PULOVR

Where do you put the battery?


Ie....Crappy Tire has batteries that are on display for months without a problem. I've heard the if you leave a battery on the ground...ie...cement garage or basement floor, that the batery will be drained in no time. Something about lose parasitic lose.

This is why you should remove the battery from the car. If there's moisture on the ground, a resistance between the battery and the groung will occure, and slowly drain the battery. I've aslo been told to put the battery on top of a plywood panel and to keep it of the floor.......acts as an insulator. (just like for tires.....moisture is bad for them)

bbarbulo

iTrader: (2)

http://members.rogers.com/kevin.kwan/winter.html

SweetCivicGurl

hmmm last year when it came time to store my car all i did was put steelies on instead of my rims, put a cover over her and that's it

in the spring when it was time for her to come out....just took it to the shop for an engine flush and tune up and i had no problems at all....haha that's the lazy person guide to storing your car

bbarbulo

iTrader: (2)

Ha, I left mine on my old 17s cuz I knew it was time for new tires anyways I drove it around the garage every couple of weeks. Not a good way to store it, but it beats getting salt on it.

james_tg

Looking for the bottom line on this subject?

Here are things you MUST do:

- jack the vehicle up and use jackstands on the frame

Why? So that you do not wear your suspension out prematurely by leaving the components under load. Secondly, it prevents cracking and flat-spotting of tires.

- remove the battery and attach it to a battery tender

This is important if you want to have a working battery come driving season. Batteries will natually discharge over time because they will try to find a chemical equilibrium - keeping your battery attached to a _battery tender_ *NOT* a batter _charger_ will maintain the battery charge; thus, no dead battery due to discharge.

- fill the gas tank to its fullest being sure to add gas stabilizer and then driving it for at least 20 minutes to properly circulate the stabilizer

Feel like pulling apart your fuel system to clean the gum out? Didn't think so.

- perform an oil change

Oil becomes corrosive over time. Corrosion accelerates wear on the engine and its components. Corrosion = money + HP lost. You get the picture.

Bottom line:
All in all, I've done a lot of research on this stuff .. and I've mentioned the bare minimums above. The best thing to do when storing a vehicle is to NOT START IT AT ALL DURING THE STORAGE PERIOD. If you insist on starting the vehicle, you MUST allow it to run for at least 20 minutes once it has warmed up completely - to do otherwise will allow moisture to build up where it shouldn't.

If in doubt, re-read this article (I wrote it) :

http://www.techguys.ca/howto/winter.html

and for other "how-to" articles:

http://www.techguys.ca/howto/

bbarbulo

iTrader: (2)

decent writeup james_tg... disagree about premature wear of susp... regardless of whether the car is moving or not, the susp is loaded... except driving it does circulate oil through the shock and lubricates the seals... so if you do leave it on the ground, jacking up each corner every two weeks will do you good. About the tires... just pick up 4 spares at a junk yard for like $10 each and leave it on those...

james_tg

Thx bbarbulo

I'll debate

When you raise a car off its suspension, you eliminate almost all load from everything save the springs. The only way to eliminate all load from every component would be to remove the parts.

When you eliminate as much load as possible, you are actually increasing the life expectancy of the parts. As an example, most shocks are only meant to be in service for 4 years before they are to be replaced or rebuilt. The 4 year service life considers that the suspension will be under "static" load for the vast majority of the 4 years.

When you consider that some people pay up to $10'000 on shocks and springs .. it makes sense to maintain them as well as you can .

Most people really don't care enough though - maintaining their suspension wouldn't even be considered by most avid car enthusiasts. Then again, most people aren't aware that in most cases, lowering a car actually _raises_ its roll-center .

Bottom line on this one: If you don't change all your car's fluids on a regular basis, you probably don't care enough to worry about the shocks to warrant this effort.

bbarbulo

iTrader: (2)

j_tg - true enough who do you roll with in Ottawa? shop/club/affiliation? I used to attend... street events in Ottawa years ago before events became main-stream, I may know some ppl there - mostly by their cars though.

now... can you explain the dynamics of the roll center? Not sure I understand what the roll center is, and what goes into calculating it?

PULOVR

uh, I thought that in most cases it lowers its roll centre?

I think you are wrong on that point.

bbarbulo

iTrader: (2)

PULOVR, center of gravity, yes... but roll center I do believe is something different, and it's prolly been close to 6-8 years since I've looked at any chassis dynamics stuff... so I don't remember exactly what it is.

james_tg

I'm actually not affiliated right now . I used to do some shows with my Mazda MX-3 [audio / show]. Now I've found a new passion - my roadster.

Roll center .. oh gwad .. brb with one of my suspension books.

...

Roll center is a geometric point on a suspension system where the angle between the upper and lower control arms is "reflected" to below the lower control arm - directly below the center of gravity.

If you look in the following diagram, the "roll center" is the spot directly below the genter of gravity on an imaginary line created by "mirroring" the angle between the upper a-arm and the lower a-arm.

Roll center is important to how flat your car corners - it can be used to determine how a car's front end will respond to a particular corner, etc. As per calculating, it relies on trig. and measurements



PULOVR, when a car is lowered (in most cases) the enthusiast only changes the springs which in many cases will cause the angle between the upper control arm and the lower control arm to decrease thus raising the roll center. IF you are able to avoid raising the roll center when lowering a car, you are only ever able to lower the roll-center by a fraction. Better solutions to modifying roll center do not include changing the vehicle's ride height - they typically involve changing spindles, shimming ball-joints, etc. In fact, you would yeild better results in lowering the roll center by letting air out of your tires .



Hope this clairifies (roll-center) things a tad for folks.

[edit: fixed image URL]

bbarbulo

iTrader: (2)

I see...

the pic not working though

Problem is, j_tg many many... many people don't know enough to mod susp pickup and attachment points since it can drastically change caster/toe/camber settings in addition to making the car downright unsafe on the street, point being best thing to do is to leave that part up to Honda (or Mazda in your case) and work on the center of gravity and rotation if you can. Dampners matched to stiffer springs and anti-roll bars satisfy most peoples' appetite for flat cornering. Given the problems some parts cause, I don't even think I'd consider purchasing susp bits that affected the geometry in any way... like spindles and LCAs. For most of us, reliability is a key issue as well as noise/harshness/vibration levels for the significant others. My car is on coilovers, down maybe one inch +/- 1/4" with SiR swaybars, and it handles like a work of art. Comfortable, yet responsive.

In your case, like AWR racing sway bars have endlink issues... if only you were lucky enough to have a higher model MX5 to punk OEM parts from. Hope you have a factory LSD

bbarbulo

iTrader: (2)

Oh, and most of our club flosses a double wishbone... which may be more suited for lowering. I know Miatas and Talons are really really bad candidates for lowering.

james_tg

My ride has a Torsen diff. so it is absolutely gorgeous in corners - VERY few cars can even keep up in the twisties. In terms of higher model MX5 .. without going with the "R" edition - they don't exist . Aside from adjustable shocks, the only upgrade path is stiffer sway-bars and adjustable end-links.

The MX5 was designed almost exclusively with cornering in mind - which goes to say that the suspension engineers paid special attention to their deisgn. That said, lowering a Miata is for the most part BAD for cornering.

Next on the debating plate: lowering and ignoring the camber changes. Egad! The number of cars I see which are lowered without camber kits. Nothing like seeing a car whose tires sit like so: / / \ \