Official 5th Generation Suspension Thread

[whitetiger]

^that and will they overlay the lines from 2 different shocks to prove that x clicks on one is the same as x clicks on the other, and if they aren't close, will they rebuild one to match the other better?

[fredrik94087]

BTW any company with a dyno can make 1 shock that looks good on a chart. the trick is to make a set of shocks the same on that dyno.

 

how good are a set of shocks if both on 6 clicks produce wildly different forces. not good at all.

 

they said for an extra $100 they will test your shocks before they send them to you I assume that means they will test a set to make sure they are all within spec. the question is how tight their tolerances are for the specs.

 

I was on the same thought path.

 

I will ask for shock dyno of my coilovers. $100 is well worth it before it goes in the car. If it is $100 per...I may still do it. I would rather know than make guesses.

 

@whitetiger...I dont believe these guys at fortune made one holy grail of a shock and used it over and over again. You dont let it all hang out and not be called on BS. Thanks for enlightening us WRT shocks. $2500 to mmmmmaybe $3000 is my limit for DD coilovers that see a handful of track days. If I had a track only car and was racing it would be a different story...and I would have to know a lot more about many parts on my car. ATM I just have to know enough so I can make a somewhat educated consumer decision.

[fredrik94087]

^that and will they overlay the lines from 2 different shocks to prove that x clicks on one is the same as x clicks on the other, and if they aren't close, will they rebuild one to match the other better?

 

I will ask them.

[ripstik]

they said it takes 45 minutes to do the test. as someone who has done countless spring rate tests and other product testing that's a shit load of time to spend on 4 pieces. I obviously can't speak from experience because I don't work for them nor do i have their shocks but yes rebuilding a shock that falls outside of your specs is what you should do ethically. i feel as if your a little bitter man, you can deny info put in front of you all you want it comes down to trusting that company or not and obviously you do not. from the info they provided they seem pretty straight forward to me tho i would like to see more information about the tests they did and sample sizes they used to produce these numbers because as you said you can mislead people with graph and statistics pretty easily.

 

edit: Fred if you get any answers let us know, i feel I'll be in the market for some shocks relatively soon.

Edited July 9, 2015 by ripstik

[whitetiger]

 

@whitetiger...I dont believe these guys at fortune made one holy grail of a shock and used it over and over again. You dont let it all hang out and not be called on BS. Thanks for enlightening us WRT shocks. $2500 to mmmmmaybe $3000 is my limit for DD coilovers that see a handful of track days. If I had a track only car and was racing it would be a different story...and I would have to know a lot more about many parts on my car. ATM I just have to know enough so I can make a somewhat educated consumer decision.

 

 

 

^completely understand. You know there wasnt always a flood of cheap CO systems on the market. it really only occured in the last 10-15 years or so. CO systems used to only be a specialty purchase for motor-sport applications. only lately are there so many CO systems marketed to public that its hard to sort through whats good and bad.

 

If you can get FA to make you properly matched shocks where the forces are not cranked up to wazoo, for that low price point, then power to you. they better send you the overlays for the shocks they are sending you to prove it. Me, for a street car, id rather put my coin in to a more reputable brand with proven quality.

 

read this from http://www.farnorthracing.com/autocross_secrets23.html

How about the Street?

Another common question is "How much does all this matter for a street car?" (usually asked in the context of somebody who has just dropped a couple of grand on a set of Teins or some similar off-brand T00ner shock).

 

The paradox of a street car is that its operating environment is such that you are only visiting the portion of the performance envelope where shocks truly matter only irregularly, if ever. This makes a street car more than an little insensitive to suspension changes, particularly shock valving changes.

 

This is true even of the car as it rolls off the dealer lot. Consider how much the natural frequency of the suspension changes between a little guy driving with a nearly empty tank, and a big guy and three big passengers plus a full tank of gas and all their luggage - easily a 1000 lb swing in sprung mass with no physical changes to the car. Sports cars are a little more resistant to this by virtue of having less seats and smaller luggage spaces, but nevertheless, a street car has a much less controlled setup environment and very rarely is ever operating on the limit of grip.

