We’ve already done the engine air intake (see Negative Boost Revisited, Part 1), brakes (see
New Brakes for the Falcon, Part 1), extractors and exhaust
(see
Frank's Exhaust, Part 1, and the engine cam
and management (see
Frank's Cam Part 1); now
it’s time for the suspension on our EF Falcon.
The suspension components supplier that we chose
was Whiteline – a company whose products we’ve often driven and been impressed
by. We asked for everything they had for an EF six cylinder and that’s just what
they made available.
First-up were new springs and dampers.
Standard Frank
Frank the Falcon’s standard suspension wasn’t.
Rather than being fitted with the normal suspension tune, the Falcon had come
from the factory with the Country Pack suspension, which raises the ride height.
Now you’d think with a higher ride height (and we assume softer spring rates),
the Falcon would have handled like a real bucket, especially on the Maxxis
205/65 (treadwear number: 420!) tyres fitted to the car when we bought it.
But in fact the car handled quite well. It was a
bit taily in the wet - with a lateral weight transfer that could be easily felt
- but the long-travel suspension soaked-up bumps that you’d have expected to
throw the solid rear axle off-line. Front-end grip was always strong. In fact,
on the roads on which I drive every day (rough and challenging secondary country
bitumen), the Falcon was quite impressive.
Yes, believe it or not.
Ride quality? Well, it was a bit under-damped in
taxing, long wavy undulations, but in general it put the bumps away without fuss
or intrusion.
So when I told my wife it was time to install the
suspension components that had patiently been waiting the fitment of the new
brakes, extractors, exhaust, the cam and the engine management changes, she
wasn’t positive. After all, we didn’t think the Falcon suspension was doing too
bad a job to start with! And, further to that, we were both a bit wary of making
further changes after the expensive non-event of the new engine camshaft....
Would the new springs and dampers wreck the ride,
giving bumpy, harsh results that bounced the car around on these poor surfaces,
resulting in less tyre adhesion and handling suitable only for dead smooth
roads? It was our suspicion that it might!
Anyway, here’s the ride height of the car with its
standard Country Pack suspension.
Springs and Dampers
The Whiteline supplied springs and dampers
comprised:
Note: as with all the suspension products provided
by Whiteline for the Falcon, these components were made available free of
charge.
With a recommended retail cost of $859, this is
obviously not a cheap package. However, the dampers are Boge Turbo units and the
springs (variable rate on the rear) are designed specifically to match the car
and dampers.
Here are the measured specs on the front springs, comparing standard and Whiteline:
|
Free Length |
Wire Thickness |
Number Free Turns |
|
Standard Country Pack |
415 |
15.5 |
8 – constant rate |
|
Whiteline |
360 |
17.5 |
8 – constant rate |
Given that the springs fit in the same space, you
can see that there’s a lot less preload on the Whiteline springs (they’re 55mm
shorter) but the greater wire thickness means that they’re about 1.8 times as
stiff.
Here are the specs on the rear springs,
again comparing standard and Whiteline:
|
Free Length |
Wire Thickness |
Number Free Turns |
|
Standard Country Pack |
430 |
14 |
5 – constant rate |
|
Whiteline |
390 |
15.4 |
8 – variable rate |
The new rear springs are 40mm shorter but a rate
comparison cannot easily be made because of the variable design used in the
Whiteline spring. In a variable rate spring of this type, the coil spacing is
uneven. As a result, some coils are designed to bind, stiffening the spring at a
greater rate as it deflects.
Interestingly, the Whiteline spring has 4
close-wound coils, implying that once these have coil-bound, the remaining 4
coils provide the spring stiffness. On that basis, a guesstimate would have the
Whiteline coils providing the same increase in stiffness (1.8 times) as the
front springs – once the progressive spring section has closed up. To put
this another way, you’d expect the rear suspension to have better droop than
standard but under bump to be similarly stiff to the new front springs.
Installation
We had Simon of Simon’s Car Clinic install the
springs and dampers. This was a straightforward 3-hour job.
Front
The front dampers are built into an assembly that
includes the spring seat and a forked lower mount. (Remember in this time of
near universal MacPherson struts that the Falcon uses a Short Long Arm
[SLA]
style of front wishbone suspension.)
Removal requires the undoing of the upper mount
nuts...
..and the removal of the lower fork mounting
bolt.
