about this?

Cheers

Julian

[ian crocker 0]

You might have toe-out on the front.  While a lot of people use toe-out on SEis in conjunction with toe-in at the back, the SE seems to be very tail happy with toe-out at the front.

Ian