Which shocks for GC coilovers on a 99 GSX.

[MNGSX]

No idea... But RRE has the same type of upper mounts.

Spherical Bearing plate (AKA pillowball)
http://www.roadraceengineering.com/camberplate.htm

Looks like 190 a pair... If it came down to it rear plates are nice but buying rears and not fronts is retarded... That is how much they help the front.

Then you would need a coaxial upper hats for 2.5" diameter springs.
I'll edit when I find an example and price...

 

[jtmcinder]

We have no direct data showing that coaxial hats are required, especially when we are talking about typical compromise (street/track) spring rates. Yes, theory tells us that coaxial hats are better - everything else being equal - because this eliminates any side-force on the shock, which can wear out the innards and/or cause stiction. However, not only is everything else not equal, but we have no data on how much side-force is produced and how much grief it is causing. In fact, we have no data on the ATI hats at all, since they are not yet available.

As to the everything else (not) being equal, coaxial hats will cost you some travel. Since even a quarter-inch of lost travel can be a big deal, this is a serious issue. Second, coaxial hats mean that the weight of the car is on the bearing. This will significantly increase transmitted road noise and vibration, causing the bearing to wear prematurely, and even weakening the spot-welds of the unibody more quickly. Put another way: I have no plans to switch to coaxial hats on my daily-driven autocross car. I talked this out with John M. at RRE and he convinced me that coaxial hats had more minuses than pluses in my case. He still would sell them to if I insisted, of course, but he talked me out of it. And when a vendor talks a customer out of buying something, that usually gets my attention.

- Jtoby

 

[MNGSX]

We have no direct data showing that coaxial hats are required, especially when we are talking about typical compromise (street/track) spring rates. Yes, theory tells us that coaxial hats are better - everything else being equal - because this eliminates any side-force on the shock, which can wear out the innards and/or cause stiction. However, not only is everything else not equal, but we have no data on how much side-force is produced and how much grief it is causing. In fact, we have no data on the ATI hats at all, since they are not yet available.

There are trade offs to be made with anything..

Ride Height Lower = more likely to need them.... Higher = less likely...
Spring rate Higher rate = more needed Lower rate = less needed.

As to the everything else (not) being equal, coaxial hats will cost you some travel. Since even a quarter-inch of lost travel can be a big deal, this is a serious issue. Second, coaxial hats mean that the weight of the car is on the bearing. This will significantly increase transmitted road noise and vibration, causing the bearing to wear prematurely, and even weakening the spot-welds of the unibody more quickly. Put another way: I have no plans to switch to coaxial hats on my daily-driven autocross car. I talked this out with John M. at RRE and he convinced me that coaxial hats had more minuses than pluses in my case. He still would sell them to if I insisted, of course, but he talked me out of it. And when a vendor talks a customer out of buying something, that usually gets my attention.

- Jtoby

With a short shock like a koni and a raised plate like the RRE's I'm pretty sure that the upper control arm is more of a limiting factor than the distance from the shock body to the upper plate with the smallest sensible bumpstop.

There are also other places to slip a bit of polyurethane. Stock there are isolators between the plate and unibody.. Make it thicker.. (I know travel) .... I have seen some poly pieces molded for a 2.5" coil over lower spring perch.. This is a better bet since most of the time threaded perches have more range than is needed. This wont hurt travel.

Hats


I found them...

"JIC upper spring seats" The pic is of a large ID threaded hat but they list 10.5 thru 18.5 center hole shaft mounts. I forget what size it is but that is the price.
At $38 each MSRP trying 2 out upfront does'nt hurt that bad even if you don't like them...
http://www.jic-magic.com/productsjic_susp_parts.htm



Ill look for the poly...

 

[jtmcinder]

There are trade offs to be made with anything..

Ride Height Lower = more likely to need them.... Higher = less likely...

Please explain why.

- Jtoby

 

[jtmcinder]

With a short shock like a koni and a raised plate like the RRE's I'm pretty sure that the upper control arm is more of a limiting factor than the distance from the shock body to the upper plate with the smallest sensible bumpstop.

