Got a couple of hours to work on the car today, since I took the day of. Went to the car and finished drilling the holes on the prop-catcher plates. Those are now ready to go on the car.
My next step was to begin setting up the suspensions. The first item I needed to see was the ride height. To guide me I have two sources of information: one is a page on the Westfield World site, the other a set of measurements provided by a fellow builder, taken from his car after he had it professionally setup. These measurements are more adequate since his car is also an Aries Locoblade. I also have to guide me this PDF text provided by another builder explaining how to measure and setup camber and toe.
To measure inclination, I used an Android application called Clinometer. I noticed the floor had a 1º inclination.
Builder data said the car should have the lowest point (sump) 8cm above ground. The Westfield guide said the front should be 16,5cm above ground and/or the lower wishbone parallel with the main chassis beam. On first measurement, the sump was almost 7,5cm above the floor. The right-hand wishbone had a 0,5º, thus the outer side higher than the inside (same as -0,5º). The front of the car was around 13,5cm above ground.
To change height, I jacked the chassis up until the right wheel was on the air, taking out pressure from the suspension. Then I rotated the adjusters on the shocks to tighten the coils more. The initial setup had 8 threads showing from the bottom to the adjuster.
Tightened up to have 12 threads showing. Dropped the car on the ground, sump was 9cm above, the front 15cm above and the wishbone had 5º (normalizes to 4º), where the chassis point where the wishbone connects to was higher than the outer tip of the wishbone.
Another adjustment to get the value in-between, keeping 10 threads showing up. Adjusted the other side too and had final measures of 8cm from sump to ground, 13,5cm on the front to the ground and a wishbone inclination of around 2,5º (normalizes to 1,5º).
My fellow builder measurements didn't say about the rear. The Westfield page mentioned around 2cm higher on the rear. With 5 threads showing on both shocks, the rear beam was 16cm above ground, which was perfect.
Finished by adjusting the shocks softness, based on fellow's values. 3 ticks away from soft on the front, 4 on the rear. Notice the shocks are Protech, these values may differ with brand and surely with chassis.
Even with the suspension raised I can't fit the drill under the chassis to open the holes to fit the prop-catcher. I'll have to jack the car up or apply some other strategy. But that will be next time!
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