club4ag opinion on suspension

JapaneseDeman
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club4ag opinion on suspension

Postby JapaneseDeman » Thu Dec 12, 2013 5:43 pm

moved from fun talk

Postby JapaneseDeman » Sat Dec 07, 2013 11:05 am

hey guys,

long time member and auto crosser here. I just wanted to throw up an opinion poll for the masses on new suspension ideas.

I've been auto crossing in the wiregrass region scca solo2 for about 8+/- years i'm fairly familiar with the rules and stipulations towards car modifications and limitations.
HOWEVER, with our scca group they're a little slack on the rules because we're so small.

anyways, that's neither here nor there. I'm about to sell my coilover's I've been running for a couple of years to a friend who's completely revamping his Levin coupe, and I've been looking into new suspension for a little now. I've been running the lowest model megan coilover's for quite some time. despite the hate on the internet, I enjoyed them, a little stiff for daily driving but it wasn't bad at all. and they were great at auto x. I loved the way they handled.
here's my dilemma.

I'm debating between the BC model coilovers and the PBM (Powered by Max) coilovers. similar prices and i'm familiar enough with the style of them.

I know most auto crossers will say go Koni yellow's and trd springs, etc. However, I don't want just a strut and spring combo. I'd prefer coilovers for the height adjustability, and I've been daily driving mine long enough, I've become fond enough of it.

I know we have a regional champion on here for EP class, sorry bro I don't remember your screen name on here, but Taka Aono was a regional or national champion as well.


i'm curious about those who've road raced and auto crossed about their particular opinions and feelings towards different setups and what would presumably be preferable.
Would the original spring beside the strut in the rear be preferable? I've been running that as long as I've been into the ae86 chassis. However, I hear WONDERFUL things about full coilover rear suspension setups. Would just like some feedback before I bite the bullet.

thanks in advance guys.


Re: club4ag opinions on suspension

Postby chohdog » Tue Dec 10, 2013 5:14 pm

So, I'll move this post because it should be in tech talk, not here. I'll answer you now though and leave it here so you can find it.

Megans are for street cars that need to be slammed, and nothing else. All the manufacturers you mentioned as a replacement are also all made in China, with poor valving. Quality control might be ok, but any SERIOUS motorsport enthusiast will not use those products. They feel good to you because you haven't tried good suspension.

Taka won the championship on Koni yellow with custom make coilovers and rear TRD springs. There's a guy on this forum that will weld you the coilovers (viewtopic.php?f=15&t=7366), and T3 will do it for you as well. There's NO reason you shouldn't use one of these custom coilover setups, especially since it costs the same, if not less than a Chinese/Taiwanese coilover.

Formula:
Cusco or ground control coilover sleeve, top hat
Tein, Cusco, T3 camber plates
Koni 8610 motorsport strut, front application
Koni rear mustang or camaro shock, short stroke application
TRD rear spring
T3, cusco, or BV roll center adjusters

Minus the RCA, that is almost the exact setup Taka used to win FSP. Mind you he's an amazing driver, so 95% of it was his driving, but this a comparable setup.
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Re: club4ag opinion on suspension

Postby gotzoom? » Fri Dec 13, 2013 11:45 am

I've been seriously working on my setup for the last few years and here are my experiences. I would not buy any Fox body shock that you can't revalve easily. The damping rates are way to high for our cars, so you'll need to revalve them in order to make them work well. The Koni 8610/8611 works well on the front for a variety of springrates that you would use for motorsports. You want Whiteline adjustable front and rear swaybars. I wouldn't bother with anything else. The easiest way to build a front coilover is using the SP Tec weld-on sleeves. They have threads built in for the gland nut, so it's literally a 10 minute job to get the strut tubes ready to weld and there is no cut and reweld to drive up cost. I have a set of strut tubes with aluminum slide on coilover sleeves and they are a hassle to adjust. The sleeves turn along with the perch, so it requires two hands to adjust the height when cornerbalancing. The SP Tec sleeves weld to the strut tube, so they can't move. Ground Control has the nicest camber plates for the AE86. Theirs feature thrust bearings and caster adjustment along with camber. I hope that helps

