Step (1) was noticing that my rear wishbone bushes looked very tired at eurotec last year. Most of the other obvious suspension jobs had already been done on the car in my ownership. (New front bushes when I got the car in 2009, along with poly ARB bushes, Spax all round, lowering springs, LCA braces, steering rack refurb etc).
(2) So for the final piece of the puzzle I finally just got round to replacing all 8 rear wishbone bushes (with rubber not poly - absolute nightmare of a job when your bolts/shims are all seized inside your hub carriers), discovered that my 2009 era
rear shocks were shot, so replaced with new . Parts courtesy of DGo. Labour courtesy of Steve Williams at SW Lotus (Maidenhead), who is great and comes recommended. (3) Spoke to the guru of alignment, Nick T, who sent me the very helpful attached settings sheet and much excellent advice.
(4) After a recommendation and then great experience with the set up on my Elise at Top Cats Racing (near Aylesbury) I decided to take the DeLorean there to get the geo looked at, as it's 13 years and much suspension fuckery since I last had my alignment done at Wheels in Motion.
(5) The old boy there Brian is a quietly spoken legend. He levelled up ride height, corner weights, damper settings, toe in and caster. Took a good 4 hours but boy was it worth it!
(6) Discovered my car weighed 1305kg with an almost full fuel tank and a moderate amount of tools and shit in the car.
(7) Drove the car away, and 50 yards down the road it was a revelation. Turn in so much better - fast and accurate. Holds a line round a fast corner with no fuss or sketchiness. Stable at speed, no wandering. Steering feel and precision have gone up several notches too. 'Tight' isn't a word you'd normally associate with DeLorean handling, but shock of shocks, that's exactly the word I'd use to describe it. Not even remotely 'vague' or 'stodgy', words which I would previously have used. Ride is still very comfortable too and the set up hasn’t had any negative consequences at all. Dare I say it, you could even feel the Lotus DNA in there (finally!!) in terms of the fluidity of the way it went down the road and the eagerness it wanted to turn.
LESSONS - which may or may not be applicable to all.
- A 4 wheel Hunter alignment is all well and good but it's not a patch on an old boy who's been setting up race cars for 30 years, and will sort out your ride heights, corner weights and dampers as well as which way the wheels are pointing.
- My new Spax settings are STIFFER at the front (16 clicks clockwise from minimum) and SOFTER at the back (4 clicks clockwise from minimum). An interesting change from the standard 7/7 F/R we'd all been running at for years? Might be worth others trying this and reporting back.
- Rear wishbone bushes are often overlooked but may be worth replacing if they've not been done in a long while.
- Obviously the law of DeLorean ownership means you can't fix one thing without something else breaking, so 5 minutes after leaving the handbrake cable decided to part way with the caliper. That'll be a fun job for tomorrow then...
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