MatraSport Forum

So, my engine has more than 8000 kms after renovation, yesterday I changed the oil (Shell 10W40 again, of course), and everything seemed to be O.K. so, why not to proove it on the race circuit  :)
There were some unimportant Ferrari F430, Porsche GT3RS, Mazda RX8, Honda Civic Type-R, etc... but I was happy that my friend with tuned Chevy Camaro arrived, so we could compared our totally different cars. He changed everything in his engine, now it isn't 5,7 but 6,2 litre V8, with Holleys, spec.cams, valves, huge sidepipes and many more extras. Now it has 400PS and with adjustable suspension and large rear tyres it looked like David vs. Golias :) Also I must to say, that this boy is living near circuit and knows this track very well because he is a mechanic for Mr.Ulman who is a race pilot on Formula Opel Reinhard Cup, also he owns one old Fiesta from Fiesta Cup races, so he is better driver than me.
 At first, we drove 2 warm up laps and than we started with race - I was behind him. He drove very clean trail and on straights he was faster a little, but in the corners I saw, that Murena has a lot of reserve so in one of them I overtook him and what happend than I don't need to describe  ;D Corner by corner I was more and more far away from him as You can see on the pictures - two corners sufficed to have double spacing between us.
 Murena S with Spax suspension is absolutely great race car and it was very nice experience.
(http://sweb.cz/michaltalbot/IMG_1618.JPG)
(http://sweb.cz/michaltalbot/IMG_1619.JPG)
(http://sweb.cz/michaltalbot/IMG_1625.JPG)
(http://sweb.cz/michaltalbot/IMG_1630.JPG)
(http://sweb.cz/michaltalbot/IMG_1633.JPG)
(http://sweb.cz/michaltalbot/IMG_1635.JPG)

That's awesome Michal, a Murena being driven as Matra intended!

Here I found short video from Honda Civic which I overtake, my Murena is seen there.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=IPcDJcdPdNk (http://youtube.com/watch?v=IPcDJcdPdNk)

Hehe, I wouldn't have published that if it was me ;) but it's good to see your car go around. I think your success attributes to three things: One: Your car is well set up. Two: The Murena gives excellent drivers feedback. And three: You are a very good driver.

One thing I wondered about though... what IS your setup? Spax suspension is a lot of things, most notably what's your ride height? It is lower than standard judging from the photos of your car. Whats the static camber on your front wheels? What tyres are you running on? And what's the tyre pressure?

It's always good to know what works - if you wanna go off the standard track

Cheers,
Anders

Well, I will make measurement tomorrow. Now I only can say that tyres are Toyo, but nothing else for now... But yes, it is lower, harder and wider - I've mounted 15mm spacers under all wheels, shock dampers have function on 92-93% (nearly new), tyres are 185/60/14 and 195/60/14.
I only must to say NO, I am not a good driver :) because lot of seconds were spent by sliding and that's bad :( next time I am going to drive with my friend who promised to teach me the best trail on the circuit. But everybody was unable to understand how much this suspension accepted - wrong trail, my mistakes, high speeding, etc... Maybe my set up was upgraded by full boot. Me and my wife, we were going from visiting her mother, so on the circuit, there was also with me: roast duck with dumplings and cabbage, chicken soup, home-made chocolate cookies (you know how hot is in boot of Murena so you can imagine the result :) ), clothes, shoes, etc. :)
As I am working as a sales manager for Bridgestone CR, guess which tyres will be the next ones :) :) :)

A bit of controlled slide doesn't harm anyone, but of course if you aren't taking the ideal lines on the circuit you are bound to get sub-optimal lap times.


That will be very good! It's great to have an instructor in the car to help get it right!


Oh NONONONONO, I don't want to think about it. I hope the soup was in a good container!! The trouble (or good thing depending on how you see it) with the Murena boot is that when you are driving you can't hear things being tossed around back there. Back in the spring when I was going to have my Yoko's fitted, I had the alloys in the boot - and I'd only gone a few hundred meters before I started thinking "what's wrong with my engine!" - it was just rattle from the rims, but the sound was really odd!


Yokohama? :D

You went on track with a bootful of food??

I have Bridgestone Re720s on mine and they are superb.

I think he DID. It's called a "food processor" :D

Yes I did, because Most is cca 30 kms from the place where mother of my wife lives, so we went to visit her on sunday, and on monday morning there were free rides on the circuit. There is no possibility to leave all things, so they were racing with me :)

Anders: duck was in a special container, also as the soup was. Be sure that my food is traveling in first class with all comfort and privacy :) :) :)

Hehe..The food in the trunk should be nice and warm after a few laps :)

Now.. about your sparx set-up ... Have you kept the torsion bars?, or are the weight of your front end resting solely on the damper brackets?
 

Well I am back from my garage (which is cca 1,5km from my house) with some measures. I went to shopping center garage (floor is absolutely straight) and measured this dimension:
(http://sweb.cz/michaltalbot/P%20101.JPG)

Rear: 61,5 cm
Front: 58,5 cm
The lowest point of place where is the lifting point (sorry for my English, I mean point for original jack) is 13 cm above the ground.

Front axle has torsion bars and Spax shock dampers are without springs, rear axle is equiped by Spax dampers with adjustable high by dural o-ring, and classic springs.

When we are going to meeting, the sleeping-bag is in the boot to be warm, and drinks are near the spare wheel to be cold :)

OK.. so its a mix of the "full sport" and "light" spax kit then.
I got a set of front "coil over" spring/dampers with my "GAZ" Kit.. but Im not that keen on the idea of fitting them.. for now Im only using the rear "GAZ"  (similar to your setup).. and then Konis in the front... But  I still find the rear springs a bit on the soft side.

I have found that measuring the ride hight at the wheel arches, gives a is very inaccurate reading as the body panels tend to be rather poorly aligned.

I've been following a thread on a racing tech forum lately where a guy racing a couple of camaros of different generations bent a couple of valves last weekend because of overrevving of the engine (gearchange linkage fitted the wrong way round as far as I understand!). The discussion evolved into a generic discussion about performance of his cars... his current race machine is powered comparatively to your friends camaro, and the guy implies that he can easily "outbrake" many of the lighter cars he races against, and that people are generally impressed by the cornering abilities of his vehicle. Now, this car isn't road going - it's a pure race car. I don't think the suspension has been changed much, though - probably still still running US style leaf springs and stiff rear axle ;)

For a quick comparison with the standard setup, your numbers are adequate, Michal.

Krede, I'm not going to be impressed with any custom setup until it has been tuned on a skid pan and race track. Until that has happened, we don't really know if it's any better than standard. Yes, I'm growing old and grumpy, but at least I admit it!

And when it comes to it... the driver does much more to performance than all the expensive stuff we can get. As the Camaro story above probably also implies.

Please, could somebody measure the original measures on normall Murena?

Today I'm very happy  :)
(http://sweb.cz/michaltalbot/IMG_1671.JPG)
(http://sweb.cz/michaltalbot/IMG_1672.JPG)

Brand new Bridgestone Turanza ER300 185/60/14 and 195/60/14 - total amount incl.work was 233,- Euro

Ahhhh.. your car really look nice Michael!!. especially when thinking of how miserable a state it was in when you purchased it!! :)

Thank You krede, but still there is a lot of things to do... new brake fluid ATE, new gearbox oil, new water cooler, some water pipes, fuel pump is leaking and also there is oil leaking between engine and gearbox I don't know where exactly, maybe that engine + gearbox will must be demounted again  :(

I've found that original measures are:
rear: 64 cm
front: 61 cm

is it right? It means that my Murena is for 2,5 cm lower than normal one.

Seeing photos of your car, I would have guessed that yours was lowered a bit ;)