Blink Motorsport Geo Setup, Feels Like A Westfield Again!

[Dave Eastwood (Gadgetman) - Club Chairman]

First off big, big, thanks to Richard and Fraser at BLiNK for their hard work, (Fraser was even seen to sweat at one point!); the car felt fantastic again on the way home!

It's a few years now since the geo was last properly set up, and for most of that time the car has felt brilliant for it's spec. However the last 12 months has seen the odd minor suspension related job, (changing split rack gaiters - now twice) and the major pulling apart over winter to fit the Playskool ARBs on the front and rear. So a full geo set up was always planned to top off the mods.

The interesting thing is that despite best efforts measuring and marking up before removing parts etc to put them back "as they were", just how far out they were. Something that became very obvious driving the car, it never felt dangerous, but certainly didn't feel like a Westfield should. So, a date was booked and over to BLiNK I went.

Everything was ready for me when I arrived, even down to the line of mugs in the reception/office area. So it was straight on to the ramps ready to have the wheel sensors fitted. (Apologies for the grainy pics - forgot my flash gun )

Car loaded up with enough weights to simulate me in the drivers seat, tyre pressures checked and up in the air it goes.

Richard starts loosening the rear wheels...

Ready to whip them off, so that they can get at the rose joints, ready for adjustment. One of the O/S rose joints proved a bit, er, challenging, sorry.

And so the process of wheels on/wheels off begins. First step, checking and then adjusting the ride heights; here you can see them using the side to side chassis rail at the bottom of the rear bulkhead as the datum.

Once the ride height, front and rear had been set, (mine was a little low at the back and had lost some of its front to rear rake this time around). The guys started attaching the targets to the wheels.

This is one of a number of different clamp options they've got - specially chosen by BLiNK and supplied by Hunter to fit on cycle winged cars.

[Dave Eastwood (Gadgetman) - Club Chairman]

Here we go, target on.

The sort of round black part is the target,

The dotty bits you can see facing forward are reflectors, the big gantry in front of the car uses cameras to precisely pick up the position of each of the targets and work out exactly where your wheels are and the directions they're pointing in.

The black disk you can see under this front wheel is a turn plate - it allows them to turn the front wheels on the spot without friction/drag upsetting the readings or the tyre or suspension twisting/distorting.

Here you can see the first readings after nothing but ride height had been corrected.

As I said before, amazing how even small discrepancies really throw the actual settings out!

This then was the starting point for the geo set up proper, to begin.

[Dave Eastwood (Gadgetman) - Club Chairman]

A very busy afternoon then followed, as the camber and toe settings for the rear wheels were first adjusted, including a bit of a head scratching moment with the OS toe behaving strangely; thankfully Richard and Fraser bring many years of working on specialist road and race cars to bear on these little hiccups with Richard identifying a bit of "manufacturing tolerance" in the lower wishbone causing it to distort slightly when tightened, once correctly shimmed the problem was soon fixed.

It's nice to have perfectionists working on the car when things like this crop up; there's no "it'll do", "no one'll ever know", just solutions.

Once the rear's been done, fiddly, because on a Westfield, the wheels have to come off to adjust the joints, they could move on to the fronts. Here proper camber adjusters on the factory wide track meant that all the adjustments could be done with the wheels. Again, camber and toe were set.

Having changed from the track based Toyo R888s to more road friendly R1Rs, we needed to change the target settings somewhat, as the R888s like loads of camber. The actual settings we used in the end have been developed by BLiNK over many years of both road and particularly track testing of their own and customers cars, (it's handy having your own racing driver in the business), with a couple of tweaks to suit the style of handling I like.

The final step was a quick five minute loop round the local roads taking in the handy industrial estate; it was good to wave good by to the squirming under braking and evil tram-lining I'd had before.

The car's feeling sooo much more grippy and planted now, and much more neutral in the corners. I had a really enjoyable drive back home, it's nice to be driving a Westfield again.

Thanks, and highly recommended.

[walkerhill]

What settings did you use in the end?

[Hoon68]

Where are Blink based? Sounds like thet have done a great job for you. Were they expensive?

[Dave Eastwood (Gadgetman) - Club Chairman]

They're in Winsford, Cheshire, not too far from Oulton Park track. Bit far for you from the South Coast though

Pricing was very good, though my car needed extra time spent on freeing off that siezed rose joint before it could be adjusted, and finding the slightly wide of tolerance wishbone; so best have a word with them directly.

[KugaWestie]

Sounds like a good job done

[carbonizer]

Gadgetman, that would have made a good write up/feature ad for the WW mag.

[Mat Jackson]

Want kind of cost is involved in this?

[Wee Dov]

Great write up mate,sounds like that has made a big difference to your car .

[Cleggy the Spyder Man]

looking like a really good setup they have their - must have taken shed loads of work to get the unit looking professional and a shed load of cash to purchase the machinery - brave move in times as they are at the moment

all the best to them

[Dave Eastwood (Gadgetman) - Club Chairman]

Want kind of cost is involved in this?

Best to have a chat with them and get a quote, as I say, mine needed a bit of extra faffing around with 'cause of the rose joint and wishbone, so not sure what it would have been without.

Good value though, not, IIRC, that much more than I paid three or four years ago and only a bit more than I paid to have it done at the original Plays Kool six or seven years ago! Not bad considering how technology has moved on, and the investment needed nowadays.

[peterg]

Car loaded up with enough weights to simulate me in the drivers seat

just how many bags of cement did thay have to use Dave?

[Dave Eastwood (Gadgetman) - Club Chairman]

Let's put it this way, they ran out of normal weights and there was at least one cylinder head and set of brake discs in there

Thank God I've been loosing weight; this time last year, they'd have had to balance an MX5 on top as well.

[Nic Chase (NICO) - Shropshire & Mid-Wales AO]

Thanks Dave, that was a very informative report