306 Trailing Arms In A 309 Beam, On A 205.....

[maxi 36 1 Cars]

Evening chaps. Thinking of building myself another 309 beam with 21mm TB's and 306 rear arms. The only thing holding me back is I hear the amount of toe in on the 306 arms dulls the turn in?? Just wondered what peoples experiences were really, has anyone noticed more stability at high speed over std 309 trailing arms????

 

Any relevant exeriences welcome.

 

Cheers

Maxi

[maxi 36 1 Cars]

Had extensive chats about this setup with Dan (Taylorspug) as suspension really is his forte and we both agree it would in theory be perfect for what im after. I just want a few experiences to be honest......

 

Maxi

[j_turnell 134 3 Cars]

Think you may be bit of a guinea pig on this one maxi, be interested to see the results though.

[Baz 421]

I reckon it'd be ideal for a road car tbh, more stable at higher speed. makes sense.

[Alastairh 47]

Yeah something i've thought about aswell. But i managed to find some Zx arms.

 

Disc arm'd 306s are rather common in the scrapy, give it a go. Would be intrested to hear

 

Al

[Sandy 189]

It's about the same as the S2 309GTi arms toe wise. It's going to be too stable at the back IMO. But I'm not sure how many people really appreciate this difference really anyway from some of the opinions I've heard against my own experiences! It seems to depend what your benchmark is.

[James_R 3]

All I can say is my old s16 has ZX arms built in to the beam for that, and it was not noticely less stable at high speed cornering, and it made the turn in positivley electric on it, totally transformed the car. I can say the same of swapping from 205 to ZX arms on my 205 aswell.

[NeilGTi85 5]

I have to say when Dan rebuilt my 1.6 beam with 306 arms The diffrence was massive....I was previously loward 65mm though and the beam was shot.

 

Once rebuilt it handled amazingly well on the country lanes at speed, I've never driven a 205 with a 309 beam so im guissing its going to be compleatly diffrent anyway

 

Neil

[Anthony 1,000]

I've built a couple of 309 beams with 306 GTi-6 arms on them, but I've never really driven either in anger to get a true feel for how they behave near the limit. From the one that I did drive for a few miles, it felt pretty planted and confidence inspiring, and didn't suffer from the slightly nervous feeling a 205 beam can give you at speed. It had definately lost a degree of throttle adjustability and argueably some of that 205 magic, but maybe for a daily driven road car that's no bad thing?

 

Problem is that I've never personally done a back-to-back test between standard, ZX, and 306 arms on the same car with no other changes at the same time, so I can't really say with 100% confidence how the toe and camber changes affect the car on their own - I rarely seem to find two 205's that handle/drive the same even with supposidly similar suspension setups.

 

The beam that's currently on my car is reasonably close to what you're looking at building - 309 axle, ZX arms, 22mm torsion and anti-roll bars, Bilstein Challenge dampers, and Group A mounts - and it works well on both the road and on track, giving a sharp positive turn-in and a planted feel throughout the corner, yet with too much deterioration in ride quality and still able to deal with bumpy/broken surfaces.

[maxi 36 1 Cars]

Looks like im going to be the guinea pig then! Ant, you have PM mate, dont know if you got it! Trying to pay you!

 

Maxi

[Baz 421]

Have you done & driven this yet Ad? Interested in your opinion on it!