Evo wanna be! Suspension help

[92awddsm]

i don't really see the point of looking for a evo style suspension there is very few roads in nyc that take advantage of it. how many twisty roads are in your neigborhood? i thought of doing something for my 1g but i mat get a hotbits suspension energy suspension bushings if anybody can provide a link for those adjustable control arms i will appriacte it. evo's are ment for the track but in the streets i think 1g and 2g are better. (less weight). plus if you are weekend warrior just build a racecar from scratch. beleive me it will make your life easier.

i am looking to purchase a sports d race car for my self but find out they are about 50g's i may get a used 350z gut it and put all the saftey i need then race. i don't like fixing carsjust driveing them

america roads are mostly straight. not as twisty as other contries. i say tune for the area you will be driveing in.

The evo suspension was designed for on and off road performance. You may think the 1g and 2g work great on the surface roads but you should really drive an evo before you start to compare it to a dsm. The rigity of the evo suspesion wins over the dsm hands down. In an earlier post I made, torsional rigity came up as a reply. Well, my car has a full cage and torsionally, my car should overtake the evo, but my friends evo handles a lot better (ldstang50) and he is a high contender is the scca east coast division. I have driven both and anyone on the circuit will tell you the difference comes from control arm construction and mounting points. Tortionally, the evo twists up as much as the dsm, 1g or 2g, in the corners.

 

[ACM]

As someone just said - try driving an Evo on bumpy roads before you pass judgement. On New England's bump, pot hole and frost heave infested roads the Evo does great. But both my 2Gs do better. There's plenty of compromise involved, but at the end of the day you can make make a silk purse out of these pigs ears in this context.

Choosing the lowest budget/lowest tech options (like Illuminas and *anything*) however will leave you believing that you have to put up with crappy handling and a crappy ride.

Great suspension is never cheap, and cheap suspension is never great.

Charles

 

[RedRex02]

As someone just said - try driving an Evo on bumpy roads before you pass judgement. On New England's bump, pot hole and frost heave infested roads the Evo does great. But both my 2Gs do better. There's plenty of compromise involved, but at the end of the day you can make make a silk purse out of these pigs ears in this context.

Choosing the lowest budget/lowest tech options (like Illuminas and *anything*) however will leave you believing that you have to put up with crappy handling and a crappy ride.

Great suspension is never cheap, and cheap suspension is never great.

Charles

So what combo would you suggest?

 

[LONEWOLF01]

At the end of the day it comes down to money. i prefer to have a high dollar suspension on a ok car then have a great car that i may crash at the track. are you willing to crash your evo or a 1g or 2g. the cheapest evo i found was for 25k. i think in total i will spend no more than 10 grand for my 1g. btw i driven the car it a great car and it will make a great used buy car in five to 10 years from now. i just can see myself spending 30+k on a car i will be ripping apart. for all that i will buy german. i never understood guys that rip apart a brand new car. it defeats the purpose of a tunning it looks like a big waste of money. i never change anything on my car unless its broken or there is a suprior part over stock. this is why i can afford to build two cars.

plus there is a another factor driver skill i personaly seen a evo's get killed on a twisty road by a sentra ser. the evo never stand a chance. increase your skill first then get a better car. because it would suck a guy in a a car that spent more money on suspension than engines mods hands you your ass. increase your skill!!!

http://www.autotrader.com/fyc/searc...p=y&lang=en&pager.offset=250&first_record=251

 

[ACM]

So what combo would you suggest?

How much money are you prepared to spend ?
From the top (monetarily) :
Custom Penskes, POA
Custom Ohlins - as above minus a grand or two
D/A Konis - not sure, say $3k (rthere are now several options from Koni)
JIC valved for the USA - ~$2k + revalving costs.
Tein, same as JIC
OTS Konis with a revalve
OTS Konis
AGX ? (if the length and seal problems have been fixed)

I'm not aware of any other options proven to be effective and worthwhile - that's not to say they aren't out there, just I have no experience/knowledge of them.

On top of the above, there are the numerous fiddly bits - anti-roll bars, adjustable end links, searching for the best spring compromise, fixing soggy bushings - all of these play into the final result, and most of these can make a seriously good damper setup perform as badly as a Tokico or AGX on Pro Kits.

It will take significant effort and money to get any DSM to work as well as an Evo. When you can buy an Evo with ease, it makes this route difficult to justify. The other side to this is that as good as you make your DSM, the Evo or RX7 owner can throw half as much at their vehicle and put the DSM just as far behind them as it was to start with.

