Congrats Jim. She looks awesome! I take it the 1" extenders on the rear shocks worked well for you? Now go out and DRIVE!!!! Hans
I drove about 20 miles today and didn't notice anything, so I'm assuming that is the way to go. She will get aligned on Tuesday and I'll be driving, though I now have another issue creeping up. (I'll post about that in a bit...) JIM
I took her out for a 20 mile spin yesterday.... Not too bad. I'm going to set the ride height today. Lower the rear. Still not sure about the front. It's very close. JIM Image Unavailable, Please Login
My moto has always been if they need preload, they're to soft Mine and zero preload in teh front and the rear spring are minus .25" (they are loose when the shock is extended), it simply doesn't roll much in the turns It looks GREAT and I'm sure you'll notice a big difference with every tight and the better springs and shocks.
"Not too bad"??? Do I sense a bit of a disappointment Jim??? Come on, tell us, what do you think of the ride? How's the spring rating working for you? What position did you set the shocks and what do you think about that? How's the ride with the new bushings? How about your more direct steering rack, like it??? Oh, and she really looks awesome! Hans
I'm waiting until I have the ride height set and the alignment done to post a 1st impressions thread.....However, so far this has TOTALLY transformed the car!!!!!! I have the shocks set at 4/12 and the 10-300 and 12-300 springs are an excellent choice for a GT4. The steering rack is unbelievable! It is so much more precise now. ZERO offcenter play and tons of feedback on T 20-30 miles that I've driven it. More to come..... Jim
Wow, sounds good! Looking forward to that first impressions thread! Glad that you like the spring ratings. I'd have felt bad if you hadn't liked them... I believe you went with a more direct steering rack too, didn't you? Superformance is selling a 2-1/2 turn stop-to-stop rack. Is that it? I'm planning on doing the bushings and steering rack next winter. When you find some time, could you please post the "groceries list" for your project? Thanks!! Hans
hi all - resurrecting this thread since it's one of the few I found it searching for "steering rack bushing". Tried ordering a set of 8 new bushings from Superformance but they're out of stock, and OEM replacements from Ricambi are a staggering $33 each for this dinky little bush. Can anybody please recommend another source? Car is a 1985 QV if that matters. Probably would like to stick to softer ones rather than poly due to mostly road driving, but if poly is all that I can get for a reasonable price, and relatively quickly, will do it. thanks much! Kurt
Assuming you don't have the very early style mountings, the steering rack bushing is the exact same bushing as the *newer* style aluminum drop link bushings. I bought poly bushings for those and they work just fine. IF you do have the early style mounts, then you are going to pay a high price for those bushings. JIM
Jim - thanks for the reply. I'll take a photo of the mounts, but being an '85 I sure hope they're the 'newer' style. Do you remember where you bought the poly bushings? We are talking about the 8 little 'donuts' right? cheers Kurt
Here are pics of the new and old mounts. In the *new* mount, you will see the rubber bushing and the poly bushing. While the poly bushing is a little bit taller, it will compress down enough for the Nylock threads to grab. I'm not even sure if you can get the rubber bushings...possibly from Ferrari, but I'm not sure. JIM Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
For those interested, I got my NEON clock here: http://www.neonclockusa.com/ They will do them in any color body and any color Neon. You just have to ASK for the Ferrari logo as they cannot advertise it. They run $299 and the website is showing 25% off right now. FWIW, YMMV JIM
thanks Jim - I had seen those excellent photos, and will compare my mounts to those on Saturday when I go to the shop that's doing my cam belt service and steering rack install. I'm having a Superformance quick-ratio rack put in, from the pics it looks like the same one you have. Do you remember where you sourced the poly bushings? I've done a google/web-search, but the only poly bushings that come up for Ferrari's are wishbone and sway bars. When Energy Suspension opens in CA today I'll give them a call, but I imagine they may need the dimensions, which I'll get on Saturday. http://www.energysuspension.com/ Ricambi has the rubber OEM bushings. At ~$35 EACH! Thanks but no thanks
in case anyone else was looking for these, Superformance in the UK again has rack-block bushings in stock. Energy Suspension does not make any poly bushings with a similar "diamond" shape, so the ones in Jim's photos must have come from another manufacturer. The SF bushes are a firm rubber-like material. As usual shipping by SF was very fast and reasonably priced (as are the bushes at <$3 each vs. >$30 each from Ferrari) Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
(QUOTE=Nurburgringer;138618223]in case anyone else was looking for these, Superformance in the UK again has rack-block bushings in stock. Energy Suspension does not make any poly bushings with a similar "diamond" shape, so the ones in Jim's photos must have come from another manufacturer. The SF bushes are a firm rubber-like material. As usual shipping by SF was very fast and reasonably priced (as are the bushes at <$3 each vs. >$30 each from Ferrari)[/QUOTE] FWIW, the ones I used are the same bushing as the Droplink Bushing from Energy. (Don't have the PN available, but they work just fine. They are maybe a MM or two taller, but do the job. In fact I just sent a set to a fellow FChatter who used them for his steering rack mounts. FWIW, YMMV JIM
It seems really a nice work, and pretty fast! I don't figure me doing it on my 308... So it worth it a lot! Congratulations ;-)))