Well I'm sitting here bored at work, so I thought I'd give you all an update on the handling of my fug-4. well at the start of summer I bought a set of Spax adjustable dampers for the front, and a few weeks back I bought a pair of Spax adjustables for the rear too, all 4 are only adjustable in bump, but thats fine for my fug.
I have fitted a pair of rear adjustable spring plates, and the rear camber is now set at about 2 to 3 degrees, rear ride height is 8 inches, rear tyres are set at 24psi, rear tyres are 235x50 R15 Nankangs.......rear suspension is SWING AXLE
Up front I have fitted a lowered beam, each beam has had 2 spring leaves removed from each tube, otherwise the ride is way too harsh......aparrently a common problem on beach buggies.......so each of the 2 beams only contains 8 leaves.......front tyre pressures are at 22psi, front ride height is 6 inches, front tyres are 205x50xR15 Nankang
I have been playing with the damping rates while thrashing around my local country lanes, and I must say the wheels are now much less excited than they were.
But my main problem has been hitting big bumps while cornering hard really unsettles the fug, so this weekend I pulled off all the dampers and fitted bump stops to the damper shafts, and I have now limited wheel free movement to about half an inch both front and rear. previously is was about 3 inches front, 2 inches rear......this allows the fug to ride ok on normal road surfaces, and the dampers can do their stuff........
But WOW, what a breakthrough, with the dampers set just right, and limited wheel travel, it corners great, and dosent bounce all over the place when I hit rough road.......my fug has transformed from a boat handling....... to go-kart like handling.
One thing I have now noticed is under hard breaking, the front suspension is pulling all sorts of funny angles when the nose dives under braking, even by only half an inch!.......I reckon this must be linked with the stupid steering tie-rod angles, so over winter I'm going to fit a bump steer kit and extend the steering arm in an attempt to make the tie rods as in-line as possible
As for the 1.7 engine upgrade, I think that can wait till winter, as really I need to whip out the box out and change the diff ratio for reduced motorway crusing RPM........have just removed the rev limiter from the 1.5 and it now revs beyond 7000rpm :D
Knighty,
Are you currently using a standard beetle steering set up (steering box and unequal length tie rods)?
yup - I did consider adapting a steering rack like you and Rutger have done, but didnt get round to it........I may re-evaluate it for the winter.......main problem is my fuel tank gets in the way of the steering rack position.......as I'm guessing the tank is much further forward on a fug-4, its only marginal, so I may be able to shove the tank back about 2 inches and get away with it <_<
I noticed a saxo rack is pretty short, with the column coming in near one end and equal length tie rods attaching in the middle of the car (other end of the rack). It looked perfect, but I didn't get it off a mates car in time before he scrapped it because it's held on with big Torx bolts and I didn't have the socket bits with me. :o(
If you don't fancy a rack or have the room. I came up with a twin steering box idea on my beetle a number of years ago. It copied the idea used in the 1303's where you have an idler box on the other side, with a bar between this and the actual steering box. Although the tie rods are short at least they are equal length :D This worked really well, and would be a good comprise if space is short?
