ALFAGTV6.COM

[Mats]

It's quite possible (cause of the understeer that is, I'm pretty sure I have 6 cylinders down under).

So....would it be as simple as mounting the battery in the trunk and ditching the AC or something to get rid of the understeer? The differnece between the two engines is 75-100lbs right? I guess the v6 block is longer..

But regardless, I know people have said otherwise on these 116 cars, but if you do that same move on just about any other car in the world and it will upset the balance of the car..even if cornering speeds increase.

Upset what balance, you just said you had terminal understeer?
Move all the weight back that you can actually move, throw away everything else. AC? Does it even work on such an old car?

My first guess is that the V6 block is shorter since there is only ~3½ cylinders in line. I'll measure next time I'm i the garage, got some stuff standing around.

If you cant get a 30mm, go for the 33.

So you have the 30mm bars and the custom Bilstein coils?? Dang....I guess my plan to go with 27mm bars is kid's stuff. Maybe with my lack of spring rate, a bigger AR-bar would be beneficial?

No, I have no torsion bars, custom coilover Bilsteins only.

Mats what the difference between yellow Koni's and coil-over Bilsteins?
I mean are they alot better than the Koni's? My Koni's are great, but would like to hear about the Bilsteins!!

The Konis obviously have a very different desig spec then the Bilsteins. While the Konis seems to be designed to work with stock springrates the Bilsteins work very well with both the stock stuff (yes, they are a bit over dampened) with the harder springs is where they really shine. Low speed rates are excellent and they have an overflow option if you hit a pothole, they just swallow it.
The Konis however are super soft in the low speed area, yes they are adjustable but only on rebound which you can adjust from useless to useless, both extremes on the scale, with the distinctiveness and feel of playing the flute with heavy mittens.
This means that the Konis will not work correctly with harder springs but you can make it feel "sporty" if you dial in some rebound, pesonally I only get motion sick by doing that. The Konis also get incredibly stiff if you hit a pothole or a step in the asphalt or whatever so the car feels like it's going to fall apart.

Conclusion; if you have Konis and like them you will think that the Bilsteins are harsh the first time you drive if because they actually do what they are designed to do. Over time you will however realize exactly how crappy the Konis are because you will start to notice that as soon as you drive over ~50Km/h the Bilsteins actually do some good on the car and you will gain grip and responsiveness of the car, you can actually feel what the car is doing and more importantly you can predict what will happen in the near future.

[Maurizio]

That does sound balanced. Was it this way when you just had the thick front sway bar and stock springs and t-bars? Like I said, I got gobs of understeer with just a bigger front sway bar and the 27mm T-bars and matching springs.

Mats, gives the answer. I'm talking 4 cil here.


My street V6 understeers. It became better with the ar bar but still understeers. This car is also ultra low at the front so RC is a pretty example of how not to do it And this is why I love the 4 cil, much more light footed.
The v6 is a nice travel (long distance) car, for fun I prefer the ts.

ps moving the weight is a good start.
I ditched the power steering and battery is behind the passenger seat on the ts.

[MD]

I ditched the power steering .......

...ah, welcome to the club. Another bloke who wear his pants the right way round..

...errr. that is not implying anything !!

[scott.venables]

Pace Engineering-Vin Sharp
61 3 9844 0147 Park Orchards, Melbourne
Can't find an email address though.

There's a bit of weight you can take out of the front. Battery, AC compressor and condenser, PS, heavy US bumpers, front flywheel(not easy though).

Scott

[Echo Leader]

Move all the weight back that you can actually move, throw away everything else. AC? Does it even work on such an old car?

That's a good question actually. I think in my 10 months of ownership, I've never tried mine. Are the AC components easy to remove and re-install should I ever revert the car back to OEM in order to sell?

Though, God forbid I actually have to do this....

The US front bumper really is rather heavy, as Scott says. Anyone have a line on a set of Euro GTV6 bumpers? Or is the recommendation to save all the weight and just go bumperless?

No, I have no torsion bars, custom coilover Bilsteins only.

Sweeet "Custom" meaning "I made these!" or "Bilstein made these just for me!"?

While the Konis seems to be designed to work with stock springrates the Bilsteins work very well with both the stock stuff (yes, they are a bit over dampened) with the harder springs is where they really shine.

This is great to hear, I've been enjoying mine so far and I'm excited that they're a bit overdamped for the stock spring rates. Hopefully they pair well with the 27mm bars, as I think that's as aggressive as I want to go for me first step. Though Andy at performatek.com says that he thinks the 27mm bars 'probably should have been the OEM part!', so maybe they really aren't as aggressive as I seem to think?

Maurizio, the more you talk about the TS, the more I wish they'd brought them here. Why US market? Why do you suck so mightily?!

