Suspension Drama.
 

Lots of suspension threads. Read allot but there are so many kits out there.

1989 Mazda Rx7 Turbo II used for time attack and some street driving. (I drive the car to the track)
Currently running the ICS racing kit. (Bilstein apparently re-valved?) They no longer really support this kit. They can get a new shock but I would have to pay another $140 to re-valve and if I do one front might as well do both. (Over $300us for one strut doesn’t sound right)

So took apart the suspension last night. Front passenger seal is gone and oil is everywhere. Shaft no longer compresses. Drivers side strut seal has deformation.

Took rear suspension out and pushed shock in only to see small clear liquid appear on the shaft. (These are gone too??)

Local rebuild $500 for all 4 corners.

My friend Cheers who owned the car before and purchased this kit says get rid of it as this kit is junk and buy a new better designed kit. The way this kit has failed and requires rebuilding already shows to me the importance of re buildablity.

So I was looking at a few kits. Lots of them. Ranging from $1300 and up.
There is Pettit Racing, HSD, Selex and then higher ends like Hot Bits (Canadian) and up. Most seem to be rebadged Taiwan kits.

I am leaning more to the budget kits and I'm no suspension guru so a single rebound and compression adjustment probable will be the most I would look for. If I go with a new kit means another corner balance and full setup.

Any ideas? Beginning to think sell car and run.... :)

Koni is popular, but I must say that I have had mine rebuilt before and it runs about $150/shock.

Dbl or single fronts. The picture of the rears they show is obviously not the correct picture. You can also have the single rears converted to dbl for more $$$

http://www.flatout-motorsports.com/i...d=21&Itemid=55

oh you bought Cheers's car. i think he can say that the ISC suspension isn't that great because he broke it before!

one of the other mike's just bought the koni yellows for the FC and it works really really well. it even rides better than stock. he's running camber plates, and height adjusters too, but its all off the shelf stuff. springs are 400F/250R.

for a dual purpose car on a budget i think it would be tough to beat the yellows

me and josh18_2k are both running custom bilsteins setups:

https://www.rx7club.com/suspension-wheels-tires-brakes-20/%5Bfc%5D-bigass-budget-baller-bilstein-build-thread-955929/
(go towards the end of the thread to see my setup)

bilstein will rebuild any bilstein shock for $60, $70 for struts. and my rears are self-rebuildable and have remote reservoirs (built by AWR)...

I sent bilstein a set of rebranded bilsteins sold by prodrive from my subaru and they rebuilt/revalved them no problem.

ANZE also makes some penske based coilovers if you want to spend some money :)

Thanks for the posting! Those rear shocks look awesome.

One reason for rebuilding them locally is by the time I ship them out to Bilstein it will work out to the same getting rebuilt here. Also if I can reuse some of the parts that would be a bonus. The website says these are revalved and shortened so buying a new strut will not work with this kit. Also does the the front strut tubes just thread into the bilsteins or Koni's?
http://www.iscracing.net/2nd_gen_rx7.html

I know the rears are stamped F4-B46-0819-HO Typ/ - and the fronts are B30-627-B1 and the shaft was stamped 1404 P30 0032MO.

Could not find much info on the internet on those items.

Either way if you guys think this system is adequate it would probable make sense to just rebuild them and run for a few more years with this setup.

i think ISC uses porsche shocks all around. 944 front and 914 rear maybe?

i would definately suggest 3000gt struts for the front. they feel amazing off hte shelf, no revalve. i got mine for 112 each, but i think the price went up recently. they are a 36mm piston, so they would most likely not fit in your current housings. Eage8 and I made our own housings (its easy), or you can buy them from AWR for ~300.

for the rears, Bilstein sells FC shocks (B46-1214), so you could just buy some and have Bilstein revalve them. OEM shocks are freakin long tho, so they may be too long depending your ride height and tire size. Thats why EP and ITS guys run shortened shocks, or just a different one altogether. you should be fine if you run something like a 255/40/17, but they're definately too long for <23" race tires.

long story short, theres not really an easy-button with Bilsteins, but they kick major ass for the price once you get it all sorted.