Really? I have exactly this set-up (GC sleeves, RRE plates, Konis) and my upper control arm is not the limiting factor.

Of course, you might not consider a trimmed JIC bumpstop to be sensible.

- Jtoby

 

[jtmcinder]

There are also other places to slip a bit of polyurethane. Stock there are isolators between the plate and unibody...

BS. There is an isolator between the spring and the plate, but there is no isolator between the plate and the unibody.

- Jtoby

ps. you ain't doing Dennis any favors with this sort of post

 

[jtmcinder]

Hats


I found them...

"JIC upper spring seats" The pic is of a large ID threaded hat but they list 10.5 thru 18.5 center hole shaft mounts. I forget what size it is but that is the price.
At $38 each MSRP trying 2 out upfront does'nt hurt that bad even if you don't like them...
http://www.jic-magic.com/productsjic_susp_parts.htm.

That's a spring seat, not a hat (which is why it is labelled "seat" and not "hat"). A coaxial hat mounts on the shock's shaft, so it isn't going to have a great big wonking hole to fit around the body of a shock.

Please step away from the keyboard.

- Jtoby

 

[jmakado]

However, not only is everything else not equal, but we have no data on how much side-force is produced and how much grief it is causing. In fact, we have no data on the ATI hats at all, since they are not yet available.

- Jtoby

Huh? In another thread you mention that you "toasted" a koni beyond repair from side loading. Could you please clarify. I am considering a few options right now with DG's setup being one of them mainly for the upper mount.....if it's not needed then I would be just fine with the koni/GC combo.

 

[MNGSX]

Please explain why.

- Jtoby

Decreasing the distance between the two points increases the angle. Basic geometry shorten the base of a right triangle and watch the angles..

post 19

I've been running a GC/Koni setup with 500/400 and then 500/450 springs for about three years. I like it a lot, but there's one huge problem: the upper front plates from GC do not have a coaxial springhat.

Lots of people jump up and down about pillowballs, but for a lowered 2G on semi-serious springs, that's less than half of the issue. The real problem is that the spring does not hit the upper plate at a perfect right angle (and that the angle changes when you steer and bump). This imparts serious amounts of side-force on the shock shaft.

My front left Koni, for example, is toast. A rebuild might not even be possible

The solution is a springhat that mounts to the shock-shaft and is, therefore, always exactly in line with the spring. In other words, a coaxial springhat.

I could wait for someone to start selling these for GC setups, ask RRE to make me a set for more money than I have, or I could try something new and different that already comes this way. Eenie, meanie ... Mo! So I'm getting Tein Flex with 10/8 rates (about 550/450).

The reason that I was pestering people to measure the upper mounts from a Tein Flex is that I wanted to know how much (if any) suspension travel I'm going to lose during this switch. When autoXing, you never - and I mean never - want to hit a front bumpstop. The car will wash out in an instant. You will have to lift, will probably bog, and the run is useless. But I also want the car at the same height as I was running with the GC/Koni set-up ... I think, but am not yet sure, if this will be possible.

- Jtoby

post 23

Yes. But in the meantime, it had finally soaked in to me that Tein Flexes only have coaxial springhats when it's a strut. The version for a 2G front is just a pillowball (which is why the 2G setup is cheaper). This is not acceptable to me. The pillowball will reduce a large part of the side-force problem, but I'm convinced that to bring the sideforce to zero, we must have a coaxial hat.

Why am I so worked up about coaxial springhats? Two reasons: I don't want to toast another front shock and I don't want the shock to suffer any "stiction" from the piston digging into the walls.

So I'm back to adding custom parts to my GC/Koni setup, after having the Konis rebuilt. But thanks for helping.

