Hydractive 2 question

fastred · Post by **fastred** » 29 Sep 2004, 20:07

When I ran a 1991 BX Athena I could put the ride height lever to the Intermediate Height position and the car would drive and ride almost as normal.
If I do the same on my Xantia it is as if the car is on the bump stops straight away, and one could not drive it at anything much above walking pace. The car rides perfectly at ther normal height setting.
Could some other Hydractive 2 owner please confirm that this is the usual behaviour of the system?
Thanks,
fastred
2000 V6 Exclusive 23k miles

Stempy · Post by **Stempy** » 29 Sep 2004, 21:56

Normal, all three I've had have been like this.
Speaking of HA2, does anyone know if the centre spheres have any damping effect or are they just an extra 'spring' with damping being taken care of entirely by the corner spheres?

xantiav6 · Post by **xantiav6** » 30 Sep 2004, 03:07

The centre circuit has damping, but it is not in the sphere, the damping elements are in the ports where each wheel circuit connects to the electrovalve. I would quite like to get hold of a dead electrovalve to have a play with the damping.
I suspect the best ride improvement I could make would be to reduce the stiffness of the front and rear roll bars.

Stempy · Post by **Stempy** » 30 Sep 2004, 04:07

Why not fit non HA corner spheres, that'll smooth the ride out?

DoubleChevron · Post by **DoubleChevron** » 30 Sep 2004, 06:12

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Why not fit non HA corner spheres, that'll smooth the ride out?<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">
If you do that your completely defeating the point of having limited roll suspension. If you put normal sphere on then in 'hard' mode it's just the same as a Xantia SX (non hydractive), and in soft mode would be like a rolly polly boat that would probably hit it's bump stops all the time.
Nah, much better to get the hydractive spheres replaced. I still don't get why people complain the the VSX model Xantias are rough. Mine is to bloody soft !! It's forever hitting the rear bump stops, BUT when it kicks into hard mode it bloody brilliat, corners like it's on rails. In soft mode it rides better than my CX2500 GTi Turbo with new spheres.
I've driven a couple of other Xantias and the all hard in the suspension, ie: the spheres are always down/flat. My guess is poeple never change the H/A spheres. this means the car is in the equivelant of 'hard' mode at all times.
seeya,
Shane L.

xantiav6 · Post by **xantiav6** » 30 Sep 2004, 11:43

The "problem" with the ride is that the car gets jolted when one wheel goes over a bump (at any speed). On two wheel bumps and long undulations, it works perfectly (since setting the front height).
I have never noticed exessive body roll, but 100 times I have thought that there is too much roll stiffness causing irritating behaviour on one-wheel bumps.

Kowalski · Post by **Kowalski** » 30 Sep 2004, 16:04

The non-HA Xantia suspension has no inherent anti roll in it, since on a non-HA the left and right suspension circuits are connected, this means that the anti-roll bars have to do all of the anti roll.
With the Hydractive system, when the electrovalve closes off the centre sphere from one side of the car, you've got hydraulic anti-roll as well as having the anti-roll bar.