The rough roads I have been travelling on in the city are getting repaved so I am thinking of Andy's front anti roll bar Droplinks change that make it sportier at the expense of ride quality. Anyone done this in their XJ6 yet?

 

I've had 'em for several years. Very nicely made.

If there was an increase in harshness it was slight enough that I don't remember it. I do recall, though, being pleased with the tighter feel to the car when cornering....especially the initial 'turn-in', of course

Cheers
DD

 

Great!
In his words to me, "“IF you want to sacrifice ride for handling performance” had me concerned.

Initial turn-in is something you can enjoy at every turn, and for a city driving guy that is key.

Did you also do his "high performance front suspension bushs kit too"? That was in the third Word file he sent to me.

 

No on the bushes. Didn't know he offered any

Cheers
DD

 

I plan to pick up the sway bar drop/end links at some point, and have also considered his upper front wishbone bronze bushings. Andy has done some great work putting together some affordable and effective solutions.

You can see the front sway bar links and front upper wishbone bushings here:

https://www.jaguarforums.com/forum/m...urquoise-3826/


His front sway bar drop/end links are a pretty reasonable deal. I've priced out making my own from quality parts and Andy clearly isn't getting rich off of his ....and he's done all the R&D already, which saves us time and money.

I too had some concerns about ride quality impact about the bronze bushings, which Andy was very upfront and cautions, but the real hangup for me will probably be cost. I'm not suggesting that they are overpriced, but the cost of the bushings plus shipping the wishbones to England and back to the USA to have them installed might prove too much for my budget.

I've been meaning to ask him if he would be able/willing to just provide the bushings and some installation instructions I could give to a mechanic/machinist here.

If someone here does end up getting the upper bronze wishbone bushings, it would be great to hear your experience.

I hear Andy is also looking into designing some new rear sway bar end/drop links as well. I'll be interested in those if he does too.


.

 

I misquoted Andy. His caution was for the bushings, not the droplinks. For the bushings he said "The front suspensions bushes are really only suitable if you are prepared to compromise ride quality in the pursuit of improved handling."

Should a handful of roads near my home end up getting re-paved nice and smooth after 10 years of asphalt patches, I will be game to buy and install those. There is hope, some of the roads have just been re-done but there are 2 more years of severn major high-rise developments and I'll bet the roads won't be redone till all the massive trucks are finished pounding the pavement. Meanwhile, all the new Mercedes owners won't care with their nice air-suspensions (something no one wants to pay for outside of the warranty period).

 

Does Andy have a pricing list (shipped to US) for the bronze bushings and also the drop links or should I just message him directly?

 

I can't speak for Andy, but he seems to prefer to discuss directly as I suspect he is keen to avoid running afoul of the perception 'selling' in this section of the forum. At least that is what I would guess....

Anyway, my experience is that he is happy to share his pricing and options quickly via message here and email.

.

 

While I am waiting for a few clarifying answers from Andy, he has indicated that if you plan to do the upper bushes the drop links have to come off anyway so you save time and labor by doing the upper bushes at the same time as the drop links. He also advised changing the front anti-roll bar bushes to poly (something I presume we get from Powerflex) to maximize the drop links.

Al, I did not get the impression the bush kit, at 250 british pounds, included replacement wishbones and related shipping costs in addition.

My car just went into the shop to have his revised crank sensor installed and the 60k service done. I printed out the additional items people here advised to look for, and asked these guys to check all the suspension bushes to help me decide whether to just do the drop links or the upper bushes along with the drop links.

 

Well, replacing the sway bar end/drop links is a very easy job, so I don't think one has to really worry about bundling them together with the wishbone removal/install. Of course if you are paying a shop to install them, that may be a different issue for you to consider to reduce cost and a valid point/goal. I will install them myself, so minimizing shop labor time really isn't a concern for me.

However replacing the wishbone bearings will require removing the wishbone (obviously ) and as such is a fairly big job for the DIY mechanic.

I agree however that if you can do them both at once, why not?


