SA versus FB Strut Cartridges: Detailed dimensions
 

Time for a little "giving back" work on my part:

I spent the last few evenings doing up some carefully-dimensioned CAD drawings of an SA (KYB Excel-G) and an FB (Tokico Illumina) strut cartridge, in an attempt to put some numbers and visuals to the differences when it comes to interchange possibilities.

I have the AutoCAD DWG file drawn @ 1:1 scale, should anyone want it; in order to put it up visibly, I had to convert it to a bitmap, and it lost a good bit of fine detail in the process but I think it's still useable info.

All dimensions under 150mm were taken from brand-new sample parts, using a digital caliper with two-decimal display. Longer dimensions were taken using an etched-steel mm scaleand should be within ~0.25mm. Accuracy should be fairly good.

Parts only, for clarity of shape:
Attachment 723845

Dimensioned:
Attachment 723846



Questions / comments / discussion (not counting my sanity)? :nod:

wow, nice work! you are right about the upper strut plate, the SA has the keyed hole and a flat bearing, the FB actually has a ball bearing in the strut top. the FC actually went back to the SA style..

there are a couple of ways around that, one is camber plates. the second is outlined in the competition prep manual, you just drill the SA mount larger

Hey Glen,

Great info! You know that I've been looking for this for a while :) With you permission would I be able to make a 23mm spacer that is required to make it work for length wise at least?

I can shoot a pair over your way for free for providing this info.

Let me know ...

Sam

Damn Glen, you went overboard on this lol. Very nice work. Makes me want to dust off my AutoCAD CD and do some drawings again...

Wow, and we were just yakking about this in IM last week. Great work Glenn.

Sam, a spacer and some instructions on how to fit an FB insert the best way into an
SA and we're golden. I wonder if the spacer should have a small hard rubber bumper
of some kind to deal with loose tolerances in the fit. Something that can be squashed
down when its tightened that doesn't affect it much but keeps the rattling from
happening. Anyway, I'm sure you will come up with a winning solution.

Since we can't get performance inserts for the SA struts anymore this would be a
huge win for those of us that don't want to swap in big spindle struts just to
upgrade the inserts.

I was yakking about it with a few people actually ;)

As for adding a small hard rubber, that won't be necessary. Thats what the nut holding the cartridge does.

So from trying to read this, you drill the top part out to take out the double D shaft is that what the deal is on the top?

Permission happily granted, Sam.

I'll be installing the KYB's for now; bought a pair ($40 each off Rock Auto) recently as my 17-year-old Tokico HP's finally gave up, & I'm not quite ready to tackle the whole process (& pay the price) for working the switchover.

The Illumina I measured was graciously loaned to me by Racing Beat for the purposes of this project. Eventually I'll be upgrading in that direction now that I know what's involved, so if you want to make a set of spacers for me I'll hold onto 'em until I swap upper plates & such.

One of the things I thought was important to capture was the 'hollow' at the bottom of both struts; I drew it with a dotted line, but in conversion to jpg the dots merged. I suspect that hollow may be important since both struts have it - - probably means the inside bottom of the strut tube is not flat. I'll check it once I have mine apart.

Any spacer probably needs to preserve a hollow bottom profile while still supporting the (hollow-bottomed) strut even if slightly mis-aligned. I don't know how much 'slop' in the tube is allowed at the bottom.


Pretty sure you want a rigid pad at the bottom; the gland nut's supposed to torque to something like 100ft/lbs IIRC, with a specific amount of thread left. Any compressibility left in the spacer would work contrary to that, I'd think.

My thinking exactly, Watson... I'm happy with my stock spindles and brakes, but it bugs me that I can't get high-end strut carts when I want them.

I no like limits. :egrin:

When I pull my old HP's, I plan on drawing them up as well if they differ substantially from the KYB's


I guess you could round out the hole in an SA upper bearing plate, to get the FB strut piston top to go through; I don't know what impact the difference in the shoulder shapes would have, though. It would probably make torquing the strut top nut a real bear, too; the FB strut accepts a hex key to hold piston while tightening the nut, but the top of the SA piston relied on those flats to prevent it from rotating.

I'm thinking the proper way to address it is to use an FB top plate (and boot/bumper). I haven't looked to see if the upper spring perch is different, though.

Sam, do you have any use for the CAD file? I can e-mail it to you if you'd like.

You guys should be able to retain your SA brakes if you use a 81-83 spindle, they have the same small bearings.

If you want to you can shoot them over to:

shqemanufacturing@gmail.com

Also Glen, not sure if you're aware or not, but if I'm not mistaken tokico has a limited lifetime warranty on quite a few of their products and you may be able to get Racing beat to get you new ones free of charge. I think you have to go through anyone that sells that specific line of tokico products.

I haven't personally done it in the past, but I tried calling them up a few minutes ago, but I guess california is still sleeping :P

http://www.tokicoperformanceshocks.com/contact_us.aspx

Will do.

Yes, I know about the Tokico warranty; but how can they replace struts that they no longer make? Also, their warranty requires returning the failed struts to them - - making it a little difficult to drive the car in the interim. A factor that went into the planning of the warranty, no doubt.

I suppose it's worth giving them a call, once the struts are out, just to see what they say. I've got New Tokico's on the rear, and I put four under the Z... and also four under the wife's Maxima before she sold it.

You may be able to talk to them to give you the FB ones.

Always worth the cost of a phone call.

Glen,

Do you still have the CAD files for this that you can send to me, or post in this thread? I'm interested mainly in the CAD drawing for the Tokico Illumina.

Sure do, Jamie; PM me an e-mail address and I'll send the CAD file to you tonight.

Oh, and PS; Tokico pussed out on the warranty; gave the guys at RB a run-around for weeks then stopped calling them back. Was worth a try, though.

Their current warranty statement specifically defines "lifetime" of a product ending when they decide not to make it any more. I suspect I wasn't the only one trying to get them to make good on that 'lifetime' warranty.

Sent! Thanks!

Years later.... found this very helpful. Thanks!

Do you have the OD of the FB VS SA strut tube itself be chance? (not the cartridge, but the tube the cartridge slides into.)

I'm pretty sure the outside dimensions are the same.

Looking for the OD of the strut so I can drop some of the cheap adjustable coil over deals on. I know the Honda/civic coil overs are too small ID wise to slip over. Pretty sure I used a Mitsubishi Eclipse kit. But it's been so long I forgot. Trying to help out a friend with an FB.

Attachment 614495