- Jtoby

post 26

No. The more I poked around, the less and less I wanted Tein Flexes for my car (which is now about 33% daily driver and 67% autocrosser). Most of all, the ratio of rebound to compression damping is just too low and cranking up a Tein (like most SA shocks from Japan) alters both rebound and compression, so there's no help there. Thus, I'm sticking with the Konis, but I'll be upping the front rates and dropping the rear rates, since the car is sick loose on 500/450.

I'm not the first (by any means) to try to get a 2G with stock diffs to turn by getting medieval on the rear rates. But it just doesn't seem to work, regardless of alignment. In order to get the car to exit corners under any real power, you end up with a car that is just too loose at speed to be fun. (I, for one, don't find it fun to have to change underwear thrice daily ... if you do, wanna buy my springs?) So, I'll return to the rates that seemed to work in high-speed sweepers and save my pennies for a Quaife.

Another thing about the Tein Flexes for 2Gs that had me less interested was the lack of coaxial hats. I'm really on the fence on this now. If I could gets hats that cost no travel, then I'd do it, but they all seem to cost at least a 1/4" and I'm not convinced that (a) the side-forces are really enough to cause stiction at my spring rates and (b) I'd rather not have the weight of the car on the shock bearings unless I have to.

- Jtoby

It's your choice... I'd run the hats.

 

[MNGSX]

BS. There is an isolator between the spring and the plate, but there is no isolator between the plate and the unibody.

- Jtoby

ps. you ain't doing Dennis any favors with this sort of post

1. Isolator You are right.. Nothing stock but I added one... oops

2. Did DG have anything to do with RRE's plates? Or the JIC COAXIAL UPPER HATS.

 

[MNGSX]

That's a spring seat, not a hat (which is why it is labelled "seat" and not "hat"). A coaxial hat mounts on the shock's shaft, so it isn't going to have a great big wonking hole to fit around the body of a shock.

Please step away from the keyboard.

- Jtoby

10.5mm thru 18.5mm are hardly big wonking. The picture is of the seats on the bottom of the list below the picture.

Um did YOU confuse your seat for a hat.

This is one of the best designs I have seen for seperate load points on the plate for the shock and spring.. Believe it or not GC makes it but only for cars with struts and not that many apps....

You must be logged in to view this image or video.

Torrington in the hat allows the spring to spin under bump with seperate ball and socket race surrounding the shocks spherical bearing.. But a system like this takes up more travel than a typical plate and hat and the spring tilt in relation to the plate seems limited.. I dont have specs but judging by the radius not as much as the spherical bearing.

The RRE bearing may not be up to the task.. I dont know... You'd need to find out what model and make of a spherical bearing they use..

I will say here that my plates use more than one bearing and take up less space. Jt-PM'd

 

[jtmcinder]

Cool. Now this is getting useful.

The issue with my old set-up was not the lack of a coaxial hat. The problem was the bushings that GC sends with their plates. They do not allow any movement, so they hold the shock shaft at a tangent to the plate. Since the lower shock mount is often not directly below the plate, this can bend the shaft.

If you calculate what the side-forces are likely to be due to the spring not being a tangent to the plate, they are not very great. They are not zero, but they are not enough to out-weigh the negatives of coaxial hats on a street-driven car. As long as the shock's shaft is free to move - as they are with any pillowball - I don't see the shaft getting bent again.

Keep in mind that if you try to run Koni Sports with coaxial hats, you will probably also have to switch to a spherical bearing at the lower shock mount, as well. Why? Because the stock rubber bushing in the lower LCA is pretty stiff and is partly responsible for pointing the shock's shaft in the wrong direction (assuming something like urethane or Delrin bushings at the inboard end of the lower LCA). With the spring no longer helping to spread the load of the car onto the chassis, any twisting of the bushing in the lower LCA must now be done by shock's shaft. You don't want this, so you should probably switch the lower bushing to spherical at the same time. And that means metal-on-metal at both ends of the coilover unit. And that means you don't want to drive the car on the street.

Sorry about the ruder comments, MNGSX; I blame it on haste and a lousy web-site. Those are, indeed, hats. My bad. In fact, isn't 10.5mm the diameter of a Koni Sport's shaft?

