I lowered my suspension!

"Herr Quattro - Has a 4-Motion" (spydermonkeywrench) 01/03/2015 at 15:45 • Filed to: TECHNIC

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A couple of you may remember a while back I did an article on how I rebuilt the engine in my Lego Technic car from a standard V8 to a Flat-8.

[ Full Story: I also posted this a while back, but none of the pictures transferred from my notes, and I figured by the time I fixed all of them, it'd be off the front page, and nobody reads after the front page, so I'm reposting it now ]

After realizing how fun it was to write an article on a car, I decided to continue with this mini-series. Now if you view this as a pathetic attempt by a teenage guy who can't drive, so for some reason I keep drawing parallels between cars and a Lego car, it's ok: I'm pretty much out of parts. I mean I have bricks, but I don't have many technic style parts left.

So any future modifications I make will either have parts salvaged from old sets, or I'll have to order them. Basically it might happen, it might not.

Anyway, back to the point.

I'm back with a new modification: I lowered the suspension.

Now this will be a bit of controversy because there seem to be mixed opinions about lowering cars, but I think lowering/slamming is pretty cool. Maybe it's just because I'm 15, but I like it.

Now stancing them. Now that I take issue with.

Oh and just so you know, I could've stanced it:

[ The suspension is a double wishbone. As you can see here I'm showing how I could've added camber to it. ]

Anyway, while I didn't mean to lower it as far as I did, the front suspension didn't have much room to play with unlike the rear suspension, so it's lower then I originally intended. The rear is where I want it though.

On top of that, when I was planning it all out, I was doing it in my bed around midnight. So I didn't realize the front chassis grinds ever so slightly. Oh well.

[ But the front facia doesn't grind ]

However I think it looks hell of a lot better. Unlike last time, I actually took some comparison shots.

[ I think it's obvious which side was lowered ]

[ From here I couldn't tell that the chassis was going to grind ]

The rear wishbone was much MUCH easier to modify, as it was just a matter of lifting the shock up 2 spots:

[ Above: Lowered suspension, Bottom: Stock suspension ]

In fact this was so easy, I had already lowered it, but raised the one side to show how it originally looked.

Now the reason why I didn't raise it all the way to show the original was because of the front left. It's a bitch. Not to relower, but to raise back up.

Here's a picture of the not-raised right side.

Just to explain what your seeing: the 3 prong part at the top connects to the wheels. The grey part with yellow inbetween is the double wishbone. The long grey piece connecting to it is part of the steering system. This was taken when the car was on its side, so the red piece above it is the hood. The red pieces at the bottom controls the suspension travel, so when I pick it up, the wheels don't extend all the way.

This is the revised lower side:

[ Just asking, are double wishbones supposed to look like this? ]

The revised lowered suspension much better picture of the double wishbone suspension. Taken from the same perspective.

As you can see I lowered the entire double wishbone assembly.

So I'll let you guys be a judge. Here's a picture from my rebuilt engine article:

This is what it looks like now:

[ lowered side ]

[ stock side ]

After I lowered it I realized that the tires has a *slight* toe out

Apparently when you lower a lego car you have to watch the steering.

So instead of accepting defeat and throwing it across the room (which I felt like doing) I went about fixing it.

[ this is the stock setup ]

[ My solution ]

There is a slight issue where the tires drift to a toe out angle, but I don't know if it did that when it was stock either. The difference is these actually stay straight.

Though one of the upsides to the system that I didn't plan for was the fact it's much easier to remove the engine.

So next on my list of to-do is possibly paint the rims flat black, and install a turbocharger/supercharger. And make the engine actually horizontally opposed but that will literally fuck up everything because of the offset. (However the new suspension setup might help).

I also might build a garage, because like I said, I'm out of parts needed for these types of projects. But I have plenty of bricks.

If I do another article, it'll probably be a combination of the wheels, and supercharger. Maybe the engine *crosses fingers*

Also, maybe I can get some ideas, what do you guys think I should do next? Just keep in mind that I'm limited on parts and skill, but if the idea is good enough I might buy some parts, and I'll put time into making something work, but I'd prefer to not have to yank the entire thing apart to change a minor detail.

TDogg > Herr Quattro - Has a 4-Motion 01/03/2015 at 22:05

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This looks way better than stock height! Nicely done.

Herr Quattro - Has a 4-Motion > TDogg 01/05/2015 at 07:09

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thanks!

SHARPSPEED > Herr Quattro - Has a 4-Motion 01/19/2015 at 13:36

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Looking at this makes me think I might buy a set to actually build it for once.