Ok, the way your front struts work is you have housings and bilsteins inserts inside the housings and then a nut on top holding the bilsteins in. B30-627-B1 is the part number of the nut holding the insert in. the insert it self is a F4-P30-0032-M1 insert from a Mk1 VW Golf.

http://cart.bilsteinus.com/productsearch/F4-P30-0032-M1

The thing that is shortened is the actual strut housing it self in order to fit the insert in. They probably are revalved though. Those are the same inserts AWR uses on their front struts, so you can try to order a pair from AWR with their valving.

Here is the rear damper:
http://cart.bilsteinus.com/productsearch/F4-B46-0819-H0

the last character is a zero, not an O which is why nothing came up. It's a BMW damper.


a koni DA or SA race insert might fit in your strut housings. I would try taking the bilstein out and measuring your housings. They're pretty cheap for what you get.

http://www.koniracing.com/8611.cfm

Again wow your full of info. I feel stupid putting those codes into the search and finding nothing when all along it was on the bilstein website.

Is there a special wrench to take this nut off? Its pretty big. Took some pictures. Not sure if they will turn out or not. The camber kit on the side is a new one sitting in a box for years. Its the KR2D kit I got from cheers when I bought the car off of him.

another one.

I cleaned the oil. Blown strut is on the far right. The nut holding down the strut on the holder on the right seems to have more threads then the one on the right.

a pipe wrench or channel locks :)

apparently you can buy a special tool from bilstein to do it (part # 420017) but it's probably easier to just do it the wrong way :)

those delrin bushings in your rear dampers scare me... do a search for that, I remember seeing a thread on this forum where the entire eyelet broke off someone's rear ISC coilovers because the delrin doesn't allow the strut to bend like it should.

also, after looking at an email chain between me and tony at AWR he does have his P30-0032 bilsteins shortened by bilstein too. so call bilstein before you order anything new and make sure they're the right length.

afore mentioned eyelet failure:

https://www.rx7club.com/race-car-tech-103/bilstein-dampeners-544879/

Yup same car. same suspension. I bought the car from him.

Interesting enough called Mike at ICS racing today and he told me just to buy the shock and drop in. (I guess there is no revalving performed on these shocks) that makes it alot more simple as just to get them rebuilt here is $120. So Slightly more just buy brand new and drop in. Alot cheaper then buy a new coilover kit which I was going to do. Apparently what is shortened is the strut holder. I will be calling Bilstein for dimension of this shock so I can make sure before I order that its the right length etc.

Also since it looks like my K2RD kit is alot better engineered I should look into making these fit on my bilstein setup.

Second would also be to look into replace the solid delrin bushing in the rear to a rubber as it has been identified as a weak spot.

http://www.bilsteincanada.com/produc...oducts_id=2827

Again thanks to all for the posts...

Here's some more info for you too from my experience.

I have the Mazdaspeed Motorsports kit on my car, purchased it like 8 years ago or so. It's the same Koni kit by AWR. And Flatout Motorsports sells the same. It comes with the AWR front tubes and the fronts use the Koni 8611 race shock.

On the rears, it came with Konis from a Porsche 914 (1970-1976). The Koni part number is 8241-1050. Now you can also get a Bilstein for the same car which is what I just switched too. Bilstein new part number 24-001793, old number F4-B46-0179-H0.

You will need the shock mounting stud and the top mount that AWR/Mazda Motorsports/Flatout sells. They use the standard c-clip on the bottom and the coil over sleeve just fits on top of that. The Koni had like three slots for height adjustment and the Bilstein had like six. The advantage to these shocks is their huge diameter compared to the regular Konis sold for the RX-7.

http://www.flatout-motorsports.com/i...mart&Itemid=55

I've attached a picture of the rear Koni & Bilstein side by side. The Bilstein you can find much cheaper than the Konis if your on a budget. I think I paid like $95 each for the Bilsteins versus about $200 ish for the Koni. I switched out because I thought the Konis needed a rebuild so I bought these Bilsteins for the interim but now that I took the car out, I doubt the Konis needed a rebuild.

So maybe you can reuse some of your hardware and make one of these rear shocks work for you as well?

the rear bilsteins he has are already 46mm pistons, so he wouldn't be gaining anything.

