FTO AUSTRALIA

Hi guys, sorry about this, I KNOW this has been covered a lot, but im just trying to get my head around it before i get mechanical advice.

At the moment my car is as noisy as can be! on bumpy roads there is a lot of knocking noises from front and rear areas of the car. If the road is perfectly smooth I dont notice too much, but on roads (especially with tram tracks) that arent smooth its really annoying.. bumpy and noisy!

Im assuming my suspension is on the way out (car has done 110,000 ive done 50000 of these) and no idea if its been replaced before ... but would like to know what makes up the 'entire' suspension components (not including sway bars, struts etc). If I am going to start replacing suspension components what areas need to be looked at?

e.g. Shocks , Springs, engine mounts? bushes? etc etc...

Imagining I may have to start from scratch with my suspension, what do people here recommend?


And slightly off the topic, If the car is lowered by say 40mm at the front do you find your consistently getting scrapage during daily driving? (driveways, crap roads etc)

are they like, high pitched 'clinking' noises? cause if so i've got the same thing on my commo, and i think it may be the bushes... a mate of mine with an S13 Silvia (beast of a car, he just put $20,000 into rebuilding the SR20DET in it... now pushes 290kw at the rear wheels...) anyway, he was saying its more than likely my bushes, and it costs next to nothing to buy new ones and chuck em in... though this could be a completely different problem to yours.

just a thought

This topic will hopefully answer a few of my queries, good questions euro.

Also for all the people that have lowered their fto, what can you get away with with lowering and rims, eg could you put on 17, 18 inch rims and dump that car 1,2,3 inches??? just curious what works for people, i cant stand hearing that rubbing sound under the guard. Is it worth getting the guards rolled.

I want to add a body kit hopefully 17, 18's and lower it a little. What would be a good setup. I still want a little practicality, but look sleek at the same time, any comments will help.

My first guess would be Bushes and rack boots.

dimi wrote: I want to add a body kit hopefully 17, 18's and lower it a little. What would be a good setup. I still want a little practicality, but look sleek at the same time, any comments will help.

Both DZYME & SLITHER had full veilside bodykit with 18" & lowed, they don’t seem to have a problem during cruise, but it depends on the offset of the wheel & profiles of the tyres. So make sure you get the correct one.

Dyzrme and Slither what is your ofset and profile of your tyre. How much have you had your car lowered your car, have you rolled your guards.

Also what is the difference between 205,215 and 225 and also 35, 40, 46 when it comes to tyre profile. Would 17's with a larger profile tyre and lowered filled the guards with out rubbing. Thanks

I've got 17x7.5 36+ offset & lowed 2", running 225/45/R17 all round, it doesn't rub the guard, but like 18" you have to get the correct offset & matching profiles.

Running 15" rims with low profile rubber, about 2" off the ride height and pretty std skirts.

Tis bumpy as all hell (tram tracks can be death), but no bad noises yet

Be interesting to hear if replacing the brushes fixes your noise problems.

WR

Also what is the difference between 205,215 and 225 and also 35, 40, 46 when it comes to tyre profile

O.K. 205, 215, 225 and 235 refer to the actual width of the tyre, and 35 40 and 45 refer to the hight of the tyre wall as a percentage of the width. i.e. most FTOs run 225 45 17. That equates to a 17 inch rim with 225 mm of width and the tyre wal is 45% of the width at 225 which should measure out to be 101.25 mm, Any one care to go out and measure their tyre walls to see if my calculations are correct. Why they chage from inches for the rims and mm for the tyres buggers me.