- Jtoby

 

[jtmcinder]

Double cool.

But a system like this takes up more travel than a typical plate and hat and the spring tilt in relation to the plate seems limited.. I dont have specs but judging by the radius not as much as the spherical bearing.

Actually, we don't need very much. Maybe 2 degrees, maximum.

The RRE bearing may not be up to the task.. I dont know... You'd need to find out what model and make of a spherical bearing they use..

Agreed. I've got RRE plates and if I ever change my mind, I'm not about to put the weight of my car on them.

- Jtoby

 

[MNGSX]

Download

http://www.qa-one.com/qa1_ms2005_rodends.pdf

Go to the spherical bearings..

Measure the bearing on the RRE plate and look at its construction.. Tell me which bearing it most closely matches...

Some have axial ratings listed some dont.. Some sizes and series bearings have very high ratings even axially.. Others dont.. More angle less axial capacity. Thick bearing higher narrow lower.

I really crunched some #s on mine.

I may be more into drag racing but I'm still into anything mechanical on an engineering level.

For now I think people should check what bearing is in the plate, run a hat, and leave the lower bushing stock..

A spherical lower shock mount instead of a bushing would transmit NVH that would make a stock bushing/hat combo feel like a huge mercedes. ES does'nt make a poly for that location and they give that as a reason..

It does'nt matter of the tube turns if the shaft free wheels at an even lower coeficient of friction than that lower bearing now does it..

Now if we could somehow allow both the spring and one end of the shock to spin AND tilt... oh well...

 

[jtmcinder]

If I had to guess, I'd say the NPB8T or the WPB8T. I could pop it out and measure it, but it's darned cold in the garage right now. But even if it is rated for a static load that is five times the corner weight of the car, what I'm worried about is the ability of the bearing to take an impact. Funny how they don't give a rating for this.

- Jtoby

ps. do you know if these are the suppliers for RRE?

 

[MNGSX]

Put 5x the corner weight on one corner... bumpstops should be compressed or something.

If a force entering the tire going get transitted thru the entire suspension system and finally on to the bearing reaches it at 5x the corner weight. I think the shock plate wont be the only thing tweeked.

The stock sheet metal plate (ever look at one?), shock, and oe bushing in my car withstood a pothole that made the side that was't recall leaking match the side that was... BOTH arms ball joints on that side.. Strange town + snow filled potholes The shock spring and plate.. etc.. all fine..

Dynamic load depends on alot of factors to many to express as one number for a chart.. how many cycles (hz) at what level (gs), how long etc...

Its like trying to represent a compressor map as one number.

It will wear out.. rubber on std perches wears. How much time... WO abnormal impacts etc over 1 yr for sure.

 

[Jeff_Jeske]

"JIC upper spring seats" The pic is of a large ID threaded hat but they list 10.5 thru 18.5 center hole shaft mounts. I forget what size it is but that is the price.
At $38 each MSRP trying 2 out upfront does'nt hurt that bad even if you don't like them...
http://www.jic-magic.com/productsjic_susp_parts.htm

Do we all agree or disagree that these are a good idea?

$500 for Koni's
$400 for GC coil overs
$200 for pillow ball mounts (FRONT ONLY)
$100 for hats

The price of this combo is starting to get as high as the Flex. That is if the flex is as complete as the above configuration. I know you fellas say that the custom GC package is probably better than the Flex but at this point you can't really say "the price is right" anymore.

 

[jtmcinder]

Jeff -

I know that it's an unsatisfying answer, but ... it depends. We could list all the pros and cons in one place, but only you can make the final decision for your car, because only you will be able to weigh all the factors.

- Jtoby

 

[Poloturbo]

Great information thanks guys.

 

[MNGSX]

Do we all agree or disagree that these are a good idea?

$500 for Koni's
$400 for GC coil overs
$200 for pillow ball mounts (FRONT ONLY)
$100 for hats

The price of this combo is starting to get as high as the Flex. That is if the flex is as complete as the above configuration. I know you fellas say that the custom GC package is probably better than the Flex but at this point you can't really say "the price is right" anymore.