I would call bilstein and see if they'll sell you the bushing. and make sure it's the right size. I know I can buy replacement bearings for my bilstiens... He might have put the delrin in there though because the stock bushing wasn't the right size.

to run the porsche shocks you have to get a special mazdaspeed lower stud which are getting harder to find (mazdaspeed discontinued them, but I know AWR still had a few left a few months ago).

if you need parts for the K2rd stuff, we have them, just let me know

Thanks for the heads up. i will order these so I can use the stock bilstein bushing on the rear shock as opposed to the solid delrin which my cause another failure. Hopefully the bushings are not to expensive.

I have the K2RD sleeves and adjusters(threaded tube looking things) and the camber plates. issue is with the camber plates installed there is not enough stud left over to thread the bolt on top of the strut. Looks like I may not be able to use these.

Thanks

yeah, I almost had the same problem with mine. how much stud is left over? getting them to fit on top of the inverted struts is a challenge... on non-inverted struts the spring top had just slids over the shaft and doesn't take any stud length. mine doesn't have nearly as many threads left as I would like with my GC plates (which appear to be close to the same thing):

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-x...2/IMAG1990.jpg

Josh is using some wierd nuts that also act as the inside bearing spacer. I think he got them from GC. you might be able to use a set of these.

apparently there are a couple of different bearings for the camber plates. paul, of K2rd, made a set of inverted bilsteins, like eage8 and josh have, and i bolted it together with a set of K2 camber plates.

the bearing sits fine on the shock and i'm using the spacer on top so that i can get the upper bearing to pivot thru its whole range of motion (this is important), the bushing actually sits like eage8's pic, and the bilstien nut is short so it looks fine, but paul said no, and i need to find a set of sliders with the OTHER bearing...

i am not sure why you need a bushing vs just putting the bearing on the shock, but i guess you do?

the bearing in my GC camber plates is a 5/8" bearing... you need the bushings to convert whatever diameter your damper stud is to 5/8" or else you're introducing a lot of play.

This is true. Lots of play if there is no bushing when I tried by K2RD camber plates. I called Tony at AWR racing and he has a new type of bolt that has the bushings built in the bolt. IE bolt threads into the strut right into the bearing on the camber plate as opposed to the bolt sitting on top of the bearing. His camber plate appears to have only one bearing where as both my ICS and K2RD have two bearings. One piviting bearing where the strut goes through and one radial on the spring plate. (IF I make sense in that statement)

He also recommended that my rears which have the solid delrin bushing be removed and replaced with either the stock rubber or a bearing. (When I mentioned that it had solid delrins he asked me twice and said that was not a good idea even without me mentioning this was the cause of a past failure. )His kit comes with the bearings installed in the rear shock.

He also recommends heaver springs then my 400F and 250R and non adjustable bilstein (Revalved for the correct spring rate/car and shortened) based on me saying I just wanna drive not spend years adjusting :)

Here are what the nuts I and I think tony were talking about:
http://i174.photobucket.com/albums/w...9/IMAG0078.jpg

http://i174.photobucket.com/albums/w...9/IMAG0082.jpg

that being said... the ground-control/mazdaspeed/k2rd camber plates with dual bearings are a better design than the AWR ones...

Well finally got around to taking the nut of to see the bilsteins inside.

A few things
the nut dust seal is gone. Probable can just buy new ones?
-One of the strut holders is physically taller!
-One of the strut holder was missing a spacer for the strut holder and the strut.
-one that was supposed to be good still had water in the strut holder and pushing the strut down little air bubbles came out of the shaft. Figure that one is gone as well. No visual oil found.

Now for the pictures. (I am seriously consider now buy HSD coilover Kit.

Last pic showing the physical height difference of the strut holder.

Insane suspension. Unreal price.

http://www.anzesuspension.com/applications.cfm#Mazda

Been calling AWR and emialing. No response.

Yeah, sometimes Tony is a little hard to get a hold of... I had much better luck calling him later in the day around ~4pm pacific time.

Holey crap, they're Custom fitted Penske's. If you can afford it, jump all over them. They are arguably the best you can get. Wow I am jealous......... Try calling Anze Direct,

http://www.anzesuspension.com/contact.cfm

They have been on a number of the Class champions in the CTCC Series for the last few years.

