stiffening suspension

[GulfPetrolHead]

hi guys, pretty much I'm looking to stiffen the rear of my 340, I wanna get it pretty much as stiff as it'll go so theres less axle tramp and less stress on drivetrain parts. I have looked at Drift Moto's 5/6 link suspension systems, but to be honest it's more money than I can justify throwing at my little Ovlov.

So I'm really looking at advice on how to get her stiff without such an in depth suspension change. I'm currently running standard shocks and springs on lowering blocks, so straight away I was going to swap the shocks for some spax ones I've already bought; now is this a good idea or I would I be better off with Landy ones, I know they can over-damper but is that what I need, or are spax even stiffer at max?

I also heard you can double up leaf springs,and make them even stiffer if you run the second spring upside-down, anybody done this? Any noticeable difference? Also apparently then i can remove the lowering blocks, giving me more ground clearance and adjust the ride height by cutting down the second spring, is that correct?

Also is there any anti-tramp bar that was made for the 340, or any that fit or can be adapted to fit?

thanks, Dave

[Nimminz]

Double leafing can work, not heard of turning one of the two leafs upside down, I imagine they'd cancel each other out even if you could clamp em together.

The way i think I'm going to go is with Dai's (classicswede) 's rear coilovers, Adjustable rear dampers with springs (pretty much a coilover) that is fitted just like the dampers to compliment the leafsprings, Have a search and I'm sure you'll find more info on them.

I think the rod on the right hand side of the rear axle is there to reduce axle tramp, fitting another one to the other side was reccomended to me. It's also on an adjustable mount so with your car being lowered it may improve things to adjust it to suit

[classicswede]

The 300's are already single leaf so you can not lower it by any other means than lowering blocks or taking the springs to a specialist to have them altered.

Keep the blocks and fit a set of coil overs to overcome the lack of spring rate.

The budget option is to fit a second spring cut down in addition to the original each side. There are a couple of threads on here describing it. I'm sure a search term like "double spring) should give you what you want.

[Chris_C]

If you want to reduce tramp, you don't want to just increase damping. Have a look at what is under the car and you'll see the problem, the passenger side has *no* locating link other than the spring for fore/aft movement. As the leaf spring at this point is being treated as a link, it's this that needs to either be stopped from allowing the axle to rotate (winding itself up and down the spring, violently, causing the thumping you feel when it tramps) or, add another anti tramp bar on the passenger side, the same as is on the drivers side (which is what I'll be doing if I ever get round to working on the car again)

If you do, you can't just take a drivers side one, the angles in it mean you can't just flip it over.

[Ride_on]

You'd be lucky to find a good radius arm anyway, the bushes are all shot, and I wonder if that is the problem. I don't remember new cars doing this.

The right hand radius arm on the axle is to keep the axle flat as the suspension moves up and down and stop it coiling up the leafs and changing the negative camber into toe-in. 1 arm should be perfectly adquate for that but the problem maybe that its flopping around with hard rubber and an elongated hole. A straight rosejoined arm can easily be made.

http://www.volvo300mania.com/forum-uk/v ... rm#p155177

Oh and of course I found that chassis end hole size doesn't match the bolt, it needs to be well clamped up, otherwise there is 2mm movement.

The uneven thing is that the axle might change direction slightly as the left moves forward more under acceleration as the spring twists and bows. The right hand side arm might take some of the forward thrust.

[Chris_C]

The axle does change direction chap, I feel it when I launch (but Fake isn't standard, I'm aware). I wonder if the single arm is the same as the rest of the car (well, 340 at least) stuff, *just* strong enough for the basic engine power and very little reserve.