 

The "paradox" portion of this is that the insensitivity of the car to suspension setup means that shit can perform (within certain limits) every bit as well as super high end stuff. If your Corvette ever only travels to and from your house, your office, and the golf course, it can be very difficult to tell the difference between a Monroe Sensi-Trac and a triple-adjustable Penske.

 

I'm convinced that this insensitivity is THE reason why so many of the Japanese shock manufacturers (and the Chinese clones of same) are valved so strangely. You can't "feel" a properly-valved shock, but if you've just bought some aftermarket performance shocks, you expect to feel some sort of change. It takes a very large change in shock force to really be detectable by an average driver so if you want the customer to feel like his money bought something, you have to valve the shocks with some pretty outrageous forces.

 

One of my real eye-openers was my personal daily driver; a 1993 Dodge Stealth. This car comes equipped with a computer-controlled "active" suspension. Each shock has a small electric motor attached to a rebound bleed adjuster, and the motor has three positions - hard, medium, and soft. A computer is attached to each motor, and a couple of sensors (accelerometers, steering angle sensor, etc) feed the computer with inputs. Under the right circumstances, the computer will adjust the rebound force on the shocks harder (the default position is full soft) in order to prop up that end of the car. In effect, it uses the Stock class strategy of using excessive shock rebound force as a "fake spring", but on demand rather than all the time. In some ways, it is almost laughably crude, but it is also completely effective. It's a very clever hack.

 

But it also has a user control - a "Sport" switch. In "Sport" mode, the computer just sets all four shocks to full rebound and leaves them there. And "full rebound" is actually pretty stiff.

 

What makes this an eye-opener is that by toggling the "Sport" switch one can change the rebound forces on the car by an enormous amount and compare how the car changes immediately. You don't have to stop the car, twiddle an adjuster, and get going again; you can experience it in real time. And this isn't a tiny tweak, the force difference between "Tour" and "Sport" is very large.

 

Setting the car into "Sport" mode immediately changes the ride quality. The car goes from ever-so-slightly floaty to borderline jiggly. "Sport" mode is actually slightly uncomfortable. But - and this is important - I find that I adapt to it very quickly and "Sport" starts to feel "Normal" within a few seconds.

 

If you can find a similar car, it can be very instructive to feel this for yourself.

 

There are a couple of key lessons here:

 

The first is that a street car will be very tolerant of wide swings in setup. Bad behaviour will only manifest itself during normal use with very, very extreme setups. The "so what" here is that if your street car feels extreme during normal use, something is probably very, very wrong.

The second is that you are only going to experience the true benefits (or punishments) from your setup at the limit of grip. A race car should be operating here exclusively. A street car should never be operating here except the split-second of an emergency avoidance maneuver. This means it is going to be tough to test.

The third is that long-term reliability is going to be more important than ultimate performance. You aren't going to have hot tires on a perfect road surface and perfect conditions; you are going to have cold tires on a wet and sandy road with broken pavement when three moose jump out in front of you and you have to slalom them (true story!). Chasing the performance difference between a Koni Yellow and a perfectly tuned Penske isn't not just cost ineffective, it's not even possible.

And finally, you adapt to new setups so quickly that you cannot count on your butt dyno to help you tune - it has to be done by the numbers.

OK then, so what to do with a street car?

 

Put the car on the scales with just you and a nearly empty gas tank.

Fill the tank, add your typical luggage load, and weigh the car again.

Add a typical passenger, and weigh the car again.

Fill the car with the largest load you think you'd ever reasonably carry, and weigh the car a final time.

Run these numbers through the Dynamics Calculator. You now have a range of natural frequencies - and damping forces - that represents the operating environment of your car.

Pick springs and damping forces that put the natural frequency of the car in its nearly empty state at 1.8 Hz to maybe 2.0 Hz MAXIUMUM. If you have to err, err on the soft side.