Eric

Received an email from Tony at AWR. Gonna see what a complete kit is and what his recommendations are.

Called bilstien and a rebuild would take about a month but will come valved to spec for all 4 corners for under $500.

No quick option right now for repair or a custom suspension.

Megan and other coilovers are list $900 or so! Why so cheap in comparision to all of these custom ordered ones:)

Are these custom kits that much better? What can I expect for such an increase of price. Track times decrease or better money spent on track time:)

Worth as much as I could possible sell the car for. LOL. They are sure pretty!

if you want to pay a bit extra ($30 per strut I think) you can have bilstein rush them...

megans are cheap because the dampers suck :)

I switched from JIC to DA konis then to custom bilsteins and the difference was night and day. Don't wast your time with crappy coilovers. you'll just end up replacing them later on.

thanks eage8. Shipping the bilsteins out for rebuild/revalve today. All 4 corners. Will research changing the rear delrin bushing to something else. Maybe bilstein will have something for me.

Also in the works talking with AWR to see what they have for the future. Apparently they have shorter struts/shocks to allow the car to be lower. Also they have adjustable shocks with remote canisters like you suggested in the beginning. If I want to run at all this year I need to rebuild my current setup as AWR is backed up. Racing season in full swing.

Any idea what spring rate I should valve these at? I run 400/250. AWR suggest something heavier.

Ian, I run 600/400 and it a decent all around rate. For Shannonville I drop down to 400/275 as mechanical grip over the bumps is important. I think the same rates (with decent sized bars) would work well at TMP and CTMP DDT. What bars are you running? Al runs a bit softer than me because he has little girly arms and doesn't like the bump feedback, LOL.

Regarding the Bilsteins, great shocks for the price and Al and I both run them right now. As you know, I am converting to 3 ways on my car as after experiencing the Dynamics on my Cougar, they are soooo much better, its not funny.

Eric

I'm currently running 500/350 with a whitline front sway bar and no rear on my fairly heavy TII (2750 lbs with a full tank)

it's a decent set up but I'm thinking about going slightly stiffer, maybe 600/400

400/250 is better for stripped out NAs... which is what most track guys run in ITS and EP.

Your converting to three ways? Where are you getting these? Can I use these on my car? Talking to AWR for adjustable two ways for my car.

I am running stock bar up front no rear with new energy suspension bushings all around.

Any recommend manufacture for springs?

hyperco

you can get them on amazon with free shipping :-)

what adjsutable 2-ways are you talking to Tony about? Konis? or the new fancy bilsteins??

I assumed bilsteins but he probable meant konis. He is supposed to send me some information but no idea when he will have time to send it. Reason why I am rebuilding mine for now.

600/400 would be good cause i can reuse my 400's :) I am a cheap bastard.

keep in mind that some coilovers use different length springs front and back. I ran a set of old front 7" 350# springs on the back of my DA konis and they were and the very top of the perches. I got a new set of 10" 350#s for my new suspension... but now my 7" 500#s are too short for my custom front struts *sigh*

Back when I went to coilovers, I got a bunch of pairs of AFCO 8"x2.5" springs. Almost every available rate from 250 up to 750. I tested like mad for a few years and found out what I liked the best and pretty much settled on a good personal setup for Mosport GP track and Shannonville.

Keep in mind that swaybar sizes effect the handling a lot as well and you can use lighter springs with heavier bars if the track is smooth or medium springs with small bars if the track is rough. It all depends on your driving style, smooth or aggressive and pounding kerbs. It also depends on tires that you are running and weight of the car.

Your white car is a full interior street car with a TII in it. I would look at a Whiteline or Suspension Techniques Streetable front bar, no rear bar ( just disconnect one end before you go on track), 600 lb fronts and 350 to 400 lb rears. The 350's will give you more squat, weight transfer and grip out of the corner at the cost of some rear roll. The 400's will control roll better and reduce squat and give you a more stable platform on smoother tracks. I wouldn't go much over 400 lbs in the rear as it can quickly make your car loose or oversteery. Not many guys like that feel, especially in a street car.

