Setting Ride Height

After putting another 250 miles on Lupa, I felt it was time to adjust the ride height before getting the alignment done. With the temps a very comfortable 60F in February, I took a nice relaxing drive up the Taconic to see Rad so we could make quick work out of making the changes. The front was definitely a bit too low causing some rubbing on relatively mild bumps and the rear too high. Actually, I'd say it was closer to stock height in the rear.

Adjusting the ride height - 2/28/2016

I'm a strong believer that the Honda designers for the S2000 got the suspension geometry perfect and from my own experience, having an excessively low ride without shortened dampers wasn't going to make the car handle better. As a happy compromise between lower center of gravity while giving enough travel to let the shocks do work, an even more important fact now that the Motons are revalved softer, my goal was to keep the drop to about 1" from stock height. For today this meant dropping the rear about 1" and raising the front about half an inch. With these freshly maintained and oiled shock bodies, this took no time at all and we measured the ride height from top of fender to ground to be:

Front: 25 3/8"
Rear: 25 3/16"

The goal wasn't to get it perfectly even but rather to get it close to target ride height before the alignment since I'll probably get her corner balanced mid-season and that'll change the ride height again anyway. For now at least the rake will be more ideal once I put on the square 255 setup again.

2016 racing season ride height - 2/28/2016

Re-installed Moton Club Sports

After receiving the "old" Moton Club Sports back from ANZE Suspension a few weeks ago, I didn't expect we'd be able to install it until March due to the weather but we got a nice preview of Spring weather today so Hez and I took the opportunity to pop them in.

Ready to install the Motons - 2/21/2016

It only took us 2 hours taking our sweet time this go around since we weren't wasting time trying to adjust spring perches or figure out where to mount the external reservoirs. Needless to say, the installation went along smoothly and we set all the dampers to their middle settings for now.

Motons reinstalled - 2/21/2016

Front reservoirs remounted a bit more cleanly this time - 2/21/2016

Fresh shock body installed - 2/21/2016

I put about 200 miles on her today and I'm glad to report that the valving changes and the much needed reduction in nitrogen pressure made a world of difference. She responds very positively to undulating surfaces without any nervousness and I can definitely feel the reduction of excess spring rate now that the nitrogen pressures are back to more normal value for these springs.

Rear shocks reinstalled - 2/21/2016

I reset the spring perches back to the height they were at when we removed them late last year but for some reason the rear now sits a bit high. I'm going to let the springs settle a bit and adjust the height before I take her in for an alignment. Hopefully we get another break in the weather soon we get her alignment sorted before the first test day in March.

Moton Clubs Sport Rebuild

In the beginning of December last year, Hez and I pulled out the Motons from Lupa so I could have them sent out for a rebuild/revalve. I dropped them off at ANZE Suspension in Glencove Rd in Long Island later that month where after a quick inspection, we determine that two of the shock bodies would have to be replaced to damage on the threads along with a new upper spring retainer that had gotten deformed from when I had the springs without the helpers. This would require ordering new bodies from Moton in Holland and with the holidays under way, I was just hoping I could get them back in time before the racing season started.

Rebuilt/Revalved Moton Clubsports - ANZE Suspension
2/1/2016

Amazingly the guys at ANZE were able to secure me brand new replacement shock bodies and have it all rebuilt and revalved based on discussions we had around changes I wanted in a month. 

Shock Dyno - Front Full Range - 2/5/2016

Shock Dyno - Front match - 2/5/2016

Shock Dyno - Rear Full Range - 2/5/2016

Shock Dyno - Rear Match - 2/5/2016

After I got them back to the garage, I mated them back up with the springs and helpers and set the collar height to what they were right after we took them off. It's so nice having clean, fresh shocks where every collar moves smoothly again and all the pieces fit together just right. All that's left to do is to find a weekend to put these back on and get realigned before the first event in March so we can begin retuning the suspension.

Shocks and springs all back together again - 2/5/2016