Charles

 

[LONEWOLF01]

this is why i would wait 5 years and get it on the used car market. buy it cash up front then build from there. just make your dsm a daily driver with some mild mods wait five years and buy a used evo cash thats what i am doing. my 1g has just the basic i only replace whats broke so it only a operation cost to me. i sell it or give it away. and all the money i saved up i would just buy a evo. then next gen of used cars are a whole hell of a lot better made then it was 10 years ago. wait and buy a evo.


or if you have some cash buy a toyota yaris (sips gas real cheap) then buy your evo and prep it for races. i just don't beleive in street/racecars there to much involoved to fulfill both roles. buy a nice daily driver then buy and build you track car.

right now my dsm needs parts my stock exhaust finally gave out i order a megan. my motor mounts are messed up so i got prothane i needed to change them anyway so i just buy the performance part of it. now the only real problem i have is i think my computer is messed up i would just buy another one but the problem would only return i may get a aem ems. or find someone that can elimnate the problem. plus i need to change my bushing ther done. but keep this in mind i am not change because i want to but because i have to. and thats what make you save money in the end.

 

[igs]

I test drove an Evo we got in on trade. I was very pleased the way it handled. It felt very tight and felt GLUED to the pavement. How can I get my 2g FWD to feel close to this of the Evo.
I was thinking a good spring shock combo. Don't have that much to spend. I was looking at the Tokico package, some tein springs mated with some decent KYB's(non adjustable)...
What would you guys reccomend?

Jon

Hi,

The difference you are feeling is the tires. The Evo comes with max performance summer tires whereas your Eclipse comes with min performance all season tires. Suspension wise the Eclipse has multi-link front and rear which is superior to the Evo. Tires make the single biggest difference when it comes to cornering performance.

 

[92awddsm]

Hi,

The difference you are feeling is the tires. The Evo comes with max performance summer tires whereas your Eclipse comes with min performance all season tires. Suspension wise the Eclipse has multi-link front and rear which is superior to the Evo. Tires make the single biggest difference when it comes to cornering performance.

And this statement is totally wrong and misinforative. If that was the case, you would see a lot of road racers/aotucross car only swapping tires, not suspension pieces. I can put r-comps on my can and understeer will be a lot worse on it than any stock evo. The tranny and tc also come into play here but ultimately, chassis design has the biggest effect on handling characteristics.

 

[igs]

No amount of suspension mods can overcome bad tires. This is not worth arguing as anyone that has raced knows this.

 

[RedRex02]

No amount of suspension mods can overcome bad tires. This is not worth arguing as anyone that has raced knows this.

Um I have BFG KD's! As far as I know and have felt, their damn good. Def not the problem here sir!

 

[LONEWOLF01]

MAybe their should be a shotout find the best 1g 2g and evo to battle it out. i felt that the evo has a suprior suspension set up over the 1g and 2g's i can't see themselves takeing a step back from the 1g and 2gs.

 

[ACM]

What RedRex is feeling is not the tyres at all - it is the complete absence of compliance in the the entire suspension and steering systems of the Evo. Drive a 2G on Evo rims/tyres and an Evo on snow tyres and you will understand the difference immediately.

igs wasn't wrong at all, from a drawing board perspective the 2G has a much better suspension design than the Evo - the difference is in the execution. 2G suspension - the front in particular - is terribly compromised by the huge squishy rubber bushings required to allow the necessary 3 dimensional movement. All the theoretical advantages of the 2G evapourate instantly. The Evo on the other hand comes from the factory with metal spherical bearings instead of rubber bushings, so the real world geometry is the same as the theoretical geometry.

The 2G also has camber-related tweaks to keep idiot drivers safe, lots and lots of understeer. Mor -ve camber is needed in the front and less in the rear. More -ve camber change is needed in the front as well, so shorter upper arms/longer lower arms are needed. Now spherical bearings need to be added, simple in theory, complex in practice, as the compression strut location bolts are loaded in single shear - very very very bad ! A spherical bearing placed here would snap the bolts on the first pot hole/frost heave - this mount has to be strengthened and modified to support the bolts on both sides. The rubber bushings cushion the locating points from the worst of the impacts, so they don't need to be overly strong - every one of the inboard pickups needs to be strengthened and modified to survive the higher loads they will see.

DG has a great sig line about theory vs practice, though I don't remember the exact wording.

Another funny quote - "Good tyres will never turn a Yugo into a Ferrari, but bad tyres will certainly turn a Ferrari into a Yugo". Don't know where this one came from either.

Charles

 

[jtmcinder]

"In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. But, in practice, there is."

This is from a computer-geek named Jan van de Snepscheut, although I've never seen Dennis give him the credit.

- Jtoby

 

[LONEWOLF01]

i say get all your bushings change to energy suspension and get the hotbits suspension. hopefully that would make you happy. i wonder how much a master kit for 1 g would cost me.

 

[Ultimatedsm]

I was looking at two setups:

Tokico illuminas /w Ground Control coil-overs (Cost around $825-850 USD). Versus TEIN Super Street true Coil-over (Cost around $899-950USD). I think I am going with the Tein because its a True Coil over and the spring rates are perfectly matched with the shock absorber.

