Wow, g force panhard/trilink
 

So I picked up a set of new unused gforce panhard and trilink from a forum member a while back. The set have been sitting in my room for a while, and we were finally able to get it in the car a couple of weeks ago.

We went to the first autox of the season, which happened to be pouring rain, the car was lacking grip with the v710s and puddles of water, but WOW, what an improvement! The slides are totally controllable and catchable. This is quite different from the prior setup, where the car would do a couple of tank slappers before you can be on your way.

I'd think that any drifter's should totally look into this, as i'd think it'd make the car a lot more controllable.

So the car in question is a 82 GSL. it's setup with gc coilovers, koni shocks, 375 front and 250 spring rates with isc rear height sleeves. I'll put an update up when I get to a dry event, but so far, it seems totally with the time and money...

Finally, someone who's posted some results about panhard bars. I've had one sitting in the shop for a couple years thinking I should put it on but wasn't sure of it's benifits or handlings changes. Looking forward to the dry pavement report.

Have you noticed any difference in general ride comfort besides the clicking heim joints?

Mine is still sitting on the shelf waiting for me to get time to install it. Probably won't happen until Spring. All the "racers" swear by the setup, but its nice to hear a first hand report on it.

How's the noise level now, much difference?

I'm not sure on the noise level yet, mainly because I think I have a bad ujoints (still running original units, which is making a bunch of noise after the install). I have new ones on order and will report on noise levels afterward. I don't drive this car on the street much (it's no longer a DD because I'm not running emissions. You can definitely hear it going up driveways and stuff, but otherwise doesn't seem to be too bad. Because CSP doesn't allow me to replace the lower trailing arms with heim joints, I'm still running rubber ones, so that may be helping me a bit. I have polyurethane ones going in soon...

Are you running air bushings on your upper links?

Are you going to go to some SFR events this season, I would like to ride in the car.

btw where can i get the rear height sleeves?
i cant find them anywhere..

Congrats to you for your suspension upgrades!

I think Jim Susko’s G-Force set up is great! I have been running a panhard bar for year’s autocrossing and I love the lowered CG. It makes a real difference. Yup, there has been a bit of noise on the street, but you get used to it.

The next part that surprised me in how much it helped in autocrossing was the turn in spacers that increase Ackerman. (Although not CSP legal, still a REAL improvement in the big turn arounds). Oh yes, the Torsen helps a tom too.

Nope, not running the green bushings, CSP allows removing the upper link.

Justin, I probably will make it to a sfr event or two, just not sure when. I might make boondogo, but probably more the April event. (I don't like GGF)

And thanks Kill No Cone. I'd love to run the turn in... maybe when I move to the prepared class...

I can't wait for the next dry event...

Do you mean the adjustable height rear spring assembly? If so, Respeed is carrying them now but I don't think they're actually listed on the website yet. Send a PM to Bwaits and ask him about them. Great product, by the way...

hmm no wonder why i never see it on his site.

They are on there now, they were just listed recently. They are like $250 and come with springs. Definatly on my to get list :)

Ok, more update, I finally got two dry events recently and a track day. The first autox was a bit disappointing, the car pushed pretty bad. I think most people that runs this setup uses the turn in spacers which I can't run in CSP. I ended up putting a stock rear swaybar on that seems to be helping quite a bit. I will know more by the next event I hope. I'm going to see if I can find a bigger rear bar. I also have poly bushings to go into the stock rear trailing arms, again we will see how that goes...

I've got all urethane bushings in my rear control arms. No issues at all. And yes, once you add an aftermarket front swaybar, you definitely want to put a bar on the back again. I'm currently using an adjustable rear bar set at max.

Pushing into the corners: tire pressures, use a little less toe in, or work on slow in/fast out style of driving. I had this issue for the longest time, and 90% of it came down to just going into the corner too fast. Once I slowed my entry down, my times were much better and the car felt a lot faster overall. Good luck man. :)

Update, I made some more tweaking, and finally got the car to handle the way I was expecting it to. I put in the rear swaybar in with poly bushings, and I also raised the panhard bar to increase the rear roll stiffness, to about as high as it goes. I was really happy today, I think now i'm ready for the power changes (have a sterling carb sitting on my desk).