Eric

i could have told you that lol. i run 8" springs up front with 4" hyperco helpers.

anywho, I run 600/430, ST front bar on stiff, no rear. I may end up going stiffer in the front, we'll see. I wouldn't go any softer personally, but track and autox are a bit different. I was 2800# last year, now she tips the scales at 2490.

Squat doesn't actually do anything positive for the car, its just an unfortunate byproduct of trailing arm suspension. Squatting decreases rearward weight transfer by lowering the CG, while adding a bunch of camber. you'll notice drag cars have loads of antisquat.
IMO, thats why FC's always work better with no rear bar: when you remove the bar, you have to increase rear spring to maintain balance, which helps combat squat. The only reason I can think of for wanting squat is to drop the rear roll canter (reduce rear lateral load transfer, increasing rear grip), but I dont think the roll center moves on an FC. S13's on the other hand seem to work better with less rear spring and a bar. They have multilink rear with a plunging roll center, and lots of antisquat.

damn, what the hell did you do to it? take the engine out? :p:

Maybe he put a rotary in it?

My TII is full interior (SSM) and scales 2,5xx to 2,600lbs (depending on how much gas) with 50% to 51.6% rear weight bias no driver/passenger.

I can get all the wheels the same weight to a pound except the pesky dr. rear which ends up 40lbs heavier. Gotta move the heavy ass muffler from dr. side to the middle- lol.

Or go on a diet :lol:

Last time I weighed my TII (also SSM) it was 2750# with a full tank... damn S5s. I need to take my dumb auto seat belts and my sun roof out...

While I understand what you are saying and to a great extent I agree, I believe that in traction limited situations the FC squat reflects the fact that the car is transfering weight to the rear tires and it is a symptom and not a desired tendancy. Like most people are when they are running r-comps, having rearward weight transfer reduces the tendancy for the FC to tirespin or power oversteer out of the corners. The only negatives to doing this is camber gain from the compression and the reduction in tire contact patch. I control that with setting a fairly mild rear camber that grows to about -3 degrees under full acceleration compression.


FWIW, at Mosport on 225x50x15's I can generate about 2" of squat coming out of Turn 5b using 400 lb rear springs and I can go to full throttle before the apex. When I add a rear bar I spool the inside rear some as the car wants to lift the inside rear as it becomes unweighted, so I run without a rear bar. The car with no rear bar and 400 lb springs, then tries to unload the inside front in Turns 9, 10, 2 and 3 and tricycle. To try to control that I have gone to 550 lb rear springs with a disconnected rear bar. It controls the tricycling, makes the car way more stable in the fast stuff, but I end up power drifting hard out of Turns 3, 5b and 10, just like a Trans Am car. So I have to delay throttle application and I end up going slower. Now I can control that with bigger, stickier rear tires and maybe go faster overall, but I am limited to the 225x50/45x15 tire size.

I have an idea about Ian's (the OP) car and that is why I suggested this approach. Everybody has different suspension tuning ideas, but you are correct with the concepts and I agree. I just do things a bit differently to handle a real world setup issue at track.

Eric

very interesting.

What do you run for static camber in the back? I have my AWR links maxed out and can't get less than 2.5*... I feel like I'm doing something wrong :p: I ordered a set of MMR links, but who knows when they'll come...

Also, what are you running for a front spring? 600#?

how much does your car weigh and what kind of power is it making?

Or go on a diet

This!

But, I corner weigh without driver as I usually have a passenger in that car- lol.

My car definitely hooked up much better with softer damping (same spring rate) in the rear. It really felt like it squatted and hooked with a tad of understeer off the apex.
https://www.rx7club.com/picture.php?...ictureid=17629

I run -1.3 degrees. I am using the single subframe strut rod that we made ourselves based on the ones being marketed. It works great and I did have to modify the floorpan to provide enough clearance. I also run the rear close to stock height, down about an inch.

I run between 450 and 600 front springs depending on the track. Mostly the 600's but they are way too stiff for bumpy slower tracks and makes the car bound off the surface at times.

The car weighs about 2650 with driver and 1/2 a tank of fuel and I am making around 200 rwhp.

Eric