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Re: club4ag opinion on suspension

Postby JapaneseDeman » Fri Dec 13, 2013 6:13 pm

gotzoom! hey man! I remember you from the old forums. how are you bro? didn't you go on to win the EP class championship or national this year sometime? I read in the SCCA magazine about a gnarly ae86 winning in EP class. was that you? if so, congrats man! if not, oops :-p

I know it may sound cheap, but I ended up getting a great deal on the godspeed sway bars for the 86 and have been utilizing them for over a year now. I noticed a huge difference when I put them in/on but I know adjustable is considerably better. I just didn't have the money for the whitelines when I ordered them. that does sound like a more plausible idea though.

but you would suggest the KONI race struts for a front coilover build then? have you ever driven on them on the streets? how are they? I daily my ae86 also, so I need to have something not completely unbearable to drive back and forth to work and around town. but I've always heard amazing things about the race quality valving of the koni's. so which rear struts would you suggest? and would you suggest the 8k/6k setup? I've read a few articles around online that a softer spring setup for the koni's on the 86 is a better setup for auto crossing/road racing.

i'm gonna look into that sp-tec kit you're talking about. how low did your coilover setup lower your 86 bro? thanks for the insight. hope to hear from you soon

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Re: club4ag opinion on suspension

Postby gotzoom? » Tue Dec 17, 2013 8:57 am

Haha, nope, not me at Nationals. My car is much more boroboro than that. :)

I had a set of Godspeed swaybars for a while and liked them a lot. I made a pretty dramatic setup change, and they weren't quite stiff enough, so I went with Whiteline to get adjustability too (mostly because I had no idea what I actually needed.) The thing I really like about the Godspeed bars is that they are hollow. Finally someone is addressing the issue of unspring weight on our cars! It would be awesome if they made a hollow adjustable bar,

I currently have Koni 8610 inserts up front and QA1 Promastar single adjustable rear shocks. At one point, I was building a second AE86, so I used the mistakes I made on my original AE86 to learn how to do things better on the second car. On my car currently, I have Ground Control aluminum coilover sleeves that were put together using the cut/reweld technique. I paid to have them done and probably ended up spending an extra $100 going that way, as compared to using the SP Tec sleeves, which I used on the second car. The sleeves are around $50 more, but the welding only cost me $50 to put them on. It's easy to cut the strut tube yourself, since you don't need to be precise at all. That helps keep the cost down if you cut them and bring them to a shop to weld up. I parted the car, so I have the SP Tec setup as my spare.

I've tried quite a few different setup combinations and I'm pretty happy with my current one. The QA1 shocks have 3 clicks us usable adjustment out of 12, so they are not ideal. I plan to send them in to have a bleed valve added, which will move the usable range higher and give me more usable adjustment. The Koni 8610's are good as-is, but are rebuildable if a seal fails or you want something different. I'm running Eibach 500lb/in (~9kg/mm) springs up front and TRD uncut 5.5kg/mm springs in the rear. With 1/4" of rake, the car is high enough to have enough suspension travel to not compromise grip and avoid scraping on everything, but low enough to help with body roll. The nice thing about adjustable dampers is that you can soften them up for road driving. I have a race seat bolted directly to the floor in my car and I don't find the ride unbearably harsh when driving on the road. I leave my shocks set to the settings that I use on track all the time. I've had passengers comment on how good my road ride quality is, as well. I've gone a few different directions over the years, but I think the 8/6 combination is a good place to start. I think there is fine tuning you can do to make things better, but it's a matter of tuning for the balance that you're after. My springrate combo probably won't work very well without the rest of the suspension adjustments that I've made, so you shouldn't rush right out and buy the rates that I'm running. I expect that it would cause understeer on a more "normal" setup. The AE86 is a tough car to set up, since it has so much unspring weight to control, the center of gravity is high and when you lower the car, the roll center is low. You can get to "good enough" easily. Getting it to "fast" is a lot harder. Most of the direct bolt-on stuff that people are using are not well suited to the car, so I'd recommend getting something that you can easily revalve that doesn't cost crazy amounts of money. That's how I arrived on using Koni 8610's and the QA1 Promastars. Both strut/shock are available with double adjustments as well, but that adds cost. The compression adjustment on the Koni 8611 (double adjustable) requires you to remove the insert to adjust it, as well, which is a hassle.

