The reality of Aftermarket Shocks are shocking.

[C-Kwik]

The socal 240sx group had a meet at Eibach's US plant yesterday. We were treated to a tour of the facility. One of the R&D guys showed us around and also provided some good technical info. While their primary focus is in springs their facilities are designed to really allow a lot of technical testing and research into other suspension products. As far as the springs are concerned, of course you take it with a grain of salt as they could be biased to their owne products, but the comments they made were that many of the top name brands from Japan have a very wide range of tolerance. But the tolerance that they quoted that they check for their own springs are quite narrow and are tested on each spring from beginning to end about 5 times and if it fails to meet the standard at any point, the spring is tossed.

Now onto the really interesting part. Eibach actually does not manufacture their own shocks. They have the ability to piece together and even machine just about anything they need, but they do not manufacture them. They do have facilities to test shocks quite extensively as they are open to the public for setting up suspensions for a fee. This includes shock dyno testing. Now the shocker is that many of the top brands mislead their customers. Particularly with adjustments. While they are indeed adjustable, they have found that many have half the number of actual adjustments than are advertised. Meaning a 32-way adjustable shock actually only has 16. You basically have to click twice before seeing a change on the shock dyno. I won't try to quote which brands he said as I would hate to misquote him, but bear in mind he did mention quite a few popular name brands that are discussed here quite often.

Interestingly enough, he did comment that he leaned towards Koni adjustables when making a broad statement about what the best choice of shock would be. He did say Advance Design Shocks by Ground Control are also very good but carry a price premium.

A certain FA member will be working with him to get as many of the major shocks dyno'd (likely they will all be 240sx shocks) to try and get as technical data out there so we can make better informed decisions. Be patient though, this will be done mostly in spare time and will need to be spread out over time to complete. And since it will likely be shocks for one type of car, it will be more of a guide to the type of practices you might see from certain manufacturers.

Lastly, while his comments were not to say that the shocks won't necessarily perform poorly, they seemes more to point out that you may not be getting all of what you think. And that many of the coilover kits out there use very sub-par springs with some sets of springs being out of spec as much as 10% too high in one corner and 10% too low in the other when it came to spring-rates which resulted in very poor handling. They do sell replacement ERS springs that come in many different rates, diameters and free-lengths that will fit most coil-overs with no modification and almost all with some light machine work to the seats. As I said before, perhaps we do need to keep in mind that springs are what they deal with, but considering that they do a whole lot more springs than just aftermarket lowering springs, it does have to inspire some confidence in their product. They apparently make valve springs for everything from race motors to OEM motors. They make suspension springs on many factory cars...including the New Ford GT40.

[turtl631]

hm yea gotta love konis, too bad its a front insert and the rear isn't adjustable on the car

[Dori Dori]

This is no shock to me. When I had my Tein RA's, I knew the '16' levels of adjustment was BS. I really never felt much of a difference throughout the clicks, but from 0 to 16 there was a slight difference. The worst brand I've seen on a dyno was Zeal...horrible dynos and people crawl on zeal's nutts like they are the next best thing to sliced bread...too many dips and spikes. A buddy of mine has the advanced designs and if it weren't for the fact that their upper mounts call for a good strut tower hacking, I'd be using them too. And as stated by turtl631, the fact that Konis (rears) are only adjustable off the car kept me from purchasing them. I'll probably end up buying them anyway once my Buzz specs blow.

But wait, everything JDM is higher quality and bett4r...what gives?

[LiU]

This is no shock to me. When I had my Tein RA's, I knew the '16' levels of adjustment was BS. I really never felt much of a difference throughout the clicks, but from 0 to 16 there was a slight difference. The worst brand I've seen on a dyno was Zeal...horrible dynos and people crawl on zeal's nutts like they are the next best thing to sliced bread...too many dips and spikes. A buddy of mine has the advanced designs and if it weren't for the fact that their upper mounts call for a good strut tower hacking, I'd be using them too. And as stated by turtl631, the fact that Konis (rears) are only adjustable off the car kept me from purchasing them. I'll probably end up buying them anyway once my Buzz specs blow.

But wait, everything JDM is higher quality and bett4r...what gives?

really? wow... the RAs seem to be oneo f Tein's higher end models so I expected more out of them - I also expected Zeal to be better -

I for one can't wait for these tests to be done... of course some of the "street" coilovers, the lower end models from tein or tanabe or whoever can't be expected to be great, I mean you really get what you pay for... I for one would like to see more testing on the higher end models and the more $$ models such as the apexis.

[Nismo_Freak]

This is no shock to me. When I had my Tein RA's, I knew the '16' levels of adjustment was BS. I really never felt much of a difference throughout the clicks, but from 0 to 16 there was a slight difference. The worst brand I've seen on a dyno was Zeal...horrible dynos and people crawl on zeal's nutts like they are the next best thing to sliced bread...too many dips and spikes. A buddy of mine has the advanced designs and if it weren't for the fact that their upper mounts call for a good strut tower hacking, I'd be using them too. And as stated by turtl631, the fact that Konis (rears) are only adjustable off the car kept me from purchasing them. I'll probably end up buying them anyway once my Buzz specs blow.

But wait, everything JDM is higher quality and bett4r...what gives?

Yeah you can visit our website (www.splparts.com), go to the Z32 section, and you can see the shock dyno of the Tein RA for the Z32 compared to the KTS coilovers. It's highly supportive of your notion that the individual clicks don't do much.

BTW, Eibach springs are used by Ohlins for all of their spring related products. For anyone that understands how good Ohlins is, it says alot for the Eibach product.

[Dori Dori]

Yeah you can visit our website (www.splparts.com), go to the Z32 section, and you can see the shock dyno of the Tein RA for the Z32 compared to the KTS coilovers. It's highly supportive of your notion that the individual clicks don't do much.

BTW, Eibach springs are used by Ohlins for all of their spring related products. For anyone that understands how good Ohlins is, it says alot for the Eibach product.

Oh, I've seen em. The KTS's look real nice though. I'm debating on two different setups once my buzz specs blow...either your KTS coilovers or Konis (revalved w/ external rear reseviors...or just external damper adjustment) w/ my ground controls. It'll be a tough decision especially since I've had nothing but positive experiences with you guys (SPL) but I've ridden in a couple of cars with Konis valved for a particular spring rate and the friggen rock. