Thread: Widening Track

Originally Posted by uninformed

Dougal if I remember correctly you have a RRC and run 29's?

If your on stock height springs your front axle roll axis is about 0 degrees (neither under or oversteer), the rear axle is about 4-6 degrees roll oversteer....aparantly designd into the vehcile as its rear body side area would catch wind if crossing say a bridge over a valley, then it would lean over on the soft springs, and cause the rear to steer back into the wind....pretty clever in my mind. Now with this in mind, and having the rear roll center higher in the rear, which tends to make a chassis "loose" which would let the rear come loose first, Im thining they kinda balance each other in feel but still work there jobs

If you put in longer springs your rear axle roll axis will only increase oversteer....I myself have something stupid like 10 degrees in the rear and 6 degrees in the front...that only with 2.5 inch lift. I am very use to it and Id much rather oversteer than understeer. IMO the fulltime 4wd helps also...just dont back off the throtle too much if you start to loose traction in a corner haha

CSK was a bloody legend in my book

Yes, with the 29's I can stay low, stay stable and still have full articulation. Well worth it IMO.
I am maybe 1 inch higher ride height than factory, it's hard to pin down the exact height it was stock. For a while it was 2 inches higher in the back, that was when it was tail-happy.

The axle geometry (roll centres and roll axis) are one indicator of oversteer/understeer, but spring and bushing rates fill in the rest. I run poly bushings in the front radius arms to give more roll-stiffness (sway bar effect) and keep it more neutral handling. With softer bushings in the front it loads the back tyres more and makes oversteer more likely. I wonder if the OP ever had sway bars in his D1. Wonder if he's still got them?

what poly bushes do you run in the front? A few of us are running the Super Pro poly bushes and these seem to give more articulation that the OEM rubber, though if you have the early narrow arms it the may be on par. Now how they handle at road speeds/travel compared to rubber, I have no idea???

do the spring and bushes come more into play during acceleration and braking because of how they control weight distribution?

All this hoo har for a simple bit of stability and greater carrying capacity

I was in a similar position a while back and was going to make up a full width basket that mounted to the rear door and sat on the rear bar of my then V8 LPG/petrol D1 as i had a in cab tank and limited space .

After hours of buggerising around trying to make it all work which it was going to and maby will again go into production now i have another D1 tho I made a simple fix to the load space drama

I brought a TRAILER

Originally Posted by vogue

What is the most offset you can go before you need to cut and put on flares?
I gather i could go more offset it i run a narrower tyre like a 235/85???

I had 235/85's on 25mm offset rims, giving a track increase of 50mm over stock, it felt much more stable off road than with stock rims, 2" lift also

Originally Posted by lokka

All
I brought a TRAILER

I'm putting a set of 8 leaf springs and basically lifting my standard 6x4 by 2 inches for 200 bucks. Add 3 33 inch all terrains at 600 bucks the lot and life will be alot easier. I also have a d1 v8 and last years high country trip was a nightmare with heaps on the roof, I have 25mm offset rims already. Go the trailer mate, no amount of offset is going to stabilize 200 kilos of kit on the roof.

Originally Posted by jazzaD1

I had 235/85's on 25mm offset rims, giving a track increase of 50mm over stock, it felt much more stable off road than with stock rims, 2" lift also

Were they 16x7 or 16x8?

I have done the trailer thing and i don't want to go there again. There are only 3 of us and the Disco is fine if i could put 50kg max on the roof.
I will look into castor solutions.
I love the Disco and generally am happy with the way it handles, i am just looking for some ways to improve it.
Would stiff rollbars with disconects help?

And yes i do need a 2" lift and min 31" tyres for the places i like to go.

I'm with you on the trailer thing, just because, as is so often found, there's a very tight limit on what can go in the back and on your roof. I was thinking of reinforcing my basic little 6x4 trailer and changing the springs and wheels as well.

Up here, at this of the year, it's like a big laboratory studying what you can get away with when loading up. We must see every kind of tourist up here, and some of the roof rack loads are horrendous. It's only very busy guardian angels that keep those vehicles upright. You can almost see their little handprints on the sides.

There are also an enormous amount of camper trailers. These make sense . . . er, that is, until they also get to be huge. And when you see a heavily overloaded 4wd, with a two foot pile on the roof, and a big trailer that's overdone too, well, I wonder how it got to this point when a couple of decades ago it was common to travel in a regular-sized car with a little trailer on the back.

Originally Posted by uninformed

what poly bushes do you run in the front? A few of us are running the Super Pro poly bushes and these seem to give more articulation that the OEM rubber, though if you have the early narrow arms it the may be on par. Now how they handle at road speeds/travel compared to rubber, I have no idea???

do the spring and bushes come more into play during acceleration and braking because of how they control weight distribution?

Not sure what brand they are (it's been a long time), but they are blue, don't have any extra holes or voids and are a lot stiffer than the stock steel/rubber bushings.

Your springs/swaybars/bushings are the final tuning to bully the geometry you start with into behaving the way you want. In the simplest form it boils down to increasing the roll-stiffness at the end you want to break loose first.