Hopefully that helps. Of you want more detailed info on what I did, shoot me a pm and I can explain more.

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Re: club4ag opinion on suspension

Postby JapaneseDeman » Fri Dec 20, 2013 7:19 am

hey guys.
yeah I think his screen name is scca01, or it used to be. i'm pretty sure that's chris Dorsey (?) but yeah. that car is phenomenal to say the least.

I ordered the 8610 koni front's, and now i'm at the point of trying to figure out what rear shocks would be best. a lot of folks are saying the koni yellows for the mustang. but i'm still curious about the valving and rebound for the 86 comparative to the weights of the mustang. I have a fear that the mustang rears may be too tight comparatively.
GOTZOOM, for what it's worth I really love my godspeed sways. they've been a night and day difference to me. I also have a weird offbeat ultra racing under h-brace. I noticed a difference, like the front end felt more firm comparatively. but anyways, I really want to get some of those fender braces and shakitto tower plates. I've heard great great things about the fender braces, especially on their turn in effects. maybe a little later down the line i'll look into the whiteline products. money's a smidgen tight right now.

i'm having a super hard time finding those sp-tec sleeves like you're talking about got-zoom, but I found a guy that doesn't have the greatest reputation on club4ag to have ONE single set left in stock at his store. i'm a bit hesitant about ordering them, but i'm closer to ordering them than I am spending months looking. I only have a few more weeks before 2014 scca starts up. I need my 86 back on the road by then.

speaking of rates and rakes. I want it lowered and low enough to help with the body roll and COG, considering I still have almost all of my interior. I've tried to build the car similar to keiichi tsuchiya's style of street/circuit. but I managed to get a friend of mine's old suspension setup. the weld on coilover setup like we were talking about but he's been on kyb agx's for the mr2 & Camaro. so right now i'm focusing on getting the right shocks/struts. he had 8k coilover springs up front I believe, but the rear's are/were 6k TRD with ONE coil cut off. i'm hesitant to run them now because of the cut coil. I was originally thinking about a 9kF/7kR set up but I fear the daily drive-ability would be sacrificed some.
after almost 3-4 years of daily riding and auto crossing on my megans I liked them. the daily part was a bit harsh, but the auto crossing was pretty good. if you go to http://www.sccawiregrass.org/ you can see I've almost always stayed in the top 10 since I went to better tires. i'm not the best by any means and I don't want to even come off as tooting my own proverbial horn. i'm just saying I've got experience and I think I did pretty well with what I had. I do want to be faster, i'd love to get at least one FTD this year if possible.

anyway. I guess now the questions left are, will the TRD cut 6k springs be ok as a whole? AND what rear struts would be the most beneficial? the koni yellow's for the 95+ mustang? do I try and seek out TRD rear blues'?

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Re: club4ag opinion on suspension