Just buy the collars for GC... Dont get the whole sytem. Also check out DSS coil overs on konis.. Look for used GC kits. IMHO just get a collar from someone..

About what I spent on most things.

$50-$75 I think for a used GC kit. (Anyone want stock GC springs ?)

QA1 springs... 4 x ~$36

Your price on front RRE plates

$190

The hats I have seen have a MSRP of $38... You might find a vendor that does volume in real race car parts.. $40 for two...

Then $500 for the konis.

 

[Poloturbo]

Just buy the collars for GC... Dont get the whole sytem. Also check out DSS coil overs on konis.. Look for used GC kits. IMHO just get a collar from someone..

About what I spent on most things.

$50-$75 I think for a used GC kit. (Anyone want stock GC springs ?)

QA1 springs... 4 x ~$36

Your price on front RRE plates

$190

The hats I have seen have a MSRP of $38... You might find a vendor that does volume in real race car parts.. $40 for two...

Then $500 for the konis.

JIC'S hats? Any part number?

 

[MNGSX]

Part # = USS10.5-2.5

 

[DG-FNR]

The setup we will be selling will include:

- a set of DYNOED Koni shocks (you get the plot for your shocks) if ordered in some sort of group order, I'll also try and MATCH the shocks for you

- coilover sleeves properly positioned on the shock for maximum range of ride height adjustement

- coaxial spring hats, which are an ABSOLUTE MUST on a DSM, especially on the front, and which feature spherical bearing pivot points

- Hypercoil springs

- Torrington bearings under the springs, as an option

In other words, this will be the best of everything except the shocks themselves, and the shocks are pretty good for the money - and the best street/race shock that is actually affordable for real people.

One stop shopping for the 2G DSM suspension is the plan.

DG

 

[jtmcinder]

- coaxial spring hats, which are an ABSOLUTE MUST on a DSM, especially on the front, and which feature spherical bearing pivot points

If you have actual data on the side-forces produced when the spring pushes on the plate and not a coaxial hat, then please provide them.

If you have actual data on the stiction that is (supposedly) caused by not running coaxial hats, then please provide them.

If all you plan on doing is argue - without data - in favor of the set-up that you are selling, then you need to be a lot more honest. Most of all, you need to be clear that your set-up places the bearing above the bottom-line of the plate, which means that it can only be used with a coaxial hat. People should be made aware that if and when actual data come along showing that coaxial hats are not worth it (as has been suggested by John M. at RRE), then the plates you sell will have to be discarded. In other words, you have a vested interest in convincing people that coaxial hats are a must. Everyone should keep this fact in mind when reading your data-free posts in favor of such a set-up.

It should also be noted - in the interest of equal free advertizing, if nothing else - that the plates sold by RRE (with whom I have no financial relationship) have the center of the bearing at the level of the bottom of the plate, such that they can be used with or without coaxial hats. If we establish that the bearing in a RRE plate can take the load, then the flexibility of their set-up must be said to be a definite plus.

- Jtoby

 

[ACM]

Sorry JT but I do have data, in the form of bent and damaged front damper shafts from running Shockteks without coax upper hats. The original shafts lasted (no more than) half a season. The replacement shafts from Shocktek, fitted with coax upper mounts at the same time, lasted until after Shocktek went away.

Those shafts were definitely weak, but the second set of shafts were no stronger than the first (1018 or 1020, chrome-plated, 20RC, I had them tested). My 4130 shafts have lasted very well so far, and they are now on my daily driver, not the almost-trailer queen my 95 is

Undoubtedly similar bearings for the lower mounts would be even better, but I wonder how long they'd last on a street car ? My rear lower mount bearings are still good in my Shockteks and they're the original units from 2000(?). So maybe an SS bearing would survive ? All being well they'll be on the race car this coming season, then perhaps I'll risk a set on the 98.

Charles.