Lowering a car usually increases body roll as you move the roll centre further away from the centre of gravity, hence the reason lowering coils have high spring rates in an attempt to reduce this. It depends what you want to use the car for, a track based solution with minimal available damper travel ( especially rear) is going to be potentially uncomfortable on the road whereas a road setup is inevitably a compromise. The Konis and the height adjustable Ohlins preserve rear damper travel to some extent whereas on the Meisters it's very limited on the NC
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Hi Lucas,
to be honest you have asked question after after question, all techy stuff but you appear to have your head on your shoulders in many areas, i.e. you have done some fault finding but it has been replacement diagnosis techniques rather than first principal fault finding, i.e. diagnose then repair rather than bombshell the problem with possible solutions and keep the finger crossed.
Equally you are asking questions about suspension set ups, WOW, these are so subjective and in brief what do you want from the car? All road use, track day use, autocross etc, there are so many variables here that could blind you.
In short my advice is to call the real experts, have a chat about what you want from your car and make informed purchases from the real experts. Look at my signature for example, the suspension I have suits me well but this was after hours of disscusions with BBR, especially regarding the ARBs.
Half the problem is that you may ask the question on multiple forums about an NC, well intentioned folks will tell you what works well with their NA/NB but this solution will notwork well on the NC.
I would simply advise that you e mail or call the company that I bought all my kit from, BBR on 01280700700 and discuss your specific requirements. Everyone will tell you their set up is the best because they will rarely have consulted with genuine experts and will never accept that better kits, model specific are out there.
My current suspension set up, all BBR cost around ÂŁ1k give or take and it suits me well, others may hate it though hence my advice to speak to those that actually understand how suspension actually works.
No-one on this forum understands your specific needs, a 10 min chat with Neil will set you right..
HTH.
Lowering a car usually increases body roll as you move the roll centre further away from the centre of gravity, hence the reason lowering coils have high spring rates in an attempt to reduce this. It depends what you want to use the car for, a track based solution with minimal available damper travel ( especially rear) is going to be potentially uncomfortable on the road whereas a road setup is inevitably a compromise. The Konis and the height adjustable Ohlins preserve rear damper travel to some extent whereas on the Meisters it's very limited on the NC
Would fitting different drop link bushes or a different anti roll bar counter the tendency to roll more? I've just fitted a set of Meisters (as in yesterday), admittedly without as yet paying much attention to setting them correctly, and I did notice today the car rolled a bit, especially at the rear. I also have some unwanted knocking over small bumps, especially noticeable on a surface akin to a washboard (Bedfordshire roads are in an appalling state in places) I'm looking for a fix for the knocking and to get the most out of coilovers that cost about 40% of the cars value
I believe there is some good info supplied above re springs, dampers and ARBs.
You probably don't want to hear this but Meisters are a great coil over on some cars, notably the Mk1/Mk2 but they do not have a great reputation on the Mk3 for road use, sometimes less can be more and can free up cash to spend on the likes of a good set of ARBs.
What springs are you currently using? I trust you have not used the original springs and are using something with an increased spring rate? Also a set of ARBs that work in tune with your dampening and spring rates is IMHO, essential for the NC to reduce it's tendency to roll.
When I first fitted the full BBR bespoke Koni/Spring set up I still found to much roll, I spoke with BBR and we discussed the issue I was having, Neil went off and did some research and came back with a recommendation to try a set of Racing Beat (25mm front ARB) for road use, they do a 32mm bar as well, both with matched rear ARBs but the 32mm is stricktly a track item and would not work well on the road.
The knock does sound like a failed droplink though, as for the bounce on a washboarded surface, it may sound counter intuitive but try setting the damper rebound setting, I assume the Meisters only have a rebound setting rather than a compression and rebound, a bit harder.
I speak through experience of setting the Koni shocks from their lowest setting, you need to tune them to work in harmony with the springs you have, the bounce you describe sounds exactly like I had with the OEM Bilstein and Eibach springs, they were under damped causing the bounce, when setting p the Konis I went through this similar phase until I knocked them up a couple or three clicks.
In all honesty though is speak directly to a real expert, BBR is a good starting point, there are of course other tuning 'experts' out there but in all honesty there are few that understand and implement complete packages as well as BBR do.
I hope this is of some use to you.
ng different drop link bushes or a different anti roll bar counter the tendency to roll more? I've just fitted a set of Meisters (as in yesterday), admittedly without as yet paying much attention to setting them correctly, and I did notice today the car rolled a bit, especially at the rear. I also have some unwanted knocking over small bumps, especially noticeable on a surface akin to a washboard (Bedfordshire roads are in an appalling state in places) I'm looking for a fix for the knocking and to get the most out of coilovers that cost about 40% of the cars value