Datsun Roadster Forum-311s.org

By the way, Lou has stock again of the Volvo mono-leafs, if anyone is interested.

st3ph3nm wrote:By the way, Lou has stock again of the Volvo mono-leafs, if anyone is interested.

The shipping would be AWFUL expensive on the springs, I would think. I just sent a head to Perth, cost about $240.00

Perhaps. Ask Will if he thought the postage worth it.

Edit: Interrupted whilst posting. Came out looking terse, not intended that way!

Nontheless, yes, unfortunately there's costs involved. Fortunately, the Aussie dollar has come back down to around parity, so you guys won't take quite the hit you would have a few months ago.

st3ph3nm wrote:Perhaps. Ask Will if he thought the postage worth it.

Edit: Interrupted whilst posting. Came out looking terse, not intended that way!

Nontheless, yes, unfortunately there's costs involved. Fortunately, the Aussie dollar has come back down to around parity, so you guys won't take quite the hit you would have a few months ago.

To ship the springs airmail, it was holy crap expensive. When it was all said and done, I was into the springs for about $800. That said, I still think it was worth the $. Yes, it was expensive, however when you are the first to do something, its often expensive. Yes, I was the first person outside of Australia to run a set of these springs. Since I got them, another way to ship them has been found and its far cheaper, but much slower.

I know a few people have voiced an interest in them. Lets get a count and see if its worth doing another shipment of them here. I know there is an issue with the stock front bushings being hard to source in Australia. The springs are designed to use the regular stock bushings and so we could get some sets shipped over, but who ever buys a set would have to have their front bushings pressed out of their old springs and pressed into the new ones.

In the end, my guess is that they will still be more expensive than buying a set of new stock ones from Rallye or someplace, however the ride quality is lightyears better.

Will

I'll take my chances with the urethane ones.

I don't mind facilitating an ocean freight shipment and distributing from my shop as long as it doesn't cost me to help out. I'm getting two sets for myself.

I think I'm going with the fiberglass springs from flexform

I may order a set next week.

Shannon

^ Those look real nice, but I just corner balanced my car, and they would make the rear end light. I suppose a case of beer would fix that, though.

garm how much does the roadster weigh?

Will also commented that they are too light but I have my battery in the rear package shelf so that will offset it some. I'll also be adding stereo equipment in the trunk.

Shannon

^ Sounds like it should balance out for you ok. I don't think they are too light, I just like my ratios right now.

@ Alvin, I am at 1945 lbs. right now -- I still have a few more things to remove.

sfdaugherty wrote:Will also commented that they are too light but I have my battery in the rear package shelf so that will offset it some. I'll also be adding stereo equipment in the trunk.

Shannon

To keep the back end of my car more balanced I've got 60+ lbs of lead ingots in there. I'd really like to get it corner weighted to find out how far off my trial and error guess is. I know the car is more of a handful as fuel burns off from a full tank at the limit, with the ingots out, and an empty tank its a challenge to go fast. On a stock car, the back end is already light, so with each leaf weighing in at 24 lbs (verified weight on a digital scale) you are loosing a lot of weight from the rear of the car since the pair of fiberglass leafs are what; 12 lbs? The weight of one of Lou's springs is 12 lbs. I guess with an open diff it doesn't make that big of a deal, you just roast one tire off more than normal. With an aggressive LSD or locker rear end, a light weight back end is bad news if you are trying to go fast.

A battery in the rear package shelf is still too far forward, I have a roll bar there, and while its better than having a full sized battery up front, it doesn't do you any good since its centrally located (A great idea if your weight distribution is a perfect 50/50, but a roadster isn't.)

Heck, ask Brian Zana since he is one of the very few people on here who has driven my car (If anyone wants to, let me know and I'd be happy to either take you for a quick spin or let you give it a go, especially if you are thinking about a set of these springs.) No Brian didn't get to go far, but still if you want an unbiased opinion ask him how my car drives (aside from the transmission that wasn't interested in down shifting to 4th I'll be addressing that shortly.)

Wow, 400 posts on this thread with well over 10K views. Talk about a long thread. Impressive
Will

Ride height, ride height, ride height. It's amazing what 2mm difference at one end does to balance out weight. Read my first post about the old, sagged springs. When we jacked up the rear to about where we wanted it to be, suddenly the clapped out front springs dropped down onto the bump stops. We'd never noticed it much, because the back was so low.

Garm wrote:I'll take my chances with the urethane ones.

I don't mind facilitating an ocean freight shipment and distributing from my shop as long as it doesn't cost me to help out. I'm getting two sets for myself.

Depending on the price, I might go for a set. If it makes a difference, I can receive/distribute on the East Coast, same deal, no profit, no cost.

I know it's been asked before but just curious, what is the difference in cost between the ff composite springs and the volvo springs? I would like something other than stock even though I have yet to ride in my car.

Both options look great to me but I would the price difference.

Cheers~Errol.

Guess I need to review this whole thread, but just wanted to say I finally got to put some quality time in a roadster this past Sunday. Approx 210 miles/4 hours each way to go to the Canby Nissan/Datsun Show in a well-sorted, stock '66 1600 w/ KYB GR2 shocks all around. I drove down; rode as passenger back. One pit stop each way.

Other than a couple of rough road/hole spots, it was comfy.