Alvin

Sterling carb before the De Anza event? We are putting in new bushings, tie rods, and an alignment for the De Anza event, hopefully those fast Miatas won't show up and one of us can win. :)

lol, no carb isn't quiet ready (I try not to make big changes mid season, so I'll probably get the pieces ready for winter)

I'm looking forward to deanza though.

I have heim joints at all corners, with a tri-link rear setup, and even my wife is surprised at how liveable the car is. I don't think the overall ride is much worse than original with similar spring rates. I'm running 350# front, 175# rear springs, and don't have much clicking. I think I could eliminate all of it if I changed out the heim joints on my 3rd link to the teflon-coated ones. It's hard to explain, but a car feels so much more lively in turn in without the bushings. You turn the wheel and the car reacts right away -- no waiting for the bushings to compress. One thing to remember is that the bushings on most cars actually supplement the spring rates, so you can tolerate higher spring rates with heim joints and get a comparable ride. The downside is impact harshness. Hit a good pothole and you'll know the difference.

FR: ISC Heim Jointed LCAs, ISC Tubular Front Swaybar, G-Force Trailing Arm Bushings, Ground Control Coilover Kit, Bilstein Inserts, Ground Control Top-Mount Camber Plates

RR: Ground Control Heim Joint LCAs, G-Force Tri-Link UCA, G-Force Panhard Rod, Re-Speed Height Adjustable Coils, Bilstein Shocks

I'm actually somewhat limited in the use of heim joints because I run CSP, which doesn't allow heims in any stock locations. But yes, I have heims in the panhard and trilink, as well as the delrin isc lca bushings, the car is totally livable, what is not livable is not passing smog for cali law. Anyway, I'm currently running 375 fronts and 250 rear with stock fr/rear sways and the panhard pretty much as high as it will go, the car is totally fun to drive. can't wait to do some more tweaking...

Could you post pictures of it installed please?:D

I'll see what I can do

how much street driving do you do with the panhard? have any issues?

That stock front sway bar needs to go man.... :)

Took the words right out of my mouth.... :)

Respeed has a hollow tube front bar....nudge nudge

Mine is on the way to me right now, I can't wait! My Racing Beat bar is going to GSL-SE Addict.... :)

The stock front bar can be fine with the rest of the car set up properly. When you have urethane or delrin bushings in the rear suspension you are increasing roll stiffness back there. The delrin is the worst because when the car leans the lower arms have to twist, that means its actually a sway bar too.

With everything swinging freely and the strut spacers(not CSP legal) the stock bar is just right. Without the front spacers you will need a little more than the stock bar can offer.

Are you referring to my setup? and when you said I'll need a little more than the stock bar can offer, is that front or rear?

I know I have quite a bit of tuning left, I'm going to play with the panhard a bit more, and then see where to go. I am afraid to go with a bigger front bar, because I'm almost out of ability to increase rear roll stiffness, since a front bar will lead to understeer, but it sounds like maybe I should try it?

Alvin, I have a RB front sway for sale, or you can try it first and see how you like it.

Suspension Pic
 

Here is the only decent shot I have of my stuff installed (they guy in the photo isn't me)

Elwood, I understand that your suspension setup is quite different from mine (very sharp btw), but adding the heavy bar to the front of my car made more difference than any other suspension mod I had made up to that point (which was quite a lot). My co-driver is of the same opinion.

Last fall I gained possesion of an adjustable rear bar, which has three different points where you can mount the endlink. I run it on the stiffest setting, along with 150# rear springs and Billy's adjustable perches, and I'm in love with my current setup. Its hard to imagine anything handling better.

Anyway, maybe adding a heavy bar to your suspension wouldn't make much difference. But my personal experience is that it was the best upgrade of all. It even let me put the stock rear bar back on without fear of snap oversteer. Just my 2 cents....

