1999 Toyota Corolla - The unlikely candidate...

Amphoteric88 · Postby **Amphoteric88** » Wed May 17, 2017 11:43 pm

Oh my! Good to know. Oh, and here's a quick comparison of my old strut performance and the Tercel's new struts:
Corolla and Tercel
And a bonus video of the old strut in action.

No door frames were hurt in the making of these GIFs.

Postby **Loren** » Thu May 18, 2017 12:12 am

That is going to be SO nice when you get it dialed in!

Once you get the alignment sorted, start playing with your shock adjustments. Go full range soft and stiff and a couple places in-between. Get a feel for things.

To properly adjust them, you want to find "critical damping". That's where the shocks are just stiff enough to control the oscillation of the springs. Work one end at a time. Start full soft, and dial them stiffer until driving over a healthy bump (reasonable RR crossing or speed bump, something like that... hit both sides of the car fairly smoothly and repeatably). Find the adjustment point where the suspension recovers from that without an extra bounce after it. Just a once and done. Let the springs suck up the bump, and the shocks control the recovery.

With that, if the rest of the suspension is balanced (spring rates, ride height, bump stops, sway bars, alignment, etc), the car should handle nicely. If it needs some fine-tuning from there (FWD car... will probably still understeer), you can dial the end that is losing grip softer OR the opposite end stiffer for a quick and easy fix. For autocross, you'll usually want to dial the opposite end stiffer. (so, you'll probably stiffen the rear shocks a bit for autocross as needed) If you have to go to EXTREMES on the shock adjustment (like full stiff on the rear shocks), you are probably band-aiding a problem that would be better solved with a hardware change (like stiffer rear springs, or swaybar... or even taller/stiffer bump stops).

Welcome to the black art of suspension tuning!

mymomswagon · Postby **mymomswagon** » Mon Jun 12, 2017 2:42 pm

Hi OP not sure if you pulled trigger on tires but here's what appears to be a bargain for a UHP tire.

I DON'T have experience with them. Trolling for reviews, opinions seem to be very good dry grip, lousy wet grip. Maybe an autox only tire choice.

With shipping, my cart shows ~$173.

Edit: vendor is simpletire.com

Too bad I just bought tires

[IMG]https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201706 ... f6e4ad.jpg[/IMG]

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Postby **Native** » Mon Jun 12, 2017 6:40 pm

mymomswagon wrote:Too bad I just bought tires

Aw maannnn....

buy some anyway!

mymomswagon · Postby **mymomswagon** » Mon Jun 12, 2017 11:36 pm

Native wrote:
mymomswagon wrote:Too bad I just bought tires
Aw maannnn.... buy some anyway!

ummm...maybe

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Amphoteric88 · Postby **Amphoteric88** » Fri Jul 14, 2017 9:54 pm

An update:
The front motor mount has been replaced; after it sheared in half. Now there's no terrible shudder on take off. And I have found the source of the power steering leak...
Here's the video; you may need to set the resolution to HD to see the leak in action.
Thanks to Ed for helping me with that. I had thought maybe the pump was leaking, since I saw most of the fluid down under. Now I understand why there was so much so low!
Good thing I decided against running in the last few events

Anyways, time to find a new hose, and a new pressure sensor for the pump. Tomorrow (14th July) I'll be working on the drums. Hopefully I won't have them screeching like the last time I ran.

Good things are coming... they just take their time getting here!