Postby gotzoom? » Fri Dec 20, 2013 8:55 am

Here's been my experience with rear shocks. I did a bunch of research on what would be a good fit out of the box for the rear, both in physical fit and damping characteristics that is also rebuildable. The only off the shelf shock that I found that would be suitable out of the box is the NA or NB MIata front shock in short stroke. Koni makes just such an animal for the NA MIata. The part number is 8041 1203RACE. There are two problems with them, though (which caused me to sell the set that I bought.) The first, which isn't that big of a deal, is that the threads on the top of the shaft are too short. You can only use a lower bushing (under the wheel well) and still have room for a washer, nut and jam nut on top. I was a little worried about the metal on metal contact between the upper washer and the body, so I would probably have made a small teflon shim to go in between and separate the two pieces of metal from contact. The bigger problem is with the lower mount. The eye that holds the bushing is too large for any bushing that I could find. The RACE version of the Koni shocks have a larger metal sleeve in the bushing, so there is enough material to enlarge the hole, but since the metal is very hard, it's not easy to enlarge. Drill bits in the size of the pin on the axle are pretty expensive and I burned up one bit and only got about 1/4" through the sleeve. I thought about making delrin bushings, but I think that will cause a lot of stress on the lower mount area and eventually cause something to break. You can also make your own polyeurathane bushing, but by the time I got to this point, I started thinking it wasn't meant to be. That's when I got the QA1 shocks and they work well enough. I had a set of Koni 30 series Fox body oval race shocks and the damping, even at the softest position, was too much for our cars. Pony cars weigh nearly twice what ours do, plus the mounting postion of the shocks is quite a bit more inboard, which means the motion ratio is very different. All of that adds up to it being a bad idea to use Mustang or Camaro shocks if you care about grip. The NB MIata has different upper mounts and has longer threads, so you could look at using some kind of NB front shock. Unfortunately, Koni doesn't make a RACE version for the NB, but there may be another shock you could use. You may still have the same problem with the lower mount, though. If you're on Facebook, search for "EP Importers." He's based in the southern part of Japan and should be able to get you the SP TEC sleeves for retail in yen and ship them to you for a reasonable price.

I talked to a race engineer for a shop that builds NASCAR road race cars. We had a lengthy discussion about rear setup and he told me that he would be looking at softer rear springs than what I am running or would consider running. NASCAR road race cars run somewhere around 300lb/in (5.3kg/mm) springs in the rear. Those cars are about 300-400lbs heavier than a typical AE86 and are putting around 800hp to the wheel. I definitely would not go stiffer than 6kg/mm springs (which will be the case with your cut springs) in the rear unless you're running 275 width 15" Hoosier A6's or something along those lines. Also, if you haven't already, you should disconnect your rear swaybar for autox. You can just take one of the endlinks off to make that easy.

I think you're just going to have to accept body roll. You need it to make the car turn. Figure out how much camber you need in the front to get good front tire wear and rotate your tires often to get the most life out of your tires. Nothing you can do to the car other than going to an independent rear suspension will give you normal tire wear. Add that to the fact that you need to maximize your corner entry speed to get a good lap time and you end up with an expensive tire budget. :) I currently get about 4 track days out of a set of Nitto NT01s, and I run them until the cord on the outside shoulder.

PS: What autox class are you running? You know all those braces are illegal in FSP, right? You also need the complete interior to be legal (with exception of the "comfort" exemptions.)

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Re: club4ag opinion on suspension

Postby Deuce Cam » Fri Dec 20, 2013 9:19 am

The nascar road car rear spring rate is very interesting. Great info!

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Re: club4ag opinion on suspension

Postby JapaneseDeman » Fri Dec 20, 2013 12:51 pm

The NA Miata? wow....now that's a front shock I NEVER suspected to fit on our rears. That's insane. And those are a bit expensive comparatively, but you pay for quality.
Anyways...
all of the information you've put forth is quite intriguing. I may look into those NA/NB setup's you're speaking of. I'm actually not on facebook, I rid myself of it about 4 years ago. Sometimes I wish I still was, but it's just not enticing enough anymore. But I've seen EP Importer's on here, I can ask them via email I guess about those SP-TEC sleeves.

Speaking of rear springs, what do you think of AJPS springs? I've looked into their products they make a bit of everything. And it would appear we can order a set of rear springs from them in any Kg rating we'd like. I find that interesting and I could always find a moderate/different rate than what I have at the moment to run.
And i'm so surprised about this disconnecting the rear sway bar idea. I have a lot of friends with 240's doing that, but I've not heard of any ae86 guys running auto cross without it. I would've suspected a live axle like ours to react differently than the IRS of the 240's, comparatively in a motorsports application. Y'know?

