May 2005 - Upgrading suspension

Our Carlsson came from the factory with lowered and uprated suspension, however, whilst this improved the handling from the standard 9000 CD, it wasn't ever designed with track use in mind.

There are various aftermarket suspension kits available for the CD Carlsson, but we opted for the Bilstien Sprintline kit, comprising 4 significantly uprated gas dampers and 4 lowering springs giving the car a 40mm drop in ride height.

One advantage the Bilsien kit has over other aftermarket kits is that the front struts are supplied as complete units, only requiring assembly with the new spring and original top bearing (the Konis fitted to Gareth's CSE require a new damper to be pressed into the old strut).

The front springs and dampers went in really quickly, just leaving the rears to be changed, which proved to be more of a problem: The lower damper mounting and the ends of the rear anti-roll bar are both attached to the car with a long bolt which rusts solidly into the bushes. After trying heat, penetrating oil and hammers, we decided to use an air hacksaw to cut through the bolts next to the bushes. Soon the old dampers were off and we were able to fit the new dampers complete with new bolts and new bushes in the end of the anti-roll bar.

While we were under the back of the car we fitted new Superflex polythene anti-roll bar bushes. We have these fitted to our road cars, and have been impressed by the way they tighten up the rear on cornering and how easy they were to fit.

With the work completed, the car now sits much lower on the ground, and is much stiffer, hopefully this will greatly improve its abilities on the track.