Escort with a Lift!

[ajax]

I'm prepping my car for LSPR and I realized that using my 10" springs minus the helper springs and I gain a couple of inches.

I have no idea where I'm at with regard to stock but it looks pretty high. It's at least a 2 inches higher than I was, probably more because those helper springs suck up a lot of the travel. I suppose I could measure the old springs and the difference in the free and compressed lengths of the helper springs. I think the back needs to come up a little more but I'm pretty happy with where the front is at.

[Mazda_Powered]

looks high to me! nice boob jiggling too

[tireboy]

can you post a pic of your struts???

[ajax]

Sure!

This was installed before Sno*Drift this year. The only difference between this and now is that the red helper spring isn't installed. (And different spring rates but the springs don't look any different.)



These are what they used to look like.



Old installed



Disassembled



Rears



Fronts and rears, gravel springs before Sno*Drift.



I'll probably leave the car in the gravel set up through the winter although it's pretty easy to swap the springs out. The only PITA part is when the top mounts get bent so bad that they have to be hammered out. I've really got to straighten and reinforce my front strut towers.

Edit: If there's something specific you want to see, I'd be more than happy to take pictures of it and post. Also, look how squished the helper springs in the front are compaired to the ones in the rear. The rears have pretty much no preload.

I took the helpers out in the front because they're pretty much just taking up travel. There's maybe an inch and a half of travel I wouldn't be using because of them. The H&R springs are 8" and the Hotbits springs are 10" so I just moved the spring perch up the difference between the H&Rs with the helpers and the Hotbits springs. The rears I raised the rear spring perches up about 1.5-2 inches.

[FE3-323]

crazy, but i like the goods- until i read the last part i was thinking to myself why didn't he take out the front helpers

[SgtRauksauff]

Awesome!!

We're heading up to LSPR friday, we should be up there during the middle of the day I think, I'm not sure exactly what time we'll be leaving.

Where are you staying, I'll try to look you up. I see Dave's your navigator, so I'm sure we'll run into you since we usually visit with him a bit.

How do the Cusco mounts handle the rally conditions? I see you mantioned something about hammering them flat.. is it the mounts that bend, or do they bend because the tops of the towers are just weak and need reinforcing?

--sarge

[FE3-323]

^good info id like to know as well

[ajax]

Dave was my co-driver at Sno*Drift, the last event I ran. I too will talk to Dave at some point. I'm actually staying with a friend of mine who goes to school there. If you're interested, just PM me and I'll give you my cell number if you wanna go have a beer.

As for the Cusco mounts, there are many people who are interested in how they will handle it. I expect them to bend some but that's because the top part of the strut tower is a little dome shaped too. The strut tower definitely needs to be reinforced but that is something I don't think I'll get to before LSPR. (Hopefully I don't regret not setting more time aside for it.) Derrick Ambrose from Corksport didn't say anything one way or another when I mentioned that I was using them for rallying.

The weak point I think is the aluminum plate that the studs are mounted into. If I happen to break it, I think I'm going to try and build myself a custom one.

[tireboy]

thats it ... i'm saving my $$$$ . i need some of those for my 323...

[ajax]

Is that you Ryan? Did you change your handle? You're confusing the crap out of me. I reread your post and realized that I didn't really answer your question. The camber plates handled Sno*Drift all right but I haven't done a gravel event with them yet. They rusted a little and you don't get that much camber out of them as I was expecting but those are my only complaints.

Tireboy, the camber plates ended up being about $250 after tax and shipping and the struts were about $1700 after tax and shipping and took 2 weeks to get in. They're basically custom but they're fully rebuildable. I should have gotten the remote canisters but the guy I bought them from said that they can always put them on later which I'll probably do when I go to get them rebuilt before 100AW.

[SgtRauksauff]

I had JVL build me a set of 40mm Bilsteins, and when I sent him the front and rear Cuscos, so he had them for fitting, he remarked that the bearings were really tiny. He didn't mention anything about the plate thickness or strength, though.

--sarge

[FE3-323]

yep, tis me

[ajax]

Update!

Check out these balloons!



So high off the ground.



Actually high enough that I can drive over a spray can without knocking it over.



And for those that are interested, current pictures of the suspension.

[FE3-323]

serious ground clearance going on.
id love to be passenger on one of these events. sure would be fun

[ajax]

If you can make it up on Friday practice is from 5-7pm and I can give people rides during practice.