Usually, a lever can then be used to push down the
suspension lower arm and sway bar, allowing the damper assembly to be removed,
complete with spring.
However, in this case the upper ball-joint also
needed to be undone to allow sufficient suspension movement to extract the
spring/damper.
With spring compressors applied, the old spring
can be removed (to gain access to the old upper mount) and then the old mount
placed on the new spring and damper.
Here’s a comparison of the old and new front
springs.
Refitting is a reversal of removal.
Rear
The rear spring and damper swap is similarly easy.
The upper damper mount bolts are accessible from inside the cabin...
...and undoing the lower damper mounting bolt allows
the damper to be withdrawn. Unlike the front, the spring is not mounted on the
damper.
Spring compressors can easily be used to shorten
the rear spring, allowing it to be removed.
The new rear spring was inserted (it was shorter
so didn’t need to be compressed)....
... the bump rubber swapped over...
...and then the new damper installed.
Finished!
Ride Height Changes
This shows the measured ride heights, in centimetres, before and
after the installation of the new springs.
|
Standard Country Pack |
Whiteline |
|
Front |
68.5 |
65.5 |
|
Rear |
69.5 |
64 |
The heights were measured from the guard lip to
the ground. So the front dropped by 3cm and the rear by 5.5cm – no, we’re not
sure why is that is so either!
On-Road Results
So have the new springs and dampers destroyed the
ride? Nope!
Even by just bouncing the Falcon up and down on
the spot by hand, it’s obvious that the new suspension is not the rock-hard
aftermarket design that was once so common. With the variable rate rear springs,
the rear feels in fact almost soft, and the front is definitely not very hard.
On the road, the springing and dampers are
obviously firmer, but unremarkably so. Within a day of driving I could literally
forget that they’d be changed – this is not a suspension where every time you
get into the car you lament its harshness. In fact, the only criticism that I
think can be made of the ride at all is that it can be a little pattery on
corrugated style surfaces – I wouldn’t run this suspension with ultra low
profile tyres.
And the handling? Does the Falcon now leap from
bump to bump? Nope!
On smooth surfaces the weight transfer and body
roll are much reduced. But to me even more impressive is the way in which the
Falcon can now get its power down to the road when exiting second gear corners.
Previously, the bountiful mid-range torque and lack of a limited slip diff
caused the corner exit speeds to be limited by how much power could be applied
before inner wheelspin occurred. But with the Whiteline springs and dampers, the
inner rear wheel has far better grip – those progressive rate springs allowing
better droop.
At higher speeds on smooth surfaces there’s now a
fraction too much power oversteer – I’d rather at 90 or 100 km/h that the car
started to push into understeer than oversteer. Again, that’s paradoxically
because the inner wheel is better gripping – the power is no longer frittered
away with inner wheelspin (yes it used to, even at those speeds!) but instead is
put down to the ground, so provoking power oversteer. (However, this tweaking of
handling will easily able to be addressed by the adjustable anti-roll bars,
which are to be fitted next.)
And on rougher roads? There I think the suspension
is extremely impressive. In fact, along just the same road that saw a Nissan
350Z jumping around, traction control light flashing as the overly-hard
suspension rapidly got way out of its depth, the Falcon just powered along. The
slightly pattery ride feeling is simply not transferred to poor traction in
these conditions. Instead you can feel the springs and dampers working hard –
the dampers working bloody hard! – but the package performs extremely well.
So what deficiencies can now be felt in the
suspension? In addition to the slight bias I’d prefer to understeer rather than
oversteer, power on/off applications in constant radius corners can cause the
rear-end to steer. This is a known characteristic of EF Falcons but previously
I’d not felt it. (Perhaps it was being masked by the more pronounced lateral
weight transfer.) And although rear-end grip has been improved, I think it could
be a bit better again – again that should be able to be tweaked with the
anti-roll bars. Finally, there is some rear bush noise which previously could
only just be heard but is now quite pronounced.
Conclusion
The Whiteline spring/damper package is not cheap -
but it really delivers in terms of providing good ride quality and excellent
handling on all surfaces. Highly recommended.
Next: fitting Whiteline adjustable anti-roll
bars
Contacts:
Whiteline
Suspension – www.whiteline.com.au
Simon’s
Car Clinic – Tamborine (Queensland) – 07 55436155
|
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The
Whiteline suspension components were supplied courtesy of Whiteline
Simon’s
Car Clinic was paid at normal commercial rates
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