Sumo adjustable rear 'wishbone'

[bluetoon]

Just read the freebie kitCar (feb2006) and it mentions new improved developments of the sumo MK3 chassis.

Quote" .....revised to offer offer an adjustable bracket to alter the angle of the installation while radius arms now also connect the hub section of the trailing arms to the differential housing, effectively turning the semi-trailing arm into a wishbone and offering enhanced location and accurate geometry.

I have the older design chassis that has the rear wishbone attached to a bracket welded to the chassis and fixed via the rubber bushes. I am going to have a chat with pilgrim about this new mod/enhancement and find out if it can be retro fitted to my chassis as I'm still at the early stages of the build.

Has anyone got the new chassis and can they post some pics of the rear wishbone fixings. Anyone else heard of this mod and how much engineering has gone into it. ?

Also is this mod an enhancement? I have read a posting about how someone had difficulty setting up the rear toe and had a twitchy back end.!! Is the setting up of the sumo suspension geometry a pigs ear without the mod?... There are several sumo's out there with 300bhp+... with the old chassis !!.
Any other comments about setting up the old geometry are welcome.

Cheers

[coomers]

i had aguy set all my geometry and he said the rear wheels are tilting in which will result in inner tyre wear, on speaking to pilgrim there is no way to adjust, this was some time ago, he did tell me about this adjustable wishbone and it can be bolted to a finished car mk111 only ithink.

[Paul B]

Around a year or 18 months ago there was some talk of a mod to do just this but it never materialised.

When I saw Topny Holmes at the Exeter kit car show I asked what are the latest mods and his response was " We've gone about as far as we can go with it". Therefore, I must assume that any new mod may be done by someone else or it is a bit of a sudden rush job as the show was only 6 or 8 weeks or so ago.

If anyone has any further info, I would be most interested as well.

Paul

[gareth08]

There is/will be a fully adjustable rear wishbone kit for the MK3 Sumo.There are some posts about on this site.
I've been working on a modified one for a while now as I wasn't entirely happy with the first version.
Unfortunately other things have happened and I haven't had much time to work on it.Hopefully it will be finished early part of the year.When complete it will be fully adjustable in ALL planes and be entirely rose jointed to aid in setting up.
One reason it is taking some time is that I may be overcomplicating things by making a different version in length as well because it is possible to move the rear wheels in by about 40mm on a sumo and get a wider wheel and tyre combination on.This would probably also mean that the driveshafts would need shortening as well so pushing the cost up.

[Paul B]

Gareth

I seem to remember somewhere on the 'net, that someone had developed a fully rose jointed replacement for the radius arms for a Sierra. I think it was mainly for motorsport applications and was very expensive.

Is this the type of thing you are working on or a modification of the existing arms ? Are you working with Pilgrim on this or on your own ? Would you be thinking of selling the final solution or is it for your own purposes only ?

Let us know how you get on.

Paul

[gareth08]

Originally Posted by Paul B

Gareth

I seem to remember somewhere on the 'net, that someone had developed a fully rose jointed replacement for the radius arms for a Sierra. I think it was mainly for motorsport applications and was very expensive.

Is this the type of thing you are working on or a modification of the existing arms ? Are you working with Pilgrim on this or on your own ? Would you be thinking of selling the final solution or is it for your own purposes only ?

Let us know how you get on.

Paul

The one you are talking about is called a Z beam and its about 2grand plus you need a Jag diff on top of that as well.

I am building something similar but NOT with Pilgrim.There is NO WAY I would EVER have any dealings with them :whatever: again.
Once it's finished and tested I will be selling it as a mod for a lot less then the 2 grand for the Z beam.:thumb:

[MrFawlty]

Hi,
I have also read the article,and it does say it is a mod that pilgrim are working on.Seems strange there was no mention of it at the last show.
It talks of an adjustable bracket which sounds like it was on the car rather than the suspension.Will try calling pilgrim tomorrow.
A mate has said he thinks there are replacement bushes for the arms which have the holes off center,does anyone know about these

cheers
Steve

[bluetoon]

I had a chat with pilgrim about the suspension mod on the car that was reviewed by the magazine.

It appears that the mod was a slotting of the existing holes on the bracket which is welded to the chassis. The suspension was then set up for correct tracking and a washer was welded over the slotting to finalize the position of the trailing arm.

Pilgrim are down playing the 'modification' as they found that the new position was in exactly the same place before they did the slotting IE the middle hole. They also said that when customers brought the cars to them to have the alignment corrected due to errors caused by the welding/galvanizing process, they found there was no change to the handling of the car. They also said that the current setup meets 'production specifications' and they knew of only one that did not meet the spec, which they corrected themselves.

The two things i got out of the conversation were,

1/ There does not appear to be a fundamental flaw with the positioning/design of the current suspension system. I think any hard core racer or perfectionist wanting perfect alignment may have issues however for the type of driving i will be doing i am happy to leave things as they are bearing in mind that i am building a cobra on a budget. The Slotting/welding is something i may consider if i find i have a problem with the alignment when the time comes. Although i have some doubts about the slotting/washer/welding engineering aspect of it.

2/ Although the magazine only skimped on the mod, i still feel that the mod/improvement was overstated. I don't think the slotting will be done on all future chassis. The impression i got was that it was more of an experiment by pilgrim and it showed that the current design is OK. I may be off the mark here but it is the feeling that i had when i came off the phone.

Cheers
Jim

[h8jse]

Originally Posted by gareth08

The one you are talking about is called a Z beam and its about 2grand plus you need a Jag diff on top of that as well.

I am building something similar but NOT with Pilgrim.There is NO WAY I would EVER have any dealings with them :whatever: again.
Once it's finished and tested I will be selling it as a mod for a lot less then the 2 grand for the Z beam.:thumb:

Don't hold back Gareth, tell us how you really feel:thumb:

[gareth08]

Originally Posted by h8jse

Don't hold back Gareth, tell us how you really feel:thumb:

I can't because it would be deleted:angry: :angry:

But's lets just say if they wen't out of buisiness I won't be upset:whatever: :whatever: