Im looking for adjustable height from inside the car also for street and drift/track use.

theres so many to choose from so I'm just looking to see wht you guys run to guide me to what I want thanks.

-Vic

I am going to run either Koni Yellows with ground control sleeves and eibach springs or Koni "Race" yellows with Ground control sleeves and eibach springs.

Penski
ohlins
Koni
bilstein
moton

Are about the only shocks I would recomend. Most of them how ever are WAY out of my price range.

Koni Yellows are good inexspensive shocks. And if you pair them with G/C sleeves you have ride hight adjustment along with rebound adjustment on the shocks. I will warn you though; on the 240 you have to remove and dissasemble the rears to adjust them. And you also have a wide variaty of springs rates to chose from.

Most coil-over shocks that I would recomend are high end race shocks that you wouldn't want to run on the street. From most of the research I have done, there're aren't any "JDM" coil-over setups I would buy.

Good Valving > Everything else

Hope that helps.

Shift_ZOOM-ZOOM

I know exactly whati would recommend to peopel that "want" to track their cars or that are building "track cars" and its very similar to the list you made, but the problem is that 90% of the people on these forums consider drifting "tracking" their car or just never actually commit to tracking either. So i usually suggest a good affordable coilover that makes sense, but not top-of-the-line. Its a tough decision to make because i know when i used to make polls or questions about my "track" car people gave me halfass answers or answers that were the top of the line and i was more looking fo rpretty good parts at a reasonable price.

I suggest Tanabe, Stance of Tein for your choice of coilovers, they are all simple, come in everything from Basic to higher dollar equipment. I do suggets getting off your *** and adjusting the shocks yourself instead of beign determined to sit in your seat and turn a dial or press some buttons, your going to spend more time parked, waiting in the grid, or trying to diagnose some mother issue which keeps you from driving your car, your out of it more than in it anyways, might as well spend the extra 5min to adjust the shocks then.

I aggree with you Goofus;

I don't have any experience with Tanabe, Stance and only limited experience with Tien, I am hesitent to suggest a product I have no experience with. That is why I suggested the Koni's and G/C sleeves. They do everything that a coil over does, and is fairly cheap for what you get compaired to some of the other coil-over kits in the same price range. And you can have the Koni's rebuilt and revalved. The only down side to the Koni's on a 240 are you have to remove and disassemble the rears to adjust them. But I never adjusted mine, once I got them where i liked them, I left them. Which was half a turn from full soft.

99% of coil overs and race shocks are overkill for anything short of a full on race car. And I know that, but I hate to see people waste money on inferrior parts. I figered I would have been flamed to death by all the "coil overs are way better than spring shock" people by now. I have driven on a set of tien basics (at an autoX, and that is the only time I drove the cat, so I never really had a chancve to get used to them) and they seamed to handel well. That being said, I am not going to buy any tien products.

It seams that most people get coil-overs never track the car, and run way to high a spring rate for the street. At least there are a lot of people I see that have coil overs, and almost no one post in this section. Then again, I never go into the drifting section. And I do not count street racing or drifting in empty parking lots, or on the streets as racing.

look at stance.

in car damping is way more useful for track use.

I've always wondered actually...how do they deal with that with airbags? I mean I would't be surprised if the low rider guys just said whatever, most of the driving is at one height so just align it to that...

But the OEM cars with adjustablility (SUV's and the like mostly)? Just limit the dynamic alignment changes and change in ride height? or?

IMO in car dampening adjustability is kinda a gimic. I'f your a driver at the level where your adjusting the suspension through out a race your probably on something better then the entry level Tein's most people buy it on.

It may be nice to quickly go from one setting to the next when your trying to tune them... But once you have figured out your shock settings I don't see much of a point in having one for track and one for street unless your overly worried about your race setup being too oversteery in an emergency situation on the street...

Even then, I can adjust my KTS with the car on the ground in about 1 minute and you really won't be looking to go back and forth between settings too often.

KTS are fairly cheap, and I have never heard anything but good about them. I've been happy with the set I own...

side note i heard that some air suspension company was debuting their set up for track use but that sounds like a marketing ploy. dont trust it

1) basically all "coil-overs" use stupid spring rates for the 240SX. the 240SX has a high motion ratio in the front (roughly 0.91), and only medium in the rear (roughly 0.70). using much softer springs in the rear is simply stupid. you get a huge difference in natural frequency, which isn't the end of the world, but you also get a massive difference in spring rate at the wheels front vs. rear. given that pretty much all 240's are within a few % of 50/50 weight distribution, you'll want to keep close to the same wheel rates front and rear in order to get the best roadholding, or lateral acceleration ("g's"). going back to nat'l freq, it turns out on this chassis it's better to have same spring rate F/R or a touch higher in the rear than front, then use sway bars to add in the rest of the necessary rear bias in suspension. your tires will stay in better contact with the pavement that way (over bumps and other imperfections), and you'll still have balanced handling and max. roadholding (speed in turns).

