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Looking at options to lower my SA. Obviously there are BC coilovers, rb springs and upgraded shocks, or ttt options such as weld on front sleeves.
Has anyone out there tried budget Honda coilover sleeves for the front? Watching RAD potential upgrade to the ttt sleeves, they are a 50mm id and the SA is a 45mm id so ttt provide o-rings to make up the difference to stop the clunking. Why not do the same with some $50 Honda sleeves? Even make a slip on tube for between the sleeve and tube body to make up the difference in diameter?
For the rear....has anyone tried a coilovers sleeve on the strut with a fabbed tube similar to the front? Apparently the shocks are not meant to be load bearing even though there is a tonne of deliberation, what if you also keep a spring in the pearch also to take the weight?
Thoughts I've been have while researching.
Have searched around a bit and not found any answers so thought I would start a contraversial post haha.
Sure, finding 45mm sleeves somewhere would be a good solution too then piecing together the rest of the items.
Trying to find 45mm sleeves seems to be hard.
I just figured since the ttt sleeves are the wrong internal diameter then why not use something else with the wrong diameter for a fifth the price? Quality wise who knows?
i have a set with a piece of rubber between the sleeve and the shock, although most of the time the sleeve sits on the spring perch and the car sits on that, so its fine
i have a set with a piece of rubber between the sleeve and the shock, although most of the time the sleeve sits on the spring perch and the car sits on that, so its fine
A set of ttt weld on coilover sleeves? Or budget brand? Any pics?
Use a couple of o-rings to fill the gap. Mine have worked fine that way for 25 years.
Carl
Thanks Carl. I also read a few FB suspension posts and you popped up in one showing your rear set up, Cutting a 5x16" 125lb spring down to two 5x8 250lb springs and using some adjusters. How's this ride? What's the height like compared to stock? (Minus the adjuster or adjusting it to midway etc)
8" rear springs are pretty much as low as you can go. I believe you will probably want at least one stock spacer at the top of the spring to raise the height a bit (or maybe not). I have about the equivalent of that with the adjustable upper perch. If this is street driven, it is definitely nicer to have the rubber spacer rather than metal on metal clanking. The pic is from about a year ago. Not ideal for seeing the stance, but the best I have.
Super appreciate the replies and info, the heights looks good.
So back to the front set up, Think I'm going to piece together some coilovers sleeves from summit or speedway motors. Any idea what unsprung length your front springs are and what lb?
OR the more I think about it the more I wonder why I need front coilovers sleeves at all. Maybe I should just run a similar circle track spring in the front. Just find the right length to match the rear ride height, working out spring weights, and leaving the original spring perch where it is.
you could in theory just put in the right length springs, and not bother with the adjuster, its just tricky to figure out what spring you need on the first try
you could in theory just put in the right length springs, and not bother with the adjuster, its just tricky to figure out what spring you need on the first try
I'm definitely leaning more towards this. Wanting to go lower and stiffer than RB springs.
Would an 8"-10" spring be way too low in the front?
Looking at the below items for front and rear. The 16" springs wil be cut in half.
The spring rates depend on what you want to do. I am guessing that the RB lowering springs that mount on the stock perches are about 250lb/in? I used what was probably comparable when my car was a "daily driver" Spec7 racecar. Seems like the rears might have been 120? As a pro-7 I had 350 front and 175-200 rear. Currently have 450 front and 250 rear as STL/ITA. All of those combos were fine for the application. Would not personally have wanted to drive the car much on the street with anything other than the original Spec7 springs (similar to RB). The stiffer the springs the better quality the shocks need to be. Tokico Blues worked fine for Spec7. Needed at least Tokico Illuminas for Pro7 (and still died quickly) and ultimately Bilstein Sports for Porsche or VW. The Bilsteins are also working well with the current set-up and have been quite durable.
Pretty much need the adjustable front coil over setup for anything but the RB springs. (although on one of our chumpcars I did a homemade "adjustable" set-up to minimize points. Just made a spacer out of tubing that we kept trimming until we got the desired ride height). My front springs from Pro7 on, have been 7" long 2.5" diameter. I am pretty sure you could use 8" and 9" too.
If you decide you want something in the "Pro7" range. Let me know. I am slowly getting rid of spare parts and still have the Pro7 springs and would be willing to get rid of them pretty cheap.
I am sure there will be differing opinions. This is just what has worked for me.
Actually just looked on the Racing Beat site and their lowering springs that were apparently legal for Spec7 (and thus similar to what I ran) are 145 lb/in in the front and 112 lb/in in the rear. Maybe not important, but.....
Actually just looked on the Racing Beat site and their lowering springs that were apparently legal for Spec7 (and thus similar to what I ran) are 145 lb/in in the front and 112 lb/in in the rear. Maybe not important, but.....
Carl
Super helpful as I just lined up a set of rb front springs which I am going to try out with a 5x8 afco or similar in the rear. So should I look for a 125lb ish rear spring?
I don't think the 8" long rear spring will match well with the RB front springs, because it lowers the rear much more than the front RB's will. I don't know how much lower the 8" will be than the RB, but it will be a lot. 8" is about as low as the car can practically go with stock style suspension (actually too low if you have the stock rear trailing arms and watts link). Looking at the FSM, the stock spring rate is apparently 100 lb/in in the rear. You could mess around with trimming the stock springs to get the ride height you want. If you are lucky you could end up with a spring rate in the ball park of what matches the RB fronts.