Oh i'm fine with the body roll, we just all ( as auto crossers) try to decrease or eliminate as much body roll as possible as a whole. I'm used to it by now, I've got about 7 years of auto crossing in the ae86 with it's body roll and all sorts of different suspension and engines, everything. It's been a hodgepodge for a long time, until the past about 2 years. I've had the same setup for almost 2 years.
I've been running about -2 degrees camber in the front on the megan coilovers for a long time, never messed with the caster, but I've heard a lot of more serious/hardcore ae86's adjusting theirs. My toe was a bit out I believe, I can't remember precisely, but it was like that when I got the alignment from the last shop I visited.

You run Nitto NT01's zoom? How do you like yours? This past season was my first year on them, I'd run azzenis rt615 &k's for years, but I finally stepped up to the NT01's this past season. I've had about....6 events on them so far I think. I only got 9 out of my azzenis, but comparatively I like the NT01's better.

Speaking of, what class are you running in ZOOM? I believe I may be in the wrong class then.....because my officers here for the SCCA have me in ESP. Originally I thought I was in f-stock/fsp but they told me no, and said my modifications put me in ESP. I think they meant EP or XP, but I still find that offbeat.
Also, the only parts of my interior i'm missing is the rear/hatch carpet, spare tire and that piece of oem placement board/cardboard that goes over the spare/under the carpet. That's all i'm missing. And on auto cross Sunday's I take out the hatch cover. But that's it, it's 99% complete besides that stuff.

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Re: club4ag opinion on suspension

Postby Deuce Cam » Fri Dec 20, 2013 2:37 pm

One thing to consider is the trd spring rates aren't known to be accurate. If you do some basic spring rate calculations you'll realize the rate they advertise is very optimistic. I have some uncut trd 5.5k rears and they come out to less than 4.5k when the dimensions are applied to a spring rate formula; granted, I haven't actually tested them on a spring rate rig. AJPS has the springs custom made and guarantees the spring rate.

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Re: club4ag opinion on suspension

Postby yoshimitsuspeed » Fri Dec 20, 2013 3:01 pm

JapaneseDeman wrote:hey guys.
yeah I think his screen name is scca01, or it used to be. i'm pretty sure that's chris Dorsey (?) but yeah. that car is phenomenal to say the least.

I ordered the 8610 koni front's, and now i'm at the point of trying to figure out what rear shocks would be best. a lot of folks are saying the koni yellows for the mustang. but i'm still curious about the valving and rebound for the 86 comparative to the weights of the mustang. I have a fear that the mustang rears may be too tight comparatively.
GOTZOOM, for what it's worth I really love my godspeed sways. they've been a night and day difference to me. I also have a weird offbeat ultra racing under h-brace. I noticed a difference, like the front end felt more firm comparatively. but anyways, I really want to get some of those fender braces and shakitto tower plates. I've heard great great things about the fender braces, especially on their turn in effects. maybe a little later down the line i'll look into the whiteline products. money's a smidgen tight right now.

i'm having a super hard time finding those sp-tec sleeves like you're talking about got-zoom, but I found a guy that doesn't have the greatest reputation on club4ag to have ONE single set left in stock at his store. i'm a bit hesitant about ordering them, but i'm closer to ordering them than I am spending months looking. I only have a few more weeks before 2014 scca starts up. I need my 86 back on the road by then.

speaking of rates and rakes. I want it lowered and low enough to help with the body roll and COG, considering I still have almost all of my interior. I've tried to build the car similar to keiichi tsuchiya's style of street/circuit. but I managed to get a friend of mine's old suspension setup. the weld on coilover setup like we were talking about but he's been on kyb agx's for the mr2 & Camaro. so right now i'm focusing on getting the right shocks/struts. he had 8k coilover springs up front I believe, but the rear's are/were 6k TRD with ONE coil cut off. i'm hesitant to run them now because of the cut coil. I was originally thinking about a 9kF/7kR set up but I fear the daily drive-ability would be sacrificed some.
after almost 3-4 years of daily riding and auto crossing on my megans I liked them. the daily part was a bit harsh, but the auto crossing was pretty good. if you go to http://www.sccawiregrass.org/ you can see I've almost always stayed in the top 10 since I went to better tires. i'm not the best by any means and I don't want to even come off as tooting my own proverbial horn. i'm just saying I've got experience and I think I did pretty well with what I had. I do want to be faster, i'd love to get at least one FTD this year if possible.

anyway. I guess now the questions left are, will the TRD cut 6k springs be ok as a whole? AND what rear struts would be the most beneficial? the koni yellow's for the 95+ mustang? do I try and seek out TRD rear blues'?



