theres soo many... any recommendations

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 don't know of any coil-overs that have ride height adjustment controllers for inside a vehical. Air Bags are a diffrent story. TIEN has in car dampning adjuster controllers. Not sure who else does.

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.

PenskiohlinsKonibilsteinmoton

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.

cracker wrote: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.

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.

http://www.topsecretjpn.com/roberuta.shtml

sr20goofus wrote:
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.

sweet lord!!!!!

look at stance.

from what i hear don't the ksport and jic flt-tar coilovers work very well the 240

i auto-xed with my old focus and an rx-8 but i'm new to 240's so i'm not an expert, that's just what i've researched so far

Abstrakt02 wrote:theres soo many... any recommendations

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

why do you need in car height adjustment?

in car damping is way more useful for track use.

look into stance GR

Kamin wrote:why do you need in car height adjustment?

in car damping is way more useful for track use.

Beyond that...Even if you could easily adjust the height from the drivers seat, you would have to hop out and do the alignment real quick :P

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...

maybe someone here can tell me the diff between a inverted mono tube coilover and a regular one?

the only suspension companies i have heard of that due dampening are Tanabe and Tein. Not much on the ride height adjustment from inside the car. I think Tanabe came out with air suspension coilover but haven't looked into it and don't know what it's about. Just look around. if i were you i would go for dampening, much more useful for DD and track use.

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

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.

brizanden wrote:maybe someone here can tell me the diff between a inverted mono tube coilover and a regular one?

really really simplistically speaking a shock is a big tube full of oil with a plunger that goes in and out...

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.

95lstegman wrote: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:769LR:624 RR:608Left: 1384-50.1%Front: 1529-55.4%Rear 1233-44.6%Cross 1393-50.4

Lets not forget the 2 different types of valving - shim stack and needle valve.

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

The rear motion ratio on a 240sx is no where near .70 o.O, and my weight balance is about 55% front.

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).

What do you guys do to decrease camber in the front with the coilover sleeves?I have been shopping for affordable coilovers for a while now. The car is being built for auto-x and occassional track day use. The main reason I wanted coilovers was for the camber plates and adjustability, but if it's possible to get -3 to -4 degrees camber in the front with a GC set-up, I'm all for it.

You can buy camber plates seperate from the coil-overs. I know Tien and I think HKS makes them as well. Probably others too. I had the TIEN camber plates on my 240. They where about half the price of the HKS's. You can alos go with "crash bolts" or "camber Bolts" for the bottom of the struts as well. But I have heard they need to be tightened up every so often, not sure if that is true or not, never used them myself.

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.

It's all about how much money you have to spend.

0wn3r wrote:It's all about how much money you have to spend.

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

I run in SM, so modifications are pretty open.

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.

If Jason won with that set-up, then I would bet that is a good place to start.

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.

95lstegman wrote: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.

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.

I know GC makes a camber plate for my VW GTI, but it specifically states it will only work with true coilovers. There are also some camber plates on Ebay for the s13, but they say they might make noise if used with stock springs.

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#).

Cone Junky wrote:I know GC makes a camber plate for my VW GTI, but it specifically states it will only work with true coilovers. There are also some camber plates on Ebay for the s13, but they say they might make noise if used with stock springs.

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.

I know with my VW the strut towers barely clear the springs and upper hat. In that case the stock upper spring plate is too big to allow extra movement at the top within the strut tower, even with camber plates.After reading the disclaimer on the s13 camber plates I was wondering if it was because the same issue.

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.

no real conformation for you, but the stock springs are really really big (diameter wise) and most after market ones are much smaller... I haven't ever really looked at the ground control but I would guess the diameter would likely be less then stock by a few inches.

Red coupe wrote:no real conformation for you, but the stock springs are really really big (diameter wise) and most after market ones are much smaller... I haven't ever really looked at the ground control but I would guess the diameter would likely be less then stock by a few inches.

Thats the same thing I was thinking.