General It's been a while

[KungFooPanda]

It's been a while guys since I've been on the forum! My 100hp has been a garage Queen for a long time, but it's now time for her to get back on the road. I'm looking to purchase quite a few bits from "Shop4parts" and I use to have a 10% discount code because of donation to the forum- Which I've now found after trawling through my old threads

I'm going to asking a lot of questions over the next few months or so to what people think of the Bilstein B12 Pro suspension kits and to what tyres to put on...

Anyways - Hoping to catch up with you all again soon

Cheers

 

[DaveMcT]

I avoided fitting coil-overs because they all seem to be intended for dropping the ride height and stiffening the ride. The 100HP already has the suspension of a skate board and any lower ride would cost a fortune in exhaust boxes.

A claimed benefit is lighter unsprung weight. However a standard front strut (with packaging) weighs just 3.88kg and most of that is not a moving part. The (economically) unfixable issue is the weight of moving parts - brakes, hub carriers and bottom arms are all cast iron.

The rear end improves with softer springs from the 500. It needs a spring top rubber bush on both ends. These drop the ride height a little so ideally spacers under the top mount are needed between the spring tops and car body. You could experiment with plywood spacers before getting them made in more suitable material.

Febi bump stops from the Fiat Coupe increase the rear suspension travel at the cost of a little more body roll. The cost vs benefit of shorter stops and softer springs is worth having as the car is much less skittish to drive.

 

[KungFooPanda]

I avoided fitting coil-overs because they all seem to be intended for dropping the ride height and stiffening the ride. The 100HP already has the suspension of a skate board and any lower ride would cost a fortune in exhaust boxes.

A claimed benefit is lighter unsprung weight. However a standard front strut (with packaging) weighs just 3.88kg and most of that is not a moving part. The (economically) unfixable issue is the weight of moving parts - brakes, hub carriers and bottom arms are all cast iron.

The rear end improves with softer springs from the 500. It needs a spring top rubber bush on both ends. These drop the ride height a little so ideally spacers under the top mount are needed between the spring tops and car body. You could experiment with plywood spacers before getting them made in more suitable material.

Febi bump stops from the Fiat Coupe increase the rear suspension travel at the cost of a little more body roll. The cost vs benefit of shorter stops and softer springs is worth having as the car is much less skittish to drive.

Cheers Dave for all your help and info here. I saw a guy on YouTube who put the B12 kit on his 100hp and seemed very happy with his results. Not sure if I want it lower, but I'd like to put some decent up grades as I'm going to change both the front suspension arms and drop links while I'm at it.

I'll take a look at the Febi bump stops. Where would you buy them from?

Cheers

 

[DaveMcT]

You can get a full set of Fiat suspension springs, dampers, top bearings and bump stops for wrong £200 to £250. The setup is adequate for the other aspects of the car and it works for silly mileages.

You can pay £450 for a set of Bilsteins which are excellent equipment but for all practical purposes all you really get is the ability to adjust the ride height. The better damping is only maintained if you have them serviced every 15,000 miles (clean out, new seals, new oil, etc). The real problem is the huge unsprung weight from all that cast iron bashing about. You "could" have tube swing arms made to do the job using aircraft grade alloys. You could also get billet hub carriers, billet brake calipers and stainless discs. How must change would you get from "£N" thousand sia nones guess.

What I am saying is, if you want a fantastic handling car then it's probably better not to start with a basic economy car. The Panda is great but it is what it is but it's not state-of-the-art and is not intended to be. For the perfect story of the huge work involved in making a state of the art small performance car, check out Project Binky on You Tube. The skills and workmanship are stunning but its not economic sense at any level.