Regarding shipment of the wishbones, I'll let Andy explain when he replies, but when he and I were chatting about the process, part of the "bronze bushing order" was to ship him your wishbones so he can press the new bushings in, then ship back. That shipping cost (and as an aside the time your car will be without a working front end until you get them back) is not included in the cost of the bushings themselves.

As I mentioned, one way to potentially minimize that shipping cost and downtime would be to ask Andy if he were willing to just provide the bushing kit and some instructions for a shop here in the US to install them. Another option might be to find some wishbones in the UK and have them shipped to him, then back to the US.

Andy will elaborate

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Thanks for the response Al.

I just asked since I wasn't sure if Andy would chime in on this thread and if he was going to I would just wait for his replies here


But as far as doing the bushings and drop links together - it can be done either or in my opinion.
Last year when I did them on the XJ6, I was able to do the passenger side in about a 3-4 hours along with ball joints and without a press.

The sway bar bushings are shot in the XJR and I have been planning on purchasing the poly bushings from powerflex but now I think I will wait until I can get a pricing for the drop links from Andy

 

Hi All,
I've not been on the forums for a few days, but guessed there must be some discussion going on about my suspensions upgrade parts, after getting a couple of PMs in a few days. Thanks to those who have repeated my replies to them for the benefit of others.


I would just like to re-iterate one point that was repeated earlier, but I feel it worth me putting it in writing myself. I didn't feel any deterioration in ride from fitting my front anti-roll bar drop links. However, there is a noticeable increase in ride harshness when fitting my front top wishbone bushes, as they have no compliance in them. The absence of any compliance also the reason they make the car handle better. It's a matter of compromise.


As suggested elsewhere, it is best if you email me directly (andystodart@metronet.co.uk) if you would like any commercial information.

 

I thought that I might as well put the photo of my drop links, as installed, on this post as well as on the other related thread about changing the std Jaguar drop links.

 

Here is a photo of all the individual parts that go together to make up my drop links.

 

Did the forum get a backup restored? It seems we lost a couple posts on this thread, where I had asked Andy the composition of the links, he had replied.

.

 

Sorry for the obvious question, but I've never seen a mention of Andy's droplinks before this thread.

What is the benefit of installing these droplinks?

 

Any chance these will fit the X308?

I guess the important dimensions are the bolt diameter and centre to centre distance
of the bolt holes.

The mount on the X308 has the bolts parallel but the rose joint ends can just be
twisted to that configuration.

The XJR of both series has a rear bar as well. Will adding these more solid links
affect the front-rear balance since the rears remain factory?

 

To answer jvitez's question,
my drop links remove all the compliance associated with the rubber bushes in the std drop links. As the cars starts to roll in a corner, the movement of the lower wishbones immediately starts to apply a torsional moment on the anti-roll bar which it reacts against, if my links are fitted. On the std drop links, the rubber bushes are compressed by the forces transmitted through the drop link, before the anti-roll bar is required to react against these forces. As a result the anti-roll bar becomes effective earlier in the roll event with my links than with std links.


If the ride height of the car has been lowered, then an additional benefit is that the length of my links can be adjusted to help maintain the correct geometry between the drop link and the anti-roll bar.


To answer plums's question,
it should be quite straight forward to create a replacement rose-jointed drop link for the X308. All my uprated parts are born from a desire to improve my own XJR6 cars. If an owner wants to send me an X308 link then I can engineer a replacement. The bolt connecting the X308 link to the lower wishbone is metric (XJ40 and X300 used imperial fixings) so it would not be possible to use my uprated links for XJ40/X300 on X308.


Fitting my uprated drop links will increase the front roll stiffness relative to the rear roll stiffness. However the torsional stiffness of an anti roll bar is proportional to its diameter raised to the 4th power, so the difference between front and rear roll stiffness is already massive.


I am planning to develop a completely new rear anti-roll bar design to more closely match the front and rear stiffnesses, but this is some way off yet.

 

I'm replacing the front shocks, track-rod ends, tires, and then getting an alignment. Am I correct guessing that replacing the drop links won't affect my front end alignment?

 

Replacing the front anti-roll bar drop links will not have any affect on the static suspension geometry. Whether you fit std up uprated drop links will however affect the initial roll stiffness of the car during corning.