Does anybody have any experiance on this product?
Would you recomment it?
is it any better than the standard set up

Its an extremely new product, so there's won't be too many people running it yet. There's one arriving here on Friday for fitting on Saturday....

In theory, it should be miles better than stock, for handling and ride quality etc. Proof will be in the pudding as they say.

Keep us posted Jim Ride quality is what most people are after as in often suffers with lowering

zippy wrote:Keep us posted Jim Ride quality is what most people are after as in often suffers with lowering

This is a myth - if it's done right then the ride quality is great - decent shocks, dropped spindles and an anti roll bar and it'll drive better than stock (mine does )

Doesn't mean I won't be fitting the wishbones pretty soon though.....This system rocks!

Orb

Elrao's get one on order too. I'll be doing a Boxster brake conversion on it (using their std late bay spindles) before it goes in the bus. Hopefully the adaptors will only come to a few more £s than the cost of R9D machining charge to use the early bay spindle (which would be needed if you were to carryover splitty brakes) so by the time you've bought a pair of second hand boxster calipers(£150) and a pair of new disks (£80) it will be a very cost effective installation.

Sadly Elrao's bus is more oxide than steel so I may have to test it out on my crewcab!

5 weeks wait for our kit now.

Just been reading a trail of comments on the other forum site check out
http://www.volkszone.com/VZi/showthread ... 973&page=2
it's worth reading the whole thing as it does bring up some questions
in particular the last comment that says "there was no provision for an anti-roll bar that even VW thought necessary on the bug and with the camber change that is to be expected particularly on a soft spung road car then the control of camber IMO is a must".

not being technically quallified to know if any of this is right, has anyone got one fitted and do they work?

Hairy Bus wrote:Just been reading a trail of comments on the other forum site check out
http://www.volkszone.com/VZi/showthread ... 973&page=2
it's worth reading the whole thing as it does bring up some questions
in particular the last comment that says "there was no provision for an anti-roll bar that even VW thought necessary on the bug and with the camber change that is to be expected particularly on a soft spung road car then the control of camber IMO is a must".

not being technically quallified to know if any of this is right, has anyone got one fitted and do they work?

I wouldn't pay too much attention to what's on that thread - most of it is very ill informed (the guys description of the ackerman angle, for example, made me laugh a lot, the position of the steering rack has no effect on that at all!) and was written in March before anyone had actually seen the kit and was also written without talking to the designer (who is an aeronautical designer so should know his stuff).
A lot of the comments are simply incorrect and based on assumption, I know because I've spent much time talking to Simon about every aspect of this system (I'm not about to shell out all my hard earnt on something rubbish) and got clarification on these points.

For example the quote you've used there;

"there was no provision for an anti-roll bar that even VW thought necessary on the bug"
I didn't know that beetles came with wishbone suspension!! - so what relevance does that have to the conversation?
Now I'm not 100% sure but I'm pretty confident that an anti-roll bar has no effect on the camber of the vehicle or in controlling that camber - so wrong again.

There are a number of people who already have these fitted and the reports that are coming back seem very favourable with great ride quality and massive amounts of grip compared to stock - Simon is always very keen to both let people drive his bay with the system fitted and then to take them out and really throw it about to show what it's really capable of (people who are use to a stock bus wouldn't dream of driving one the way you can with this system).

All the discussion about this can be laid to rest next week when Jim has fitted one, driven one and reported back to us with his findings - at which point I think Simons phone is going to be red hot

At the end of the day cars like the Lamborghini Gallardo use wishbone suspension (with an anti-roill bar) and if it's good enough for them - and lets not forget that a Gallardo weighs 280KG's MORE than a 21 window samba (that's getting on for 2 x 600cc sports bikes!) and it was designed to go very fast round a track - something I doubt many of us will do in our buses so I don't think an anti-roll bar will be that missed.

I can't wait to get this under the front of my bus, I simply fail to see how it could be any worse than the 50+ year old design that's under it now (can't think of many new cars today that use anything like what a bus has - wonder why that is!)

Orb

Exactly. People have driven it, they liked it, they bought it.

Hardly any split buses ever had ARBs. If you want one then surely it would be possible to run a drop link off the back of the brake caliper mounts and make a couple of mounts using std rubber bobbins off a Caterham (you could make a blade type adjustor?!?!) - I'm getting carried away again aren't I!?

FAB, that's seems to answer that one then.
I suppose the final proof of the pudding is in the eating.
when it's fitted let us know how it is.
I fear I am going to be trying to convince the Wife I am just about to spend a load more cash on me bus.

bobley wrote:I'm getting carried away again aren't I!?

maybe.... though I was wondering if it would be possible to fit one, but at the moment I'm not expecting one to be needed.

Hairy Bus wrote: I fear I am going to be trying to convince the Wife I am just about to spend a load more cash on me bus.

Play the depreciation card - that one usually works for me

Orb

Or if they're not mechanical..... just don't tell them..... They'll never know...

vwJim wrote:Or just don't tell them..... They'll never know...

Works for me EVERY time

If she spots something new & says anything just laugh & say thats ALWAYS been there

Enless she's an accountant then your well snooker'd

Well I am any how

Looking at the R&D thats gone into it, and the look of the finished product, if it lives up to exepctations, I think 1500 quid sounds like a fair price considering the costs of a narrowed beam, dropped spindles, and rebuilt steering box, all of which this replaces. I wonder how/if you could get one to Oz? Mmm...

Cheers

Steve