The spring rate is inversely proportional to the number of coils. Thus if you have 5 coils in the spring (which from online pictures might be correct for the stock springs) and you remove one coil, the spring rate would increase by 5/4=1.25 which would give a spring rate of 100lb/in x 1.25 = 125 lb/in. Similarly if you removed 1.5 coils from a 5 coil spring, the rate would increase by 5/3.5 = 1.43 to give 100 x 1.43 = 143 lb/in. Apparently from the FSM the stock spring has a free length of 12.7". If it does have 5 coils, then removing 1 coil would reduce the height by 12/5 = 2.4" giving a free length of 12.7-2.4 = 10.3".
So if the stock spring really has 5 coils and the spring rate in the FSM is correct, you might be able to get reasonably sized rear springs for free. Seems like worth a try anyway, since the rear springs are really easy to pull in and out. Also what would you do with the old stock springs anyway other than maybe attach them to the back of a "Pink Pig" race car :-)
Hopefully that wasn't too confusing and/or a waste of time. As a retired old guy I am pretty good at doing both of those things.
I have been piecing my fronts together for a long time. If you choose to go the sleeve option, search "carrera coil over sleeve" on eBay. There is a seller with tons of sets from like new to heavily used and all very affordable. As Carl mentioned, use a stack of o-rings or a wrap of tape to take up the minimal slop. The two I bought did not come with a set screw- Carrera literature says this isn't needed but I'm going to drill/tap/add a dog point set screw just in case.
I don't think the 8" long rear spring will match well with the RB front springs, because it lowers the rear much more than the front RB's will. I don't know how much lower the 8" will be than the RB, but it will be a lot. 8" is about as low as the car can practically go with stock style suspension (actually too low if you have the stock rear trailing arms and watts link). Looking at the FSM, the stock spring rate is apparently 100 lb/in in the rear. You could mess around with trimming the stock springs to get the ride height you want. If you are lucky you could end up with a spring rate in the ball park of what matches the RB fronts.
The spring rate is inversely proportional to the number of coils. Thus if you have 5 coils in the spring (which from online pictures might be correct for the stock springs) and you remove one coil, the spring rate would increase by 5/4=1.25 which would give a spring rate of 100lb/in x 1.25 = 125 lb/in. Similarly if you removed 1.5 coils from a 5 coil spring, the rate would increase by 5/3.5 = 1.43 to give 100 x 1.43 = 143 lb/in. Apparently from the FSM the stock spring has a free length of 12.7". If it does have 5 coils, then removing 1 coil would reduce the height by 12/5 = 2.4" giving a free length of 12.7-2.4 = 10.3".
So if the stock spring really has 5 coils and the spring rate in the FSM is correct, you might be able to get reasonably sized rear springs for free. Seems like worth a try anyway, since the rear springs are really easy to pull in and out. Also what would you do with the old stock springs anyway other than maybe attach them to the back of a "Pink Pig" race car :-)
Hopefully that wasn't too confusing and/or a waste of time. As a retired old guy I am pretty good at doing both of those things.
Definitely not confusing or a waste of time, super helpful!
In the rear I think I'm still going to go with a 8"spring and a rubber coil spring spacer to reduce noise and it will aide the height as it is 7/8" thick and 1" wide. I really want to keep the stock spring as is in case I need to reinstall it at that height, but if worse comes to worse I will cut it a small price at a time to work out heights etc then recalculate form there.
I already have a Panhard bar and some drop mount brackets from t3 to assist the rear end. And some new rear 'performance' struts.
I have been piecing my fronts together for a long time. If you choose to go the sleeve option, search "carrera coil over sleeve" on eBay. There is a seller with tons of sets from like new to heavily used and all very affordable. As Carl mentioned, use a stack of o-rings or a wrap of tape to take up the minimal slop. The two I bought did not come with a set screw- Carrera literature says this isn't needed but I'm going to drill/tap/add a dog point set screw just in case.
Yes, Super good find!
I'm going to start with the RB springs as I found some fronts locally already on strut tubes etc so it's and easy swap. Then I can (if I need to) modify the original strut tubes and throw on some Carrera sleeves. What lb hypercoil springs did you go for? What sleeve length also? Did you buy the t3 weld on perches or find another supplier?
Here are the specs of the competition springs vs the stock ones. i'd suggest that its a good start. in 2023 you probably want the 2/5" springs and adjusters in the front, its easier and cheaper
so rear is a 3.2kg 280mm long guy. you can multiply kg by 56 and get inches, so 3.2kg = 180lbs in
280mm = 11"
so 180lbs 11" long and whatever the diameter is, lol
Well here it is. Not to everyone's taste with the wheels but they were a great local deal.
Wheels are 16"x8" with a 0 offset in 4x114.3. I used 4x110 to 4x114.3 25mm thick adaptor.adaptors
Rear is Tru-coil 5x10.5 oval track 150lb springs. They did have 9.5" but the lowest rate was 300. Toying with the idea of cutting a half coil or so off to drop it a touch more. I also threw in "performance" shocks.
The front has RB springs that were cut by the previous previous owner so am unsure how much was lopped off.
It seems.to handle well and doesn't rub, I did cut an 1.5" off the rear arch. I still I'll have t3 drop brackets and a Panhard to go on.
09-24-23, 02:51 PM
