Wheels and Suspension Modification

The suspension was the first real mod that I did to the Molemobile. I got feed up with cornering on 3 wheels and passengers saying they felt sea sick. The standard Mondeo suspension is plush and wallows, and 80,000 miles hadn't help so it was time to replace it and of course upgrade it at the same time

So off to Croydon Race & Rally I went and came back with a Spax VSX suspension kit. This was the cheapest kit around and I wouldn't buy it again. So come the weekend it was wheels of and take cover as you release the springs. now I only have one set of Spring compressors so I clamped the existing spring down. Put loads of cable ties on it, released the compressors and transferred them to the new spring going in. I then put the old springs in a wheelie bin and gingerly cut the cable ties!!!!!!

You can see how low I sit on the right. Speed humps are definitely out now

Kit went on easily in under 3 hours for all four corners. Boy did she sit low. The kit was supposed to lower the car by 35mm but I got 50mm front and 55mm rear!!! (I have since seen other VSX lowered Mondeo's and this seems to be normal). I took it for a drive and WOW, its like cornering on Velcro. I decided I liked the low effect, but passengers do say its a very hard ride especially in the back. 30k miles later the back has settled to 75mm, the shocks have rusted badly and it is getting silly. Spax are not being very helpful so I will soon be buying another kit. This time it will be top adjustable coilovers i.e. Koni or Bilstein. I will never touch Spax again and wouldn't recommend them to anyone else.

Finally the Molemobile needed new wheels, those old heavy black steel things looked awful, even though the 195/65-14 Yokohama A509's gave a lot of grip. A trip to RSR Tyres in Sutton saw a set of BK Racing 16" alloys shod currently in Goodyear Eagle NCT3 205/50-16. These are not too bad, but not as good as the yoko's.  The steering is very light at speed now (too light?) and the Goodyear's squirm under acceleration and heavy breaking. I had to push out the rear arches a little with a bottle jack to get 5mm of clearance on the tyres. As you can see from the picture above the rear tyres sit well within the arch. So no 17's or 18's for me unless I do some serious metal work.