ARTICLE: Why Your TVR Handles Like it Does

Steve Guglielmi September 2002

We are getting a lot of modified cars come to our workshop. Engine and brakes seem to be the favourite tuned item. Please be careful when upgrading brakes. We have had three cars in recently that have had uprated brake pads fitted only to the front. With an uprated pad in the front of your TVR and a standard pad in the rear, when you brake hard, especially from cold, the rear wheels could lock first. This could cause you to spin!

As with most things in life it's a balancing act. You have to have a balanced brake hydraulic circuit (non-adjustable from manufacturer). You must have a balanced brake pad material front and rear, from cold through to hot, not to mention tyres, springs and dampers - it goes on and on! Check what you have fitted and if you're not sure, ask someone that knows.

We've had great success with our damper upgrade, sometimes with the original coil springs and sometimes with upgraded coils fitted. The springs we fit all depends on usage. You need to take account of the main use of your TVR when upgrading suspension. When an uprated damper is fitted, if it's of good quality it will have a lot more control as the suspension changes direction from bump to rebound, or compression to droop (up and down!). The standard cars can feel a bit floaty at speed or on uneven road surfaces. This is because the non-adjustable standard suspension has to be all things to all men (and women). It's about controlling weight transfer. No manufacturer will unleash on the public a car that's fantastic in the dry and a liability in the wet (though that's probably debatable)!

The problem is that you can't have both. If you make it adjustable, the balance has to be maintained! When it's dry you have good grip, more adhesion between tyre and road and this causes a lot of weight transfer in braking and cornering. This weight transfer is controlled by springs and dampers in a straight line (accelerating and braking). However, when cornering, springs, dampers and anti-roll bars all come into play.

Ultimately it' all working back from the tyres. Weight transfer is dependent on grip. When there is less "grip", say on wet roads, you will not obtain the required (maximum available) amount of weight transfer with "dry settings", so the car will slide in a corner or lock the front wheels under braking. To give you maximum adhesion between tyre and road in the wet, you would need to reduce the spring, damper and anti-roll bar rates so as to obtain similar weight transfer to the rear to stop the front tyres locking. Next time you're driving, think about what's happening beneath you, try and make some sense of it, it will help you decide on how to improve your car's handling.