Bit of video of it in action at 1m in here too, and again at 4.30

I was flicking through the old thread and realised I didn't add the picture from when we went back to that same place for another event....








Brakes got a good workout 

The Rallye 440 is a very high silica compound. That's what makes it a good rain tyre. That's why it has the umbrella on the sidewall... 

UniRoyal rain tyres in general are some of the highest silica doped road-going compounds you can get.

Quote from: Dave DND on July 07, 2026, 08:47:56 AMFront suspension ideas -  Have a read of my build thread as tried a few on there

Then ignore everything I have written        

"Don't do what I did!" 

To get back to the point in hand. The best shocks to use can be very silly money, I'm talking thousands each, hence asking the budget.

However, without the rest of the suspension being up to snuff, a set of adjustable Gaz or Protech are going to give you 95% of what you can get on a stock setup for far less cash - a pair will only set you back £200-300.

If you're on coilovers you'll probably need more leaves out than you think or only run very soft springs on them just to give you some easy ride height adjustment. IIRC back when I was on Rancho and then the Bilstein front dampers I only ran about 40-80lb/inch front springs with the leaves still in.
And that was for race use - don't get me wrong it was more comfortable than almost every buggy I've been in but I also had 50% more travel to help that out...

Once I switched over to the emulsion foxes, and then the remote res adjustable 3-way dampers, I stepped the rates up and dropped the leaves entirely, but that's a lotta work, and you need reinforced towers.

I think if I was spending 2k on EFi alone I'd be wondering at that point why I wasn't just putting a modern EFi engine in for the same money and twice the power that's already mapped, setup and fires up every morning...

We get 7mpg average, and that's still better than it did with the rotary engine 

It's only fixed if you don't consider modifying the uprights or the K+L bushes.

I also absolutely disagree they were 'genius from a 1936' point of view. Trailing arm suspension had been around for decades by then, and VW themselves obviously thought they got it wrong given the switched from a swing axle to trailing arm.
 You mention Citroen trying to catch up but they used trailing arm suspension before VW ever did.

The trick for the 2CV was interlinking the suspension, that was genius at the time, not a trailing arm that's basically been the basis of suspension since they put cart springs on horse drawn boxes.

They weren't genius from a suspension standpoint. They were cheap, easy to make, and more importantly, easy to fix/durable in all sorts of conditions. Most importantly they would still go up and down and 'work' after a fashion even with massive amounts of wear and play.

A buggy is absolutely better with more camber on modern tyres  - however you can't easily add camber to a link pin front end without binding the suspension.
 Which as many quickly find out, has very adverse affects on the ride and handling vs the miniscule amount of camber you can gain from shimming.
  Add the camber at the upright and it's fine.

Incidentally, why would you avoid Silicia for rain tyres? Silicia additives make tyres better in cold wet conditions, it was one of the best material advances we made for doping tyres. In fact you'd have to absolutely go out of your way to find tyres without it these days. You'd have to buy ultra-soft trackday tyres and even then they still contain trace amounts for the most part until you get up to slicks.
 Same for polyester sidewalls - they're lighter, and flex with less friction and hysterisis than steel sidewall plies - that's exactly what you want on the front of the buggy, what's the reasoning for avoiding polyester?

I can understand steel and kevlar for race use like mine, because I require the large sidewalls but I still need them to be pretty rigid laterally and take a lot of impact, but for a roadgoing buggy 1/2 ply polyester up front is ideal.

You can generate 500-1000kg of compresssion force over a pothole, 10-20kg pushing against you trying to overcome the gas is still miniscule in terms of operating forces.

It will be the valving being too hard that was the issue for moving suspension, not 20kg of spring preload.

Shouldn't make any difference at all, the gas pressure force is absolutely miniscule compared to the forces generated by the valving over a bump

The deformation will have been from already tired rubbers.

Really depends on your budget, to be honest.

A set of adjustable dampers so you can turn things down to suit are always nice... (the gas/oil thing is a misunderstanding by many people. It's how stiff the valving is that matters)

If the pistons are a lot bigger it might need a bigger master cylinder (but in that case you'll have a huge mismatch in front to rear brakes) - definately don't still have air in the system?

Yea, that's your issue right there. Tungsten will be contaminated too, pure argon gas required.

Honestly looks more like a contamination issue than anything - was it definately the right gas you used for the TIG?

Flexovit 0.8mm ones are my go-to discs, cut very quickly and run smooth as butter.