I haven't gotten further than this post in the thread. I keep getting distracted by work.
I posted this a couple days ago in another thread but Tokiko HTS short stroke should be available again in the next few months. Many people seem to think this is one of the better options. One nice thing is they are designed and valved for the weight of the car.

I can also get Cusco weld on sleeves. I'm not sure which ones are needed for the AE86 but I am more than happy to help figure it out if people can get me measurements of the strut tube OD and if I get the piston rod OD I should be able to get top hats too.
If anyone wanted to send me their shocks to weld these on I can do that and could also ceramic coat them in a coating that is incredibly hard.

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Re: club4ag opinion on suspension

Postby gotzoom? » Fri Dec 20, 2013 3:25 pm

If you think about what happens when you use a swaybar, you are basically doing two things. You're increasing the spring rate on the outside corner, but you're also tying both sides of the suspension together to reduce roll. In autox, you typically have much harder transitions than you do on a road course and those transitions require you to have more suspension downtravel that you would normally need. If you don't have enough down travel, you either unload the inside wheel or cause it to lift. In either case, you get wheelspin, even with a good LSD. I have a Tomei T-traxx LSD with around 2000 miles on it and I get major wheelspin if I don't disconnect the swaybar when I autox. I even get wheelspin on some of the race tracks in my area if I run too much rear bar. I feel that live-axle cars are actually more prone to wheelpin than independent rear suspension cars, since the two sides are already tied together.

I haven't used AJPS springs, but I have some experience with Hyperco, who also makes 5.5" diameter springs in a variety of rates. Largely, spring steel is spring steel, but they may have some special recipe that makes them better or worse than other springs. I've also heard that TRD springs are supposedly lighter than their stated rate. One of these days, I'll get around to sticking mine on a spring dyno and see what it says.

As far as camber goes, I am currently at 4.5 deg of front camber and am planning to go to 5 deg after this set of tires is done. I run 1/16" of toe-in for track. It helps a little with the steering "dead zone" at center. For autox, I would run around 1/8" of toe-out to get quicker turnin. When I was actively autocrossing my car, I had the caster set to zero because I liked the quick turnin. Personally, I didn't feel like the car turned with anything less than 2.5 deg of camber. I was never able to get my car to slalom very well (even today.) I'd get about halfway down the slalom and have to lift to keep the ends going the right direction. In a MIata, the same slalom would be flat. I haven't really been seriously autocrossing in a couple years, though. As far as classing goes, any extra bracing other than strut tower braces throw you into Prepared. Also, if you have roll center adjustments, that also puts you in Prepared. Here in the San Francisco Region, we have an Open Street Prepared (OSP) class that is basically a catchall for cars that would otherwise be in a crazy class. I usually run OSP when I autocross, otherwise, I run XP. I don't like running by myself, so I pick the class that hs the most people running that day. I'm not competitive in either class, but I still hve fun when I go out. If you build the car to SP rules, it falls into FSP. SP rules are the same across classes. The first letter in the class determines which cars go in that class. ESP is for large heavy cars, usually which have a lot of power. Camaros, Mustangs, larger BMW cars, etc run there. FSP is for lightweight, low power cars in general. Unfortunately, the days where the car can be nationally competitive in FSP are gone, though. Since the days when it was competitive, the rules have changed to break the AE92 and AE86 on to separate lines, which means you can't swap engines any more. Also, the EG Civic was moved into the class which is lighter, has a better suspension and puts more power to the wheel than an AE86, so at best, being competitive in an AE86 is course dependent. I think EP is really your best hope of building a nationally competitive car nowadays, but if you don't care about winning nationals, I'd just build the car how you want and let the class fall where it may. The rear carpet is required for SP if it is normally bolted in place. If it's just a loose cover carpet over the spare tire, you can take it out. The fiberboard spare tire cover and spare tire should be removed for autox and those are not required by the rules.

