Evening ladies. A small update on the car.
I've fitted the aforementioned Spoon fixed suspension setup and covered a couple of hundred miles with them. Initially I thought it was just as firm as my old Meister coilovers but once the brand new springs had settled and moved a little they became a lot more comfortable.
Overall impressions of the Spoon dampers and springs is that they're nothing short of superb. Tight and firm with good feedback yet still compliant enough for the average British road. A stellar road setup.
I have no complaints in terms of appearance either. In my opinion it looks much better compared to the previous "slammed" look. The 195/55 profile tyres fill the arches nicely and ground clearance isn't an issue either.
I'll scribble more words once I spend more time and miles with them fitted.
Other news? Well after numerous power steering pumps bizarrely failing on me, I decided to delete the system. It was done properly with everything unnecessary gutted, the piston seal removed, greased and then re-assembled.
So how is manual steering with the new suspension? Unbelievably good! Significantly more feedback and I feel a lot more connected to the car. Absolutely no regrets here.
It's worth considering your suspension setup before you carry out a manual steering conversion. Recent experience and experimenting showed me that coilovers with the damper settings turned up high made the car quite difficult to manoeuvre, even when I was up to speed.
I also purchased a S4C 4.78 gearbox (final drive from a 98 spec S80) from Jesse a while back and I (finally) had this fitted along with some fresh Honda MTF-3 and a new OEM clutch. What a difference this gearbox has made. The car is so much more fun to drive, going through the gears beautifully now, and the 'box itself is smooth and in good nick. And it makes the car faster, obviously.
My attitude towards this EK9 has always been "OEM+". Take a standard example and make a few improvements and some choice modifications. Nothing too wild. I'd say the recent changes fall in line with this approach.
Apologies for the imbalance between words and pictures. Some recent shots. One of them is from the Scottish Car Show in July which I was a part of.