Buy a set of Koni Yellows, Bilstein HD, or a similar good name-brand shock. Dyno them. If the shock forces fall somewhere in your operating range - good enough. If they don't then revalve with a view to 65% critical at the full empty state. But don't get wrapped around the axle here. Get it in the range, and you're done.

[whitetiger]

i feel as if your a little bitter man, you can deny info put in front of you all you want it comes down to trusting that company or not and obviously you do not.

 

Not bitter, just very cautious of small shock shops. why would i trust their data posted above. It's basically advertisement in disguise. Show me a 3rd party company who tested FA shocks, like with the guy from Far-north-racing did, and i will believe the number on face value more. I wouldn't trust any companies own advertised plots, until a 3rd party verifies it and they gain the trust of the Motorsport community. The brands i listed have proven themselves.

[Because Racecar]

Can anyone verify what systems (part numbers, maybe) of GOOD coilovers that bolt up? AST, Ohlins, etc? I see the comment about WRX stuff, is that year specific enough, like say 2010 WRX coilovers will bolt to 2010 LGT? Not really feeling the cheap bits right now...

[fredrik94087]

This is part of my learning curve. I am sending them back today. It may be a few weeks to get new ones and a few more weeks to get them on the car.

 

Then a few track days and I can share what I think.

 

That is all assuming I have a good matching set.

[whitetiger]

Can anyone verify what systems (part numbers, maybe) of GOOD coilovers that bolt up? AST, Ohlins, etc? I see the comment about WRX stuff, is that year specific enough, like say 2010 WRX coilovers will bolt to 2010 LGT? Not really feeling the cheap bits right now...

 

believe it or not, most of those brands will build shocks to your spec to order. they have popular models listed in their application sheet for marketing purposes, but if yo call up a place, they will be able to make you a set that tailored to your car.

 

when i bought my AST4100s for my 05 LGT, i got them through RCE who tailored the set for me. That's how you would purchase them. you would call up a 3rd part shock shop, like RCE or Vorshlag, and they will build you a set to spec with spring rates and lengths of your choice. with CO's, you are not limited to whether or not your application is listed. there are a whole bunch of shock shops that build bilsteins as well, just like what RCE did for the 5th gen.

[GravityGear]

Can't say it enough, but I LOVE my AST 4150s.

 

AST is difficult to get right now. The US wing went through a restructuring recently and they are rebuilding everything after AST Holland and HVT parted ways. I believe they are still in the process of rebuilding their US inventory.

[Because Racecar]

believe it or not, most of those brands will build shocks to your spec to order. they have popular models listed in their application sheet for marketing purposes, but if yo call up a place, they will be able to make you a set that tailored to your car.

 

when i bought my AST4100s for my 05 LGT, i got them through RCE who tailored the set for me. That's how you would purchase them. you would call up a 3rd part shock shop, like RCE or Vorshlag, and they will build you a set to spec with spring rates and lengths of your choice. with CO's, you are not limited to whether or not your application is listed. there are a whole bunch of shock shops that build bilsteins as well, just like what RCE did for the 5th gen.

 

I believe it. I realize the main components are customized, but usually if the upper and lower mounts aren't something common or already used, or the car is just different enough you can be totally out of luck. I'd love a set of Ohlins again, though!

[s2baru]

http://i991.photobucket.com/albums/af38/stu-nami/STUbaru/FB_IMG_1436424824058_zpslnj2nvni.jpghttp://i991.photobucket.com/albums/af38/stu-nami/STUbaru/FB_IMG_1436424827465_zps84dlo5es.jpg

Fred I found this for you about stock wrx shocks, hopefully it makes sense to you

[brandon.mol]

I think Ground-Control makes complete coil-overs for Subie platforms that have koni inserts in them for shocks.

 

For information purposes only. I have no opinion about it.

[fredrik94087]

@S2baru.