I don't feel the NT01 is a particulary good autox tire. They work ok, but they're really not much better than a street tire. They are great track tires, though. I can abuse the heck out of them and I've never been able to overheat them. I'm not putting a lot more power than stock to the wheels, though. Lately, I've been running with a buddy in a 20V Blacktop powered AW11 and another buddy in a fairly well set up 1.6l MIata. I've been staying with them, mostly due to their setups not being great and me running R-comp tires where they run street tires. Both have made changes lately to make their cars faster, so I'm building a new engine over the winter and am debating moving to 15" wheels so I have more and better tire selection and more choices of rim sizes. If I move to 15" I'll need to start over on setup haha.

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Re: club4ag opinion on suspension

Postby Deuce Cam » Fri Dec 20, 2013 3:53 pm

Gotzoom? - are the hyperco springs you mentioned their 'nascar front' springs? - they indicate a 5.5" OD and 8.75" length. I perused their catalog and that seemed like the closest size to trd.

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Re: club4ag opinion on suspension

Postby totta crolla » Sat Dec 21, 2013 2:36 am

MK2 Ford Escort Group 4 rear dampers are pretty much a direct fit on the rear, in fact if I remember correctly they just bolt on.
There is a large choice of Escort dampers in Europe including Proflex, Bilstein, Koni, AVO and Spax to name a few and the escort setup (when in Group 4 spec.) is similar to the Corolla.

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Re: club4ag opinion on suspension

Postby Deuce Cam » Sat Dec 21, 2013 8:07 am

^They've got some pretty cool looking front coilovers also that accept a 40mm Bilstein insert; unfortunately, they're all long stroke rally spec. I assume the rears are long stroke?

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Re: club4ag opinion on suspension

Postby JapaneseDeman » Mon Dec 23, 2013 5:17 pm

yeah man. I understand what you're saying with the rear sway bar. I just find it odd and a bit....offbeat to think just deleting it would actually help, considering what a huge difference it made going from oem to the godspeed one alone. y'know? I personally like live axle as a whole for auto cross. I feel like it's more predictable as a whole. and to be honest, I don't have a lot of wheel spin at all cornering hard on my NT01's. I can see where most would say they're not great auto cross tires, they seem to take a bit to heat up and at the same time if they're cold they're almost useless to me. comparatively. when my NT01's get a bit warm they hook great.... then again, I really don't believe my 86 makes enough power to spin them unless i'm clutch kicking for whatever unnecessary reason. but cornering they grip well! i'm also running the same LSD zoom. the tomei 2way. I will say this much though, the KAZZ I found a bit too aggressive for auto cross. it would be wonderful for drifting but not for auto cross, as it seemed too snap happy to me. it always wanted to spin the tires no matter what I was doing, going in hot or coming out hot anything like that, it would just send the rear end out on me.

yeah. i'm still doing some research on the TRD springs comparative to other company springs. I'm starting to think maybe the AJPS springs would be the best bang for the buck, however i'm still thinking what spring rate would be best for me. I do still daily drive the car as much as possible, but I want it to be more competitive than it already was. And I feel like my suspension is the best key to making it faster now.

WTH! I tried to run FSP for almost 1-2 years and all our officers/safety stewards kept telling me I couldn't be in FSP .... I don't remember exactly their reasoning but I do remember them giving me quite the hard time about saying i'm in fsp. i'm under the presumption that maybe they stuck me in ESP because almost everyone in our region seems to be in ESP or STM. I don't know but I always thought that by the rules and regulations I would've been in a different class.

