IAN

iTrader: (3)

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....

SCCAITS

iTrader: (3)

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

j9fd3s

iTrader: (3)

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

eage8

iTrader: (9)

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

IAN

iTrader: (3)

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.

Josh18_2k

iTrader: (3)

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 *** for the price once you get it all sorted.

eage8

iTrader: (9)

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

IAN

iTrader: (3)

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.

IAN

iTrader: (3)

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.

eage8

iTrader: (9)

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.

eage8

iTrader: (9)

afore mentioned eyelet failure:

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

IAN

iTrader: (3)

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

IAN

iTrader: (3)

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...

jrx13

iTrader: (3)

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?

eage8

iTrader: (9)

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).

j9fd3s

iTrader: (3)

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

IAN

iTrader: (3)

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.

IAN

iTrader: (3)

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

eage8

iTrader: (9)

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):



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.

j9fd3s

iTrader: (3)

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?

eage8

iTrader: (9)

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.

IAN

iTrader: (3)

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

eage8

iTrader: (9)

Here are what the nuts I and I think tony were talking about:

eage8

iTrader: (9)

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

IAN

iTrader: (3)

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.