[fedezyl]

I have 27mm bars from Performatek and the matching springs, I have also the yellow konis too ( I know...young and stupid ) on the Giulie, I haven't tried it on the track yet, but on the road it feels nice, it isn't super low as you can see on the pictures and the ride on the road is pretty nice, it also has the stock AR bar, we'll see once she's ready how she does on the track though

[Mats]

Power steering isn't necessary unless you are going to massive tires or low-ET rims. My car has a 1.9 turn quick-rack w/o PS. Works well. Remember, we're not optimizing for parallell parking here.

Custon in this case means "The guy who built the car made the control arms and had Bilstein make the shocks to his spec".

That Andy guy seems like a nice guy, I think he is absolutely right!

[grant]

Nah Mats, I mean if you put a humongo sway bar on the front of a....RX-7 or something that was nuetral before, it's gonna understeer like crazy after that. I've tried it before. 116's are a bit tricky.

[Echo Leader]

Custon in this case means "The guy who built the car made the control arms and had Bilstein make the shocks to his spec".

That Andy guy seems like a nice guy, I think he is absolutely right!

Sounds awesome. Is there any geometry adjustment done in the design of your tubular control arms, or is it in the drop spindle only? And in what state of tune did you buy the car?

Andy does seem like a cool guy, and it seems like he has good products to offer....

[Daniel]

Want less understeer ? You either need to reduce the rear roll (create oversteer) or increase the front roll.

The V6 engine is perfect for balancing the under/oversteer.
Trail throttle in - understeer, boot it mid corner - oversteer.

As to 4 cylinder engines, I think the old saying goes "only milk comes in 2L containers"

[Mats]

grant: yes, but that car is balanced from the start as you said, the 116 chassis has fenomenal understeer built into the chassis because of the out-of-this-world body roll. The de-Dion does a nice job to keep the rear camber but the front camber goes out the window. So we need to make the car much more roll-stiff before the normal rules apply.

Not sure what changes are done exactly but the spindles are corrected for bump-steer.

Daniel: Are you talking standard car? To counter incredible understeer by adding understeer sounds less then ideal (for laptimes), might work as a fix though.

[Echo Leader]

grant: yes, but that car is balanced from the start as you said, the 116 chassis has fenomenal understeer built into the chassis because of the out-of-this-world body roll. The de-Dion does a nice job to keep the rear camber but the front camber goes out the window. So we need to make the car much more roll-stiff before the normal rules apply.

I think this is the main reason Ron Simons and Co. are recommending the 30mm Front AR-bar as a major improvement. It seems a simple way to get the front rather roll-stiff. I guess that even with high front spring rates on the RSR coils that amount of front bar is still beneficial? Makes it seem like either the geometry changes are a major player or the RSR coil spring rates aren't that outrageously high...

Not sure what changes are done exactly but the spindles are corrected for bump-steer.

Bummer, I'd like to get a feeling for just how radically I'd have to modify the front geometry in order to eliminate roll tendency to the point where a massive front AR-bar isn't required.

[TS_turbo]

Bummer, I'd like to get a feeling for just how radically I'd have to modify the front geometry in order to eliminate roll tendency to the point where a massive front AR-bar isn't required.

higher roll centre,lower gravity center, wide track

[Mats]

Just remove all the stuff that doesn't lower laptimes and optimize the stuff that does. Then you don't need a huge AR-bar, a huge bar is probably less expensive though...

[grant]

Echoleader,

Look at the spring rates Ron has on his website, then convert those to lbs/inch.. I think you'll find that his spring rates are quite high, compared to anything short of 33mm bars we can buy in the states.

A member of the alfabb was telling me on the phone today that with his stiff (out of the available options that Ron has) set of springs, some moderately bumpy roads that he used to enjoy driving on became very un-fun and bumpy. So yes, RSR spring rates are quite high, to the benefit of the track enthusiast, but not so much daily driving and bakc roads.

And yeah, I agree with what Mats said about keeping body roll in check first, then using traditional methods of getting a car to handle.

Here's a question: If RSR removes roll, which gets around the poor camber gain charactersitics, can a car with RSR benefit from drop spindles then? Does a higher roll center on these cars help grip, or just effect the amount of rolling a car wants to do? I think I remember reading tha troll centers effect the way that forces are applied onto the tire, onto the road (laterally or vertically..)

I'm installing drop spindles this weekend, but I was unable to take measurements this weekend on the grip the car is making....

I can tell you it's very poor up front right now though

I'm just wondering how the car will handle with a 28mm front bar and 26mm rear bar with the drop spindles? Before, the 26mm rear bar wasn't enough to get rid of the understeer! Anyone wanna make some predictions on whether the rear bar will be too much after this conversion??