RIDE
HEIGHT ADJUSTMENT
Ride height is determined by the position of
the coilover bottom mount. The mount can be
wound up and down the damper body to give a
full range of adjustment from near standard
ride height to so low it wouldn’t be
drivable on the road.
Because ride height is determined by an
adjustable bottom mount rather than spring
platform you retain full damper travel
regardless of the ride height run.
DAMPING
ADJUSTMENT
BR coilovers feature 30 way damping
adjustment that combines both rebound and
compression in one adjuster for simplicity
and ease of use. This adjustable facility
allows you to fine tune the vehicle to meet
the relevant conditions.
By tweaking front and rear damping you can
adjust the way the car handles. Increasing
damping force on the rear relative to the
front, for example, will start moving the
vehicle into a more oversteer orientated
stance.
If you want to go drag racing in a rear
wheel drive car then you want the back of
the car to squat off the line to maximize
weight transfer to the rear and therefore
onto the rear tires. This maximizes traction
and helps prevent wheel spin. To achieve
this you would soften the rear dampers to
allow faster compression. If you had the
rear dampers set to hard, as you might run
the car on a race track, then the car would
be less inclined to squat so traction would
be reduced.
Conversely, if you want to go drifting and
are finding it hard to break traction and
are having problems with understeer then
making the rear dampers harder will help
reduce traction whilst making the front
dampers softer will give greater front
traction. This will make the rear of the car
looser whilst minimizing understeer thus
altering the vehicles handling
characteristics more towards drift than
drag, road or track.
CORROSION PROTECTION
The damper units are black chromed steel to
give superb durability even through the
darkest of European winters. The aluminum
components (top mounts, locking collars etc)
are anodized and the steel lower mounts go
through an electrophoretic disposition
process followed by powder coating. A random
selection of steel components (brackets,
dampers, screws etc) are put through a salt
spray test once a month to check the quality
of the protective processes and that anti
corrosive properties are kept at the highest
possible standard.
HIGH
QUALITY COIL SPRINGS
BC Racing coilovers only use the highest
quality steel for their spring manufacturer.
They are produced from SAE9254 high strength
durable cold wound steel.
The springs are compression tested through
over 500,000 cycles with less that 5%
deformation.
PATENTED CONCAVE LOWER LOCKING COLLAR
Coilovers use a locking collar to prevent
the bottom mount becoming loose. If the
bottom mount becomes loose then the damper
body can work its way down into the bottom
mount so reducing ride height on that one
corner which can lead to dangerous handling
characteristics. This is a very common
problem for coilovers in general. BC Racing
utilize an innovative and patented designed
lower locking collar with a beveled edge
that seats into a corresponding bevel in the
coilover bottom mount. This vastly increases
the surface area that the locking collar
works on and so prevents the common and
dangerous problem of the locking collars
working loose.
HIGH QUALITY OIL
BC Racing dampers use a sophisticated shim
stack design and high quality oil to
consistently control the compression and
rebound speed of the damper rod even under
the most extreme conditions.
As the vehicles travels over rough ground
the compression and rebound motion of the
damper rod heats the oil. Poor quality
dampers use cheap oil whose characteristics
alter with varying temperatures. Its vital
that high quality oil is used that can
maintain consistent viscosity under a wide
temperature operating range. Once the oil
start to degrade, its properties change
leading to damping changes leading to
changes in the vehicles handling
characteristics.
BC Racing ensures that only high quality oil
is used so that damping rates are maintained
not only for the moment in hand (i.e. whilst
out for a back road blast on or track) but
that long term longevity is maximised with
oil that doesn’t degrade quickly over time
thus extending the dampers operating life
significantly.
NITROGEN PRESSURIZED DAMPERS
When you work a damper hard on track or on
high speed bumpy roads you can cause the oil
to aerate and cavitation can occur. This
causes foaming which effectively reduces the
oils viscosity and so reduces the units
damping effect. High quality oil goes a long
way to help reduce this problem but BC
Racing go one step further and pressurize
the dampers with nitrogen. The nitrogen
exerts a pressure on a floating piston which
in turn exerts a permanent pressure on the
oil dramatically reducing aeration and so
improving the consistency and quality of the
damping. The pressurized nitrogen also adds
an additional element of effective spring
rate to the damper unit.
BEARING MOUNTED UPPER SPRING PLATFORM
Because the spring twists as it compresses
it is very important to minimize stiction
between the spring and its seats. If this
tension is not relieved then spring binding
can occur leading to the spring rate
effectively altering slightly as the spring
compresses and extends. The tension
generated can lead to rapid deterioration of
the spring pearches and in extreme cases can
cause the spring platform and locking
collars to loosen. This can lead to the
platform and locking collars ‘walking’ down
the damper resulting in un even ride height
and danger of the spring dislocating under
full damper extension.
The friction between spring and seats also
has an effect on steering effort as the
springs are physically turned with the
wheels. This introduces additional
unnecessary friction into the steering
system which has a knock on detrimental
effect on the vehicles handling
characteristics.
The bearing mounted upper spring platform is
one of BC Racings innovative designs. By
vastly reducing stiction between the spring
and its seats the BC Racing units avoid the
above problems thus improving the efficiency
of the steering system and allowing the
spring and damper to work as designed. |