Seicento My Little Red Sei...

[Lecook]

Wd40 everyday till sunday, havent got my sei to sort this weekend now as the head isnt being skimmed untill saturday so just your sei and the punto and maybe some cinq added to the mix

 

[jatkinson]

ill drag my cinq down and you can work on that if you want

 

[Lecook]

Id gladly get the tools out on lola mwahahaha so many nice bits hehe

 

[Lecook]

I have a sneaking suspicion someone is going to have a big smile on his face when he reports back on here

 

[Cento186]

I've made it back in one piece! I have to say the handling is now superb!!

It really corners nicely now, there's so much less understeer and the turn in is now fantastic. There's much less roll and more steering feedback, feels much more like a go-kart It's pretty bouncy now too lol plus it looks pretty cool with the subtle lowering I found myself giggling like a little girl on the way home and a little bit of cheeky tire squeal on roundabouts turned some heads :devil:

I will be looking into getting the tracking sorted asap since it was already way out before the springs went on, the tires are being destroyed :bang:
EDIT: I will be giving Formula 1 Autocentres in Ipswich a call tomorrow morning to see how much it will be...

Many thanks to Lecook for sorting it for me :worship: :worship: :worship:

Before:

After:

The higher speed vibrations have now moved from about 70mph to about 80/85 when it starts to vibrate from the back.

But all this is ruined by the fact the brakes are juddering, total pita The juddering has been made worse by the lowering but got even worse as I got closer to home, it shakes the whole car and the pedal judders

Once the brakes are sorted I will be looking into getting some A539's for the front at least and then for the rear soon after. I feel a strut brace may be in order in the future :chin:

And to top it all off, suffolk seems to be the insect capital of the world, at one point I had to get out and clean the windscreen because I could see anything and the wipers are s**t.

 

[Lecook]

I must say after driving this little monster and chucking it down some back roads I cant wait for my sei to hit the road , I did notice the pedal judder as I said to you on the little test run after, if you get chance whip the front disks off and put the standards on or replace them with new ones as imo it felt like the fronts, maybe a bent disk or something?? Sorry I didnt reply on fb btw buddy I had a powernap

 

[Cento186]

Just went and got the tracking sorted as the toe at the front was messed up, it now drives much easier in a straight line and rolls along more freely.

The mechanic said he thought the front brakes are fine. The juddering was happening before the pads and discs anyway. The main problem is the lowering has made it worse and it's especially bad when the brakes are warm. I think it's actually verging on being dangerous to drive, to avoid it juddering I have to brake very lightly, any harder and it will shake the car apart.

It's just like driving over concrete rumble strips or going down some stairs, depending on how hard I brake

I do have a rear arm to go on which will hopefully solve the problem, it's just a matter of getting it done asap. The garage quoted £100 :bang:

 

[fingers99]

Do check that it's not running on the bumpstops. (That is, hitting the bumpstops way before the suspension has fully compressed: this gives the impression of go-kart like handling -- go karts have no suspension(!) -- but will put you into a hedge when you hit that mid corner bump on a nice twisty B road).

Brakes may just be contaminated -- you could try new pads and wiping the disks with meths/acetone (any non greasy solvent).

 

[Cento186]

Do check that it's not running on the bumpstops. (That is, hitting the bumpstops way before the suspension has fully compressed: this gives the impression of go-kart like handling -- go karts have no suspension(!) -- but will put you into a hedge when you hit that mid corner bump on a nice twisty B road).

Brakes may just be contaminated -- you could try new pads and wiping the disks with meths/acetone (any non greasy solvent).

Just had a quick look, at the rear the bumpstop feels about a thumbs distance from the arm I guess this means a similar thing for the front. Would this explain why it is so bouncy?

Just finished off my one and only can of brake and clutch cleaner earlier cleaning up the engine bay

 

[blu73]

if you are hitting the bump stops it will be incredibly bouncy yes

 

[Cento186]

Now booked into the garage for friday, hopefully that will sort the problem and that'll be it until I've got the money for some new front tires :yum:

 

[Cento186]

A couple of minutes outside with a 13mm socket and my drivers side wiper now parks where Fiat intended (Assuming the clear circles in the windscreen mean that). I moved it 1 notch downwards I think, this should also mean it no longer clips the edge of the screen in heavy rain

I'm sure the nice weather around here will help me find that out in no time

 

[Cento186]

Loads of updates lately but here's another....

So I finally got it down the garage and it turned out that the trailing arm I had bought was in a pretty bad way (knackered bearing and worn out brake) :bang: so I thought that would mean more trawling of ebay for another one but....

The garage took the suspect rear drum apart, checked it was all ok and it was fine...

It turned out all it needed was a quick reverse and sharp stop a couple of times to sort it, now all is well

I still have the slightly wobbly wheel which is in the process of slowly wearing out my rear tyre but now I can get to 90 before it starts to vibrate

So all in all I'm getting the car much closer to where I want it to be and I'm really looking forward to the Eastern Italia meet tomorrow!!

 

[Cento186]

Snapped this on my way home from the Eastern Italia meet

We're now hopefully booked into a *cough* Porsche sprint day at Curborough in August :devil:

 

[fingers99]

We're now hopefully booked into a *cough* Porsche sprint day at Curborough in August

Keep off the grass and you should beat at least a couple of them!

 

[Cento186]

I took Lecook's suggestion, got myself 2 meters of black tubing off ebay and wrapped the sharp, DIY looking edges to my mesh grills, it looks alot better

Although it took me about 15 painstaking minutes cutting the tube from one end to the other, the stuff I bought happened to be pretty tough

 

[blu73]

nice touch, looks infinitely better

 

[Lecook]

Looks 1000x better mate good job hopefully ill have my sei on the road soon plenty of time till stanford only a pain in the ass job of bleeding the brakes up now

 

[Cento186]

only a pain in the ass job of bleeding the brakes up now

My brakes could do with a little ..ahem... attention in that department too.. :chin:

 

[Ouby]

I'm surprised your suspension hasn't collapsed what with all that beer you must be transporting to Great Yarmouth