I think i'll ultimately just have to play with my suspension settings to find what works best for me and mu style of driving and keep it more street reliable as well. Like I said bud, if you look at our website for the monthly standings considering i'm running almost no power and just had those megan coilovers and nt01's I think I did really well as a whole. i'm experienced and really comfortable with my 86. I keep up with/beat Miata's and civics, a lot of mustangs and Subaru's often. But I don't care about beating any one thing in particular I just love auto cross and getting better and faster as often as possible.

thanks for all your advice. i'm still researching and looking around for ideas to run. I just hope maybe I can get everything on the way and get the car back together in time for the beginning of the 2014 season.

JapaneseDeman
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Re: club4ag opinion on suspension

Postby JapaneseDeman » Mon Dec 23, 2013 5:21 pm

TOTTA rolla,

that's an interesting point you bring to the conversation about the MK2 escort struts. DOES anyone on club4ag have any experience running those? That sounds a bit too good to be true. Because that would REALLY open up the options to go with for the rear. And those options as a whole sound much more beneficial as far as tune-ability.

real shame though that good stuff like the TRD blue's are discontinued. I've heard sermon's about bilsteins. I heard a rumor once upon a time about K&W prototyping coilovers for the 86......wouldn't that be phenomenal..

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Re: club4ag opinion on suspension

Postby Deuce Cam » Mon Dec 23, 2013 8:41 pm

The trd shocks are still available; I bought some new not long ago. If you're interested PM me and I can point you in the right direction.

The koni inserts are probably the best option though.

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gotzoom?
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Re: club4ag opinion on suspension

Postby gotzoom? » Tue Dec 24, 2013 6:19 pm

I'm in the San Francisco Region of the SCCA and we have something like 40% of all SCCA members in our region. You have the opportunity to run against national champions literally at every event here. All of my comments about competitiveness are based on my experience here, so your mileage may vary in your area. Live axle is good for exactly one motorsports; drag racing. In every other form of motorsports, it is not your friend. It is a large amount of unspring weight that you need to control somehow. You have postive camber when you are not going perfectly straight and both wheels are tied together, which doesn't help with grip. When you run a swaybar, it links the suspension travel of the right and left side together. This means that when one side compresses, it forces the other side to compress too (not droop as much, actually.) In autocross where you are always doing fast transitions, it causes you to unweight the inside wheel and get wheelspin. Even with my T-traxx diff with around 3000 miles on it, I get wheelspin if I autocross with the rear bar connected. On track, you rarely encounter the type of quick transitions that you do in autox, so you can benefit from having a swaybar. If you look at any nationally prepared rwd autocross car that the class allows removal of the swaybar, I would be shocked if you could find even one car that runs a rear swaybar. When I was autocrossing my 99 Miata in CS, I occasionally got wheelspin if the corner was tight, so that forced me to run less rear camber than I might otherwise have run, since I could not disconnect the rear swaybar in CS.

I actually have the opposite feeling about the T-traxx diff. I feel that it is excellent diff for autocross and track. It locks up more than it's Kazz cousin which helps the rear to rotate more. When I first installed mine (I switched from a TRD 2-way previously,) the first thing I noticed was how much better the car turned.

I think you're right about the Hyperco being their NASCAR springs. I know they are longer than TRD springs, so you need to cut them to get to the same ride height, and consequently need to choose a bit softer rate to get you to what you want after cutting them. TRD springs are 7" length, btw.

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Re: club4ag opinion on suspension

Postby solo2go1 » Thu Feb 06, 2014 4:27 pm

Whats the consensus regarding use of rear coilovers in the AE86 (for road race / autox )? I read some people say it's fine, others say the shock towers in the rear are too weak to support the weight. Any known problems with rear coilovers?

Jimmee1990
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Re: club4ag opinion on suspension

Postby Jimmee1990 » Sun Feb 09, 2014 3:53 am

The shock towers are too weak, and over time you will notice the factory spot welds tearing. Stitch weld the whole tower and brace the floor as it will still flex under load, as well as bracing the mounts on the diff and it can work. Still has no real advantage over seperate shock and spring for a whole lot more effort and cost to be honest.

solo2go1
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Re: club4ag opinion on suspension

Postby solo2go1 » Sun Feb 09, 2014 1:04 pm

Ok thanks.