2) you can go Koni quality w/o having annoying rear adjustments. use inserts in the rears instead of OTS 240SX struts.

3) Koni 8611's + GC FTW. if you're cheap, or newer to racing but still fabrication savvy, try 8610's; they're single-adjustable. but the 8611's are double-adjustable and very inexpensive, and it's not that hard to fab up mounting.

The tube mounts to one thing, the plunger to another.

Inverted just referse to the shock being mounted so that the housing bolts to the car.

That way more of the weight of the shock is attached directly to the car, and less rests on the wheel as sprung weight.

Quote, originally posted by 95lstegman »

just thought i'd get in on this one, since it's all too easy. here it goes. 1) basically all "coil-overs" use stupid spring rates for the 240SX. the 240SX has a high motion ratio in the front (roughly 0.91), and only medium in the rear (roughly 0.70). using much softer springs in the rear is simply stupid. you get a huge difference in natural frequency, which isn't the end of the world, but you also get a massive difference in spring rate at the wheels front vs. rear. given that pretty much all 240's are within a few % of 50/50 weight distribution, you'll want to keep close to the same wheel rates front and rear in order to get the best roadholding, or lateral acceleration ("g's"). going back to nat'l freq, it turns out on this chassis it's better to have same spring rate F/R or a touch higher in the rear than front, then use sway bars to add in the rest of the necessary rear bias in suspension. your tires will stay in better contact with the pavement that way (over bumps and other imperfections), and you'll still have balanced handling and max. roadholding (speed in turns). 2) you can go Koni quality w/o having annoying rear adjustments. use inserts in the rears instead of OTS 240SX struts. 3) Koni 8611's + GC FTW. if you're cheap, or newer to racing but still fabrication savvy, try 8610's; they're single-adjustable. but the 8611's are double-adjustable and very inexpensive, and it's not that hard to fab up mounting.

Where did you get your info on wheel rates of the 240?
8/6 is stiff enough to loose grip on your casual street surface/mountain road but on a fairly flat surface its fine...and balanced great. A lot of people use spring rates so high to deal with the cars ****ty front camber curve.

Your talk of weight distribution made me look up what my stock coupe was

LF:759 RF:769
LR:624 RR:608
Left: 1384-50.1%
Front: 1529-55.4%
Rear 1233-44.6%
Cross 1393-50.4

Most Japanese style c/o's are all needle valve wheras Penske, Ohlins, JRZ and Moton are going to be the shim stack type.

dk

I run 11kg springs up front, 8kg springs in back, and it works well for me, even with a large tire stagger (285's up front, 315's in back).

DTM & JDM

Still plays with cars...

If you plan on AutoXs, then you need to look at what is allowable in what ever class you are going to run in.

On my miata, "I" just use the lower eccentric bolts to adjust the camber. I lowered the car a couple of inches, and went from -1.2ish to IIRC over -4 of camber. The guy who does my alignments said he would try to get -2.5 INTO the car. I told him I hoped we could pull out enough to get to 2.5. He about crapped when he saw how much camber it had in it.
NON-MC_Strut spring & dampers FTMFW!!!!

BTW, why do you want so much camber up front???
I had about -2 in the front of my 240 and had massive problems with front brake bias. I couldn't imagine it at -3 or -4.

jdmfreak: "One question. Are you down with the brown?"
nismo_freak: "She looks like a Fedex girl to me "

It goes back to that old proverbial saying: "Speed cost money; how fast you wanna go?"

That is why I went with Koni Yellows and G/C sleeves. best bang for the buck imho.

Modified by cracker at 4:57 PM 6/26/2008

The -4 degrees is based on Jason's National winning 240 specs. I figure start my specs with a proven setup and just modify and adjust to my driving.

No matter what I end up with for camber, I'll need something that allows me to adjust. Most likely camber plates will give me the most adjustment range.
I just didn't know if the camber plates would work on the GC sleeves because some cars require true coilovers to even use upper camber plates.

