Body rake, Front to Rear

[Michael Beattie]

Guys

My 1600 HF (S2) has quite a defined rake from back to front. Measured to the boot chrome trim ( 78cm) and the bonnet trim (60cm), from the ground. It;s running on 195/60 x 14 tyres.

The chap who restored it , also did a similar car, but on it he lowered the rear suspension, but getting the leaf springs flattened and stiffened. This he reckoned didn't improve the road holding compare to my "std" car

I'd be interested to hear what the measurements are on any other HFs


BTW, it has just made a small bit of history, by being the first ever saloon to qualify for a British Championship Hillclimb, but that's another story


Cheers

Michael

[shaun pond]

Michael,

Don't have an HF (alas!), but the measurements on my S1 1.3 Rallye are:

Front: 61 cm
Rear: 75.8 cm

I run the same sized tires as you have.

I've wondered what effect reducing the rear ride height would have, especially since period pictures of the cars don't seem to show nearly as much fore-and-aft difference.

And I'd be interested in hearing more about your hillclimb adventures (and pictures, too, if you have 'em)!

Regards -

Shaun Pond

[Michael Beattie]

I've been hillclimbing for well over 20 years in a variety of cars, single seaters, sportscars and recently in Historic saloons. The Lancia was only bought in April, and while I'm using it in the occasional; hillclimb, it is intended for Classic road rallying. I've tweeked it a bit, with Webers, cams and an exhaust system (as mentioned in various post on this extremely useful forum !!). It's my first FWD competition car, so it is taking a bit of getting used to, the lack of a LSD being one problem.

The local British Hillclimb event (Craigantlet) has the usual Top12 Run Off, for the fastest dozen Championship contenders, and is usually populated solely by Judd powered single-seaters and the like, so a 130Hp Lancia isn't usually going to make the cut However, on the day it was a case of "Last Man Standing" as the racing cars dropped out with engine & gearbox problems, letting me sneak into the 2nd Run Off

Needless to say I came 12th, but it was a bit of fun and a series of " Firsts" First Lancia in the Championship's 55 year history, first saloon, first FWD.


Here's a link to a couple of photos showing the car in action, engine bay and a side shot showing the body rake

http://i91.photobucket.com/albums/k298/ ... n06min.jpg

http://i91.photobucket.com/albums/k298/ ... Webers.jpg

http://i91.photobucket.com/albums/k298/ ... eRight.jpg

[justin]

Hi Michael
I would have thought that reduction in the rake was going to emphasise the handicap of FWD, especially in hillclimbing.
We've found this even in street racing, where as much traction as possible under acceleration was a good thing.
I'm fairly sure the factory designed the geometry with this in mind.
If anything, rather than lower the rear springing, stiffen the dampers to reduce as much front-to-back momentum as possible.
And yeah, a slipper would be great,too !
Publish your upcoming dates for us.
Regards,
Jus

[Michael Beattie]

Justin

My hillclimb season , as susch as it was in 2006, has ended, my next event is the Circuit of Ireland Retro, a 3 day navigation road rally with autotests, starting on 6th October. So I've fitted a hydraulic handbrake to help round the pylons. I'm contemplating going back to the std 42 Solex carbs, to try and improve the bottom end torque, which you need for the autotests. But at the minute, I'm still tuning the Webers to see if I can get them to work satisfactorily. They are fine for hillclimbing, but sometimes stutter between 2000 & 3000, which is critical on the 'tests, but boy do they sound good when you get her wound up

[shaun pond]

Michael, thanks for the story and the pictures, and congratulations on the result!

[P. de R. Leclercq]

There's quite a lot here really.

As Justin said, traction is an issue, but this can to a certain extent at least be addressed with dampers. I would say for Michael's application, standard ride height would be OK, although for myself I would perhaps lower it a little - more via stiffening the rear springs to reduce weight transfer. I would add an exta leaf inverted as the factory used to do.

Also a big improvement would be the fitting of stiffer anti-roll bars. A 2000 saloon one at the front really works well - at 18mm it's about 55% stiffer. For the rear there is no standard alternative. Have one made - 16mm or 5/8" (60% stiffer than the 14mm std bar) is a good choice and works well.

Modern tyres = more grip = more roll.

Paul

[Peter de Wit]

Michael, what size venturi's are you using on your webers? 36? I use these, but also used a set of 40mm's with 30mm venturis. Very, very nice to drive. As noisy as you describe, but they really stopped at 6500revs. But most of our engines stop there anyway. Do not forget that 42mm solexes are not known for good torque either. Another thing that worked very fine with me is fitting 15cm long air horns. I even have them in straight form, but I prefer the curved ones. 40mm setup with the curved hornes on my old car: http://www.lanciaracing.com/images/c51_ ... engine.jpg

As for the lsd I would say that the works guys did not use them too much. Apart from snapping driveshafts you get a lot of torque steer. I even experience a lot of torque steer (but also grip!) with my O32 215wide Yoko's: http://lanciaracing.com/layout_images/b ... najump.jpg . I decided I really do not like these because of that and will do them away (maybe you are interested).

Another very nice experience I had was fitting a 3 turns lock to lock steering setup. You can his by adding flavia arms to a std 1.6 steering box. So much easier to swerve your car around the corner. I have a 1.75 lock to lock in a young timer (wrc cars use that also) and you do not have to take your hands of the wheel for counter lock. I could recommend it!! Plus you said you have the hydraulic hand brake. Did you fit an adjustable brake force limiter next to it? I find that with the short steer ratio it is very easy to get the car oversteered by applying the brakes hard after turn in (in reality just too much brake force in the back). As soon as it oversteers, full throttle exit. So not an inertia drift like the scandinavian but a brake trick. Perfect for accute left and rights that are very narrow. And of course the hairpin. But you have the hill climb experience everybody can be jealous of!

[P. de R. Leclercq]

Yes Peter, would think that 215s would be quite a handful on a Fulvia; I did use 205/50-15s for a while, but these were not ideal. I have concluded that 195 is the sensible limit - and anyway, we Fulvia types do not have the torque to drag those big boots around!

Paul

[Peter de Wit]

You are right Paul. But what I found as a very BIG advantage of that setup was the fact that big rims are wider than the contact area of the tyre. You get a kind of inverted trapezium, creating extreme stability in the tyre. I noted this because O32's have trapezoid profile themselves for the same effect and you should run them with only 2mm of profile ideally.

A setup that most 2nd series users have is 185/70 tyres on 14x6in rims. That seems a perfect rectangle instead of the above. If you push on the side with those tyres, you can move the car at least 5cm left and right. This effect is very completely gone with big rims. Maybe I should fit 185 wheels on the 8in rims....

A remark I sometimes make is that good tyres is the cheapest way to improve the handling. Yoko's and Avons are 150eur per tyre. They last only 10% of the km's of normal tyres. 7in wheels are around 2000 in the current climate (200 if you have somebody weld them). But the effect is unbelievable!!!