 

Thanks. I think I know what it says.

 

It's just like the ink blot test I took while in the asylum

 

I can't make heads nor tails of it just yet.

[whitetiger]

for the front. the red wrx has the stiffest compression forces of all the cars.It also has the softest rebound until the piston moves faster than 100mm/sec. then rebound stiffens up to nearly match the STI shock. looks like the 2016 wrx has revised forces that are softer overall up front unless its moving slowe than 100mm/sec

 

for the rear, the wrx and sti are the same forces, basically identical, while the 2016 wrx is softer everywhere.

 

it would be interesting to know if the 2016 wrx has revised spring rates vs 2015. is not, subaru may have determined that the 2015 wrs was overdamped, and softened things up alittle.

[Blizzard]

can anyone verify what systems (part numbers, maybe) of good coilovers that bolt up? Ast, ohlins, etc? I see the comment about wrx stuff, is that year specific enough, like say 2010 wrx coilovers will bolt to 2010 lgt? Not really feeling the cheap bits right now...

 

KW V3

 

Edit: That's odd, wouldn't let me capitalize KW or the V unless this second sentence was here. If I delete the edit line it reverts back to lowercase...

[GravityGear]

08-14 WRX AST 4150

08-14 WRX JRZ RS-1

 

anything 08-14 wrx with no top hats. use 03-07 wrx front camber plates or mounts and 08-14 wrx rear mounts

 

i'm 75% sure that brz/frs/ft86 suspension will bolt up top hats and all.

[GTEASER]

I think Ground-Control makes complete coil-overs for Subie platforms that have koni inserts in them for shocks.

 

For information purposes only. I have no opinion about it.

Yes, they make a 08+ kit that would fit our cars. I plan to use their GD chassis kit on my SS.

[Because Racecar]

Yes, they make a 08+ kit that would fit our cars. I plan to use their GD chassis kit on my SS.

 

Are you talking about the WRX coilover conversion kit? Can we use that and some Koni inserts and bolt it right up?

[whitetiger]

yep. this right here. - http://www.ground-control-store.com/products/description.php/II=818/CA=25

 

since you use it in conjunction with konis, you get the best of both worlds. ride height adjustability, and a quality cost effective shock. the best part is GC uses standard size coilover springs, so if you want more or less stiff, a change of spring is dirt cheap and available from a bunch of great makes like hyperco, swift and eibach.

[Because Racecar]

yep. this right here. - http://www.ground-control-store.com/products/description.php/II=818/CA=25

 

since you use it in conjunction with konis, you get the best of both worlds. ride height adjustability, and a quality cost effective shock. the best part is GC uses standard size coilover springs, so if you want more or less stiff, a change of spring is dirt cheap and available from a bunch of great makes like hyperco, swift and eibach.

 

Color me officially interested. I'm a big fan of GC from way back. What is your thoughts on this system? It could be a very nice option for what I want. Konis would be great. What are they valves at, do we know? Never bought Konis before. 9k/8k spring rates?

[GTEASER]

I've talked to GC about pairing their kit with Konis on our cars. He said we could run up to about 550 pound (10kg) springs with the Konis.

 

They are just down the road from me, like less than a 2 hour drive. I have been wanting to do this setup on my GT, maybe now I have a reason to pay them a visit. Hell, I have a spare set of donor struts, I should just order another set of Konis and do it.

[Because Racecar]

Do you need the donor struts for the GC system? I was hoping not. Or are you just talking about a koni inserts in a stock system?

[whitetiger]

donor struts are needed for konis. if you dont want to hack up your own. the GC kint would probably fit on the stock shocks, but whats the point without good shocks.

[laopadak]

2012 LGT, swift springs on OEM struts, 19mm outback OEM RSB.

 

 

19X8.5, +45 Konig Oversteer on 245/40/19 Falken Pro A/S

 

 

Just installed yesterday so hasn't settled. So far no rubbing and about .75 finger gap in front, 1 finger gap in rear.