 

[jtmcinder]

I think I am going with the Tein because its a True Coil over and the spring rates are perfectly matched with the shock absorber.

So what are the springrates and damping ratios? And, if you also know: what proportion of the damping is during rebound? I'd like to understand Tein's set-up logic a bit better. Thanks.

- Jtoby

 

[Injected]

So what are the springrates and damping ratios? And, if you also know: what proportion of the damping is during rebound? I'd like to understand Tein's set-up logic a bit better. Thanks.

- Jtoby

I'm going to jump into this thread. It's good to see the suspension guru's here.

According to <a href="http://www.tein.com/ti/r56-d38a.html">TEIN's site</a> the sring rates for the 2G AWD Super Street setup is (F/R in lbs/min) 500/340 and the 'Minimum height adjustment' is 1.65"/.67". I'm not sure about TEIN's dampning, though I do know that they adjust compression and rebound together.

I'm under the impression that the SS-P (pillowball) model will not help the 2G camber (for reasons that I don't understand), but find it interesting. Please correct me if this is wrong.

 

[Ultimatedsm]

http://www.tein.com/ti/r56-d38a.html

That is some of the information. I was just asking around people that actually have these on and they said they are amazing, much better then the seperate coil overs on a different strut setup. Let me know Jtoby because I know your good with suspension stuff.

 

[jtmcinder]

I've read the Tein pubs before; they don't provide good information on the damping. In the future, please be careful about posting that "X is perfectly matched to Y" unless you have data. It's a rude tease to suggest that you have more information and I've never seen a set-up described as "not matching" by the maker, so what Tein says isn't of much value.

The reason pillowballs have no effect on 2G camber is 2Gs have double-wishbone, so the shock plays no role in alignment (other than indirectly via height).

- Jtoby

 

[cait sith]

The reason pillowballs have no effect on 2G camber is 2Gs have double-wishbone, so the shock plays no role in alignment (other than indirectly via height).

- Jtoby

If you could, please rephrase that as slotted shock mounts, not pillowball uppermounts, as pillow ball upper mounts are quite important to a coilover's ability to rotate within the shock mount and work with coaxial spring hats.

 

[Ultimatedsm]

I've read the Tein pubs before; they don't provide good information on the damping. In the future, please be careful about posting that "X is perfectly matched to Y" unless you have data. It's a rude tease to suggest that you have more information and I've never seen a set-up described as "not matching" by the maker, so what Tein says isn't of much value.

The reason pillowballs have no effect on 2G camber is 2Gs have double-wishbone, so the shock plays no role in alignment (other than indirectly via height).

- Jtoby

The reason I said they are perfectly matched for each other is because TEIN actually tests there products before bringing them out on the market. Why would they put an overly stiff springs on soft shocks or vice versa. They have done there research and I have heard only good things about them. So according to peoples first hand experience, they work amazing and they all said they liked it better then the seperate coil over on strut type.

 

[92awddsm]

If you could, please rephrase that as slotted shock mounts, not pillowball uppermounts, as pillow ball upper mounts are quite important to a coilover's ability to rotate within the shock mount and work with coaxial spring hats.

It dosent really matter how it is stated because first off, the strut doesnt rotate on a 2g. It is "as stated" double wishbone, not Macphearson setup.

Also, slotted upper mounts on a 2g would do nothing other that change the angle of the strut. Caster nor camber is adjustable via the strut on a 2g. Actually, the 2g has a copy of the earlier honda suspention with few minor changes.

 

[TOPSECRET]

Its all in the suspension setup. the evo is setup from the factory to be a max performance car the 2g is obviously is not. The 2g has as more possible potential than even an evo. No matter how exspensive the suspension is it's all in the setup if not setup properly you'll never get max performance and this means spending many hours in tuning. The 1g and the 2g are both very capable platforms on which to base a good track car. The strut doesn't rotate on 2g beacause it is'nt a strut it's a shock. 2g's have shocks frt & rr 1g's have struts frt shocks rr and so do evo's

 

[cait sith]

It dosent really matter how it is stated because first off, the strut doesnt rotate on a 2g. It is "as stated" double wishbone, not Macphearson setup.

Also, slotted upper mounts on a 2g would do nothing other that change the angle of the strut. Caster nor camber is adjustable via the strut on a 2g. Actually, the 2g has a copy of the earlier honda suspention with few minor changes.

Did you read my post right at all?

Pillowballs are NOT slotted mounts! Jeeze.

 

[wret]

Did you read my post right at all?

Pillowballs are NOT slotted mounts! Jeeze.

I think everyone here but "Injected" knows what you are talking about.

Injected, the reason that camber plates work on a 1g is because it is a "strut" suspension. The strut is actually the upper control arm and changing its angle changes the angle of the suspension (camber/caster). On a 2g, with double wishbone suspension, one needs to change the length or mounting positions of the control arms to change camber and caster.