I ran stock (tien S. Tech Springs) with Tien camber plates on Koni inserts.
The only thing you need to check is if the camber plate will mate with what ever ID spring it is you run. In the ground control case, it is probably 2.5ID, at least that is what mine are. 2.5ID springs is a fairly common size spring. Koni sleeves use 2.125ID(I think) but they sell a delrin adapter to run 2.5ID springs. But I would guess that most of the camber plates would work with what ever springs you run. I am fairly sure that the camber plates I used with the Stock style springs is the same unit the use on their coil overs.
I would double check before you buy them, but I bet they would work. I can't imagine it would take more than one phone call to what ever company you go with to find out if their camber plates would work with your set-up.

For what it is worth, I am using 2.5ID springs with stock NB mounts, the stock springs are 6ID give or take an inch.

what did you use as an insert for the rears? i plan to run the Z32 aluminum uprights on the rear of my S13 and the problem is finding a shock/strut for the rears. could i use a 300zx housing and just shorten it for a different insert? what insert would i use? btw i would like to use bilsteins if possible, but i am not married to that notion as i think koni's would work well too.

Does GC use a smaller diameter spring plate at the top, or do they use the stock spring plate?

And since we're kinda on the subject and the right forum, does anybody have an opinion on the KYB AGX shocks/struts? The front and rears are externally adjustable, but I'm not sure if they are valved well for a spring stiff enough for auto-x (thinking 500 to 550#).

I can't quite figure out why they say they have to be used on a "coil over" are they refering to a shock with a coiled spring over it. On both my 240 and my Miata: lower spring perch, spring, various boots / shimms / washers, top hats. The top hat or camber plate sits on top of the spring, and the shoxk shaft goes through the camber plate and springs and everything is bolted tight, then the assembly is bolted into the chassi. I don't understand what a threaded shock body has to do with it. Are they refering to the spring ID size? Or does it have something to do with the top of the shock shaft, how the camber plate sits on it?

I don't know if this will help or not, but replace the top hat with a camber plate in this pic. That is all we are talking about. The camber plate rides on top of the shock and the spring, plus what ever bussing and washers are present.

KYB AGX shocks are fairlt good from what I have heard, but I would guess, and it is just a guess that a 500 lbs spring would be into the upper end of what one could handle, if not over its limit, not 100% sure on that. IIRC the OTS Koni yellow upper limit is 500 - 600 range, and it seamed like the KYB's where lower than the Koni's. Of course I could be completly wrong.

So anybody with GC sleeves and camber plates to confirm they'll work together?
Even if I can get 2-3 degrees of negative camber I'll be happy.

Are the Bilstiens inserts only???

Not sure what you are trying to do?

Whats the difference on the lower mount from an s13, to a z32?
I would be cvarefull about running z32 shocks on an s13, I would guess that they are valved diffrent. Not sure if that would hurt the performance or not.

I couldn't find anything from bilstein for the 240sx.

Have you checked to see if the Koni OTS rears can be modified for external adjustable? Probably wouldn't be worth the price/hassle, if it can even be done. Here is a list of Koni rebuilders that I know of. And I am not recommending any of them, other than Koni due to "stories" I have heard about a couple of these companies. I am just posting the company's that rebuild Koni's, use at your own risk.
http://www.propartsusa.net/
http://www.truechoicekoniracingservices.com/
http://performanceshock.com/in...d=521
http://www.koniracing.com/shopservices.html

The KYB's are externally adjustable.

You might try contacting Koni, or Bilstein to see if they know of a another shock they offer for a different car that uses the same mount and has the same or similar valving, and are the same length. Because that is basically all you need, if I'm not mistaken, is a shock that is the same dimensions, that mounts the same way, that has the same valving, but is externally adjustable. But I would guess if Koni or Bilstein made such a shock they would sell it for the 240 as well as what ever make/model it fits.
Again, none of these custom application would probably be worth the time/money/hassle. But due to the generic style mount the rear uses, there might be another shock made for a different car that *could* work. I am not advocating nor suggesting you do this, I am merely throwing out some ideas. Do this at your own risk. I race with a guy who looked into this that ran a Chevy Colorado, and he couldn't find any sport shocks that where made for his truck, I don't remember if he actually would up running shocks off of another vehicle or not. Or you could *GASP* buy some Tiens/megan/ksports/insert JDM coil-over here.

For camber up front, I'm only running about 3.5 deg (±0.2° surface dependant). I'm not sure if I'm stiffer up front than Rhoades was, though.

Street Modified requires a bit of creative thinking, but for the most part a 240sx with simple, well thought out mods will do well.

I hope so. I like SM because I don't have much limitations for building up my car for the street or HPDEs I like to attend. I don't have the time or money to be in a competitive class, so SM is fun for an almost "no holds barred" vehicle setup that is still street legal.

That is a much better idea than any of mine.