With the delrin out back you may need more front bar than a stock one.

There a million different combinations of springs and bars that will feel pretty good. When you are fighting to get that last couple 10ths on a lap everything has to be working correctly.

Any time you have a sway bar it should just be used to tune the feel of the car. If you need a huge bar on either end of a car that is almost perfectly balanced something is wrong. The same goes for spring rates. The biggest difference front to rear on the FB is the weight of the rear end itself being unsprung weight. What is going wrong back there that a 150-175lb/in spring feels good to the driver and the front springs are in the 400 range? There are other things that are acting like springs that shouldn't be. Its hard to get your shocks right if you are asking them to control a soft spring vertically and a bunch of unknown twisting bars when the car leans.

I personally don't like much of what I see from ISC. Its under engineered and not very well thought out but in many ways the stuff can be made to work. The whole package of stuff before he copied the tri-link design was like having one foot in a bucket and putting your other in another bucket so you would feel balanced. Funny thing is there are a bunch of fast cars that run the stuff, the ones that beat those cars run the GForce Engineering package.

I guess I'm confused jgrewe. I'm not sure if you are talking to me still, I hear what you are saying, but I don't have any delrin in the back of my car, and I'm also running 250 lb (or was it 275?) springs in the back to match my 375 in the front.

I use to run the 175 in the back, but realized that the rear suspension wasn't really working, and that's why I picked up the gforce stuff. The only "beef" I have with the gforce stuff is that I can't run the entire package for street prepared. By not being able to run the heim joints and the turn in spacers, I know I have more tuning to make it work. But so far i'm fairly happy with what i have...

Sorry to confuse you Zyrano, not just talking about your set up. It sounds like you're doing what you can within the rules. I'm just talking about what I see in the threadin general.

There are still a bunch of people that think putting some huge bar on the front of these cars is the final answer no matter what else is on the car. A lot of the parts that have been available have been just a way to make one end of the car work equally as poorly as the other. Other parts like delrin bushings come from not having a clue as to what the suspension needs to be able to do. In the end you end up with a car so bound up in roll that you can't tell what its from or how to fine tune the handling.

Here is where I got the delrin thoughts. Unless you have some twisting ability in those lower control arms they are acting as a sway bar.

Thanks jgrewe! I think i'm up to speed now.

Your delrin is in the front control arm pivots, not the rear lower control arms, correct?

-billy

yes, but all jgrewe is saying is that i'm essentially increasing my front roll stiffness.

which is fine, basically, you don't want too big of a difference in spring rates between front and rear, since the 7 is mostly a 50/50 car. Where as a big mismatch in spring rate is telling you something is setup incorrectly that is being compensate. There will be a bit of mismatch because the rear end is a lot of unsprung weight, which is why i'm where I'm at now at 375/250.

Although, at some point down the road, i'm looking at the new 255/40/13 a6s, then i'm not sure if this setup will work... (i'm dreaming mostly here...)

Delrin will cause trouble in the front control arms as well just not anywhere near as much. Unless there is a way to allow it to swing in two axis the arm has to twist just a little because of the tension rods. They are close to being lined up front to back with the inner control arm pivot but they make the arm swing a little forward and back. At the amount of travel we use on track I doubt that it would bind things up much. I bet the delrin just wears a little eventually and give just enough slop for the arm to move the way it wants.
I would file that problem under "looking for that last .01 second" right after buying some $11,000 shocks. lol

Zyrano, if the car works now the new tires will probably only require minor adjustments(unless its a totally different type of tire, ie. street radial to bias slick) The biggest adjustment will be to the driver. You may end up with more lateral grip which may make your car lean more and that may move the suspension out of its "controlled binding" zone you are confortable with. Let us know if you end up getting them.

My thoughts exactly.

Zyrano, are there any CSP rules against a replacement Stay rod?

-billy

I don't think you can replace the stay rod in CSP.

basically, stock bushing can be replaced but without increase the amount of metal, for example poly and delrin are within the rules, but solid metal and heims are no nos.