anti rollbar OR compression strut kit.

[fostersice]

ok as you may have seen in rebuilding the mk2 rs2000 and replacing everything old for new

 

i need to know whats best

 

anti rollbar fitted with double width kit and anti dive kit (fitted now)

OR

compression strut kit?

 

i am running coilovers

adjustable top mount

adjustable track contral arms

 

help please guys as car goes to paint and need make my mind up as i have the weld in the compression kit

 

dont know anything about the compression kit

 

thanks guys

[BIG G]

ive fitted tension struts to mine best thing i ever did handling wise turns in like a modern car now where with the ARB it pushed on like a bastard

[fostersice]

are they easy to set up?

 

any pictures

[BIG G]

 

 

 

 

There ya go good bit of kit from Rally design

[RS2kSX]

Comression Kit 4 me, welding the bracket was the hardest part

[fostersice]

i was told you had to mount them at the rear yours are at the front??????

[RS2kSX]

[fostersice]

ok so thats what im talking about

[pauln]

Got an Escort compression strut kit on my Cortina with no arb, much better than the arb.

[kevmk2]

Compression struts on mine, to compensate for no anti roll bar, up your spring rates by around 100lbs

And remember your offside tca has to go on the nearside and vice versa

[fostersice]

anyone want to come round and do some welding for me

 

need to weld compression kit mounts plus gussets before go's to paint

 

also will be selling the arb and antidive kit now lol

 

got the hump a bit now tough

 

3weeks ago the was a kit on ebay for £40 when i call burtons they told me to stay away from the compression kit as its no goood for a lowered escort on the road ?????

[fostersice]

Compression struts on mine, to compensate for no anti roll bar, up your spring rates by around 100lbs

And remember your offside tca has to go on the nearside and vice versa

 

thanks

 

running uprated springs anyway as was going for v6 cosworth and now only going for the 16v cosworth

[kevmk2]

Compression struts on mine, to compensate for no anti roll bar, up your spring rates by around 100lbs

And remember your offside tca has to go on the nearside and vice versa

 

thanks

 

running uprated springs anyway as was going for v6 cosworth and now only going for the 16v cosworth

 

Good move

[fostersice]

how much £ would i hope to get for the rs2000

anti roll bar

anti dive kit

double width kit

plus new poly bushes

????

[kevmk2]

I think any of the above work well.

My mate has standard anti roll bar with anti dive kit, but with middle bracket removed and it seems to work well.

All down to personal preferance i guess

[fostersice]

I think any of the above work well.

My mate has standard anti roll bar with anti dive kit, but with middle bracket removed and it seems to work well.

All down to personal preferance i guess

 

no im now going to be selling them bits of lol

[Retromotorsport]

standard arb, anti-dive .. 55 seconds round brands

same day

comp struts ... 58seconds

 

the difference,

the slower car had more rubber and power

[BIG G]

Yeah but were they driven by the same person as i beat a lambo round there as was driven by a numpty

[Retromotorsport]

the driver of the more powerful car isnt a numpty.. hes won his class championship ..

 

Ohhh and what is your laptime round there ????

[RS2kSX]

i found the car a lot more stable under braking, used to wander as the arb bent, sending the steering everywhere.

[Retromotorsport]

History lesson time ....

 

Back in the days of the works escorts, rallying all over the world on some of the bumpiest roads... well they wern't really roads .. but you've seen the pictures.. potholes that have miners getting the hardhats on etc ..

 

The ARB would bend on these International Forest /gravel events when it hit a hole, and quite often you would hit a cow or passing native.. so the sensible thing was to move the wheel ontrol behind the axle ... so they used Comp struts ... but on Tarmac events.. back to the ARB on Tarmac events.. the build manual even tells you to pre fit spare rubbers to the bar.

 

Now we move away from Rallying , as lets face it, not many south london style cars are doing the Acropolis this year.... and head to Tarmac only cars..ie Race cars .. now lots has been tried on the race cars ...sometimes stretching the rules a bit ...

 

Broadspeed cars.. unconfirmed but on good authority, they ran upper and lower wishbones with a modified MpPherson strut to stay in the rules .. the rules stating that extra links are allowed but type must remain the same .. at first the top arm picked up on a bracket that poked out through the inner wing from the crossmember, but this broke the rules ... so they cit the bracket and welded plates to the ends and bolted it , sandwhiching the inner wings .... clever, and works.. 1300gt's were beating Rs1600, and these cars where the ones that run front bubbles only because of the wider track.

 

Also the Alan Mann cars... new x-member moved forward and ran the steering rack inside it, just behind the original crossmember center line was another bracket to take the rear arm of the lower wishbone .. to stay within the rules the McPherson strut was till there, but was gutted internally and had no spring fitted, its job now reduced to being a sliding pillar .. the coil-over damper unit was fitted just inside of this ..

 

Those two are highly modified cars..

 

so lets look at what was almost road-going cars.. the Gp2/4 cars

 

The Gp2 and early Gp4 cars that raced in 75/76 used ARB's after using all sorts during the early 70's .. lowered front pick ups to get the bar flat at ride height, and 3 front fixings .. they used alloy blocks for these as the cars where pure race so it didnt matter that it was noisey. ... under this bar they sometimes used another thinner bar so they could drop the spring rates down for bumpy tracks .. notice... dropping springs rates.. not raising them ..

 

Not once did a they use compression struts ... A: becuse to get the geometry right to stop diving under braking the bar was too short having to sit almost on the horizontal part of the chassis leg, not the sloping part.

with a Rally kit, it sits halfway down, and when you lower the car its goes horizontal.. now under braking the bar goes past horizontal and the loads from the wheel want to push it back, and worse..up.. so it promotes dive, which increases camber, which is what you dont want on car thats braking, you want the wheel flat. maximumn tyre surface on the road .

 

Now with the ARB ... sitting almost horizontal .. as the loads pull the bar back, it wants to go flat, not pushed up.. so its stops the dive, and keeps the wheel flat under braking ... which equals shorter stopping distnaces over a comp strut car.

 

Plus from a design point of view .. you should have each part of a car doing more than one job.. so arb does the wheel control, plus teh anti-roll, where as with compstruts, you need to add an arb kit.

 

So you buy comp struts, designed for a forest car that sits up in the air and you also buy an ARB kit to suit it ... and you throw away the bit that did the same job, but better on your lowered car.. Hmmmmm

 

Now we are talking lowered cars here... and this is a problem .. when you lower the car, you swing the TCA end of the car up ... moving the leg back and losing a bit of castor..now escorts as standard dont run a lot of castor... and when you lower the car, and fit just and anti-dive kit ..you loose all castor .and the car will dart about all over the place ... Ever wondered why Ford come up with the Twin Cam ARB ...????

 

On a car thats running 13's ... and 175/50' .. fit an antidive, and grind the shoulder back on the original arb by 10mm ... this restores the castor .. jobs done for what.. less than 50 quid . Bigger wheels.. use the Twin-cam bar .

[BIG G]

What do you reakon of tension struts then. Surely they have the benefits of both worlds

[Retromotorsport]

they do... but only if you need to change ride heights often .. as you can wind the castor back on .. still cant see the point of buy something that replaces something that allready does the job ..

 

 

Its a case of ...must have them.. like adjustable TCAS... i mean if your cars lowered they are wound all the way in and still give too much neg camber for most road users.. but you've gotta have because everyones got em ...

 

 

Must say though.. i dont sell ARB's, comp struts or ten struts ,... and as i make my money welding ..i should be telling you all that you need comp struts, so i get work.. but i wont ...

[steve dray]

I bought a compression strut kit for my Anglia but decide against it after I did a geometry check, as my castor angles were spot on so no adjusting neccessary.

 

Check this link if anyone is still after one! http://www.oldskoolford.co.uk/phpBB2/vi ... p?t=100394