Skoda Rally Blog

The Felicia has proven itself to be a tough and (mostly) reliable car, but there have been two main issues with the Felicia since I built it.  A lack of power, and the suspension.  The power is something I’m hoping to deal with in the near future, but the less obvious one is the suspension.  It’s fitted with Bilstein front and rear suspension, and this was always a big improvement on the HP stuff the old car (and indeed the Favorit) was running on, but the problem was on long stages; after about 10 miles or so, even at the pace we’re going, the suspension gets too hot and starts to fade, leading to a bouncy ride and a LOT of noise; when finishing stages in 2007’s Rally GB the road sections following would be really odd, with a bouncing action and squeaking which was so severe that the first time I was convinced something had broken.  It hadn’t.

However, suspension is not cheap; the bilstein setup cost me £600 and was cheap for what it was, and the next step up to some quality, rebuildable suspension is not a small one – prices can be up to maybe £6000 if you went really crazy.  Clearly this isn’t an option for me, but something needed to be done.  Regular readers may remember that a long time ago (in 2007) when I was building R477 KRU I bought a whole load of bits from someone who will remain nameless; every part I bought was pretty much knackered.  And in amongst all these parts were some very tired-looking suspension, made by Proflex, widely considered to be about the best suspension you can get (and certainly the best you can get for the Felicia!).  New, this would be about £4000.  But they were really badly abused; they had clearly been run without servicing or indeed even oil, and were partly in bits.  I had initially thought they were scrap, but having spoken to Proflex UK, they said I should send them in and they would do me an estimate, so I did this, and £1300 later I have four completely rebuilt units.  This is clearly not a small amount of money, but that actually was the cheapest option for new, worthwhile suspension; I’d have been looking at more than this for lower-quality stuff, and now that it’s all rebuilt (with nearly every part replaced), it should be fairly cheap to keep up to spec as the service costs are reasonable.

I have had these back for several months, but not been in a position to fit them, but finally I am, so it was time to get everything ready to go onto the car.  For the fronts that meant fitting the springs and putting some oil in the lower legs for lubrication (something the last owner clearly didn’t do!), and adjusting the spring platforms.

Lovely front Proflex suspension.

So, that was straightforward.  The rears needed a bit more work, however – and the biggest job was the springs – they (like everything else) were rusty, so I decided to spend some time to make them look a bit better.  A bit of work with a wire wheel on the grinder, and then finishing off in the blasting cabinet left them ready for paint, and then it was time for a few coats of hammerite (which I’m hoping will be flexible enough to stay on them, but I’m not going to be too surprised if they just end up naked straight away).  Here they are, with the final effort on the left, and the before on the right.

Springs after and before being tidied up.

However, I can’t fit the rears to the car as there are a couple of parts missing (courtesy of the last owner) – fortunately they are very simple spacers, so I can get them made up during the week for about £10 or so, and then next weekend the car should be sat on proflex front and rear.  Tomorrow I will fit the fronts, but first I’ll have to work out what I’m going to do with the remote canisters – I’ve seen them inside engine bays (and it makes sense to me to keep them out of the way of mud and gravel, plus it will mean they can be adjusted easily), but it will mean cutting holes in the inner wings to do this, I think…