205 Gti All Over The Place When Accellerating

[B1ack_Mi16 67]

Well it's been a long time since I've driven my racecar now. But I have finally got plates on it again and just got reminded how unstable the car is during acceleration and on uneven roads.

 

During braking and normal driving and at high speeds the car is rock stable and easy to control, feels very safe.

 

But I can't get it why it is wandering all over the road during acceleration, it's got a quaife diff and 309 arms, but the toe settings were set to orginal spec like 3 years ago, I think it's quite close to zero toe, but probably a tiny amount of toe-in if I remember correct.

 

Does anyone on here run a quaife, 309 arms and quite high power, and is your car stable during acceleration and on uneven road surface?

 

I'm fed up with the wandering all over the place behaviour but don't know exactly how to deal with it.. if I'm to change the toe settings I would preferably need some starting point as the wheel alignemnt costs like 100£ at the workshop.

 

Anyone got some ideas? The car is using some rallydesign red poly bushes which actually seem to be keeping up quite good though.

 

Thanks for any help

[TT205 42]

I think that is pretty normal for a performance 205 on 'normal roads'

 

My car is great on track but if I try to go for it on public roads then it's all over the place under acceleration - to the degree that if you're not carefull you could easily end up in a different lane!

 

I did it with my wife in the car and lets just say that the air was blue

[TT205 42]

Just to add to that, if there is any play in your front arms everything is massively exaggerated

[B1ack_Mi16 67]

I think that is pretty normal for a performance 205 on 'normal roads'

 

My car is great on track but if I try to go for it on public roads then it's all over the place under acceleration - to the degree that if you're not carefull you could easily end up in a different lane!

 

I did it with my wife in the car and lets just say that the air was blue

 

Yes that's how it is, it's easy to end up in the wrong lane unless you are fully concentrated and are ready to go off the accelerator if it starts to pull sideways.

 

I was hoping there could be a fix to it.. at least to make it better as it's just really bad, very dangerous trying to overtake cars as soon I start accelerating it gets very interesting and scary.

 

I have checked the arms and there's not any play in either of them. Car has only been driven like 2000km since all parts were new..

[Pugnut 9 1 Cars]

with 250bhp, you could easily trash a set of front arm bushes in a heartbeat. First thing i'de do, even if they seem ok.

[dee205 3]

The toe-in would make it more twitchy under acceleration. Good in an averaged powered car but with your figures it would be exagerated. Have you had the alignment checked recently to see how much you have.

[edbar 6]

Toe in made my car almost undriveable. Get it set to parallel and see how it is then, should be alot better and pull straighter than with toe in.

[brumster 135 1 Cars]

Definately feel I can contribute here

 

I had this same issue. On uneven surfaces the car could easily wander a lane's width on full chat if you weren't completely on the ball and quick to correct. I have a tightly-set plate diff and, at the time, PTS tarmac setup, adjustable bottom arms, 309 shafts/steering arms, a fairly low tarmac setup (not daftly so, mind) and soft sticky tyres. On a stage it never really became a problem or bothered me, but on the road it was pretty much impossible (ie. daft) to drive it at 10/10ths.

 

I suspected lower arm bushes so was very disappointed when I replaced them to find very little, if any, difference.

 

Turned out my geometry was all to pot, not to mention I was running parallelish on toe. My hubs were also ovalled.

 

Assuming all the bushes are good, try going to half a degree toe out; on the power, this should pull the front of the wheels in and more parallel, keeping the geometry away from toe-in in under power.

 

At the moment, the car has had new front suspension and has been setup properly by an ex-Ralliart engineer who's set up his own suspension setup business. THE best £75/hr I've spent, without doubt (yes, it's that expensive - thought I'd lay some expectations for you). Transformed the car, and I've still got the ovalled hubs on there at the moment !!

 

It still wanders slightly on really bad road surfaces, but like you say only on full chat. Given the nature of the car, particularly the tightly-wound diff and grippy tyres, I think this is par for the course. When the new hubs go on it that may improve things slightly, but it's a shed load better than it ever was.

 

I would try the toe-out approach first, if that doesn't address it then maybe a more thorough examination of your geometry will be time better spent. But don't expect to elliminate it entirely, I suspect.

 

Good luck! Mind those ditches!

Edited May 31, 2010 by brumster

[B1ack_Mi16 67]

Thanks for your input guys.

 

I think the first thing to try is to give it a tad toe-out and see how that changes the bahaviour.

 

My hubs are not ovalled either so the geometry should behave good if just adjusted right then, hopefully...

 

Anyone got any idea on how much to wind on the inner steering joints when adjusting, I guess it's just fairly small adjustments that's necessary really.

 

A quarter of a turn on each side for a start?

[petert 578]

You need to make yourself a toe-in gauge. It's just a long, rigid, U shaped device that goes under the car, and can measure the difference between the 9 o'clock and 3 o'clock positions on the oustide of the wheels. Use a steel ruler to measure up against the rim. Set it to 1mm toe out. Don't forget to push the car forwards & backwards a metre or so between adjustments, in order to let it settle. An invaluable tool for any 205 owner.

[B1ack_Mi16 67]

You need to make yourself a toe-in gauge. It's just a long, rigid, U shaped device that goes under the car, and can measure the difference between the 9 o'clock and 3 o'clock positions on the oustide of the wheels. Use a steel ruler to measure up against the rim. Set it to 1mm toe out. Don't forget to push the car forwards & backwards a metre or so between adjustments, in order to let it settle. An invaluable tool for any 205 owner.

 

Hm so just a steel frame then.

 

I think I'll just try to adjust a little bit in the beginning now, but anyway, you write 1mm toe-out.

 

1mm measured where?

 

1mm difference between 3 and 9'o clock?

[petert 578]

1mm difference between 3 and 9'o clock?

 

Yes. The frame should sit on the ground, thus the height of the tyre rolling radius. It takes two people to do it accurately.

[B1ack_Mi16 67]

BTW. found the papers from the wheel alignment I had done in 2007.

 

Specs as following:

 

7 minutes toe in on each side, that's like 0.12 degrees on each side.

 

If I've calculated right that's 1.17mm toe in.

 

Petert.. I assume the 1mm toe out is 1mm difference on each side?

 

I basicly need to adjust it like 2mm from how it is now.

[crf450 0 1 Cars]

What offset and width wheels are you running to achieve your wide track?

[B1ack_Mi16 67]

What offset and width wheels are you running to achieve your wide track?

It is running 20mm spacers and sl434 6.75 inch wide et8.

 

But it's not really any better if i run et15 wheels, 7 inch wide without the spacers.

[crf450 0 1 Cars]

Just read in an other thread that your using spacers to clear your callipers.

My apologies if I'm missing something here or I'm stating the obvious, but your engine is gonna produce a lot more torque than most engines which is gonna be a handful even if you were running the center of your wheels in the position Peugeot intended when they designed the hub. The fact of the matter is running spacers means you've increase the leverage on the hub and unless you move you wheel back into the correct position you always gonna have uncontrollable torque steer.

Cheers Martin

[crf450 0 1 Cars]

Sorry you must have posted as I was writing.

Running your wheels nearly 30mm out from where they should be should make a big difference on a car like yours even if its not the only thing wrong.

Are you running power steering at all?

[edbar 6]

BTW. found the papers from the wheel alignment I had done in 2007.

 

Specs as following:

 

7 minutes toe in on each side, that's like 0.12 degrees on each side.

 

If I've calculated right that's 1.17mm toe in.

 

Petert.. I assume the 1mm toe out is 1mm difference on each side?

 

I basicly need to adjust it like 2mm from how it is now.

 

 

Yes 2.17mm to get 1mm toe out. Will have to re-set mine for a slight toe out and see how it is, its alot better parallel than toe in so worth a go.

[Rippthrough 98]

As CRF says, I'd be looking at the amount of wheel offset you have - that's going to give much more force from the scrub radius.

[B1ack_Mi16 67]

As CRF says, I'd be looking at the amount of wheel offset you have - that's going to give much more force from the scrub radius.

 

I see your point about the spacers etc. I actually have bought some 306 arms and have two spare 405 hubs that I was thinking about using, but haven't had time to modify anything to fit yet... (reweld the subframet etc..).

 

However the wandering and unstable behavior does not at all require anywhere near full throttle, and as I said it is also there if I remove the spacers and just run 7" wide TSW wheels with 15mm offset, which as far as I know is the correct offset for the 205.

 

I'll try to adjust the toe settings first and take it from there.

 

That said I don't think the engine is that powerful, could like a lot more in 4'th and 5'th gear to say at least

Hard to keep up with the 600bhp cars out there.

[Rippthrough 98]

You might find you benefit from a bit more castor with the LSD + extra camber you have, but the first thing is to get a farkorf big bar and check all those bushes and the toe in, and go from there.

[petert 578]

Petert.. I assume the 1mm toe out is 1mm difference on each side?

 

No, a total of 1mm at the edge of the rim.

[B1ack_Mi16 67]

No, a total of 1mm at the edge of the rim.

 

I wasn't very precise in my description, but it's 1mm on each wheel then, I was thinking 0.5mm on the left and 0.5mm on the right opposed to 1mm on left and 1mm on right side of car.

 

But got it all good by now

[kyepan 291]

we've got another thread going about a similar topic,

 

clicky

 

have a look and see if you think it might be similar.

[B1ack_Mi16 67]

This evening I got to use the lazer tracking machine at the local Peugeot workshop

 

Tracking before:

 

Rear

 

Front

 

Tracking after:

 

Front

 

Needless to say the car is now much more stable!

 

Going from 32.5 minutes toe in to 15 minutes toe out!

 

I still wanders on very uneven roads but in general much much better

 

I'm going to a small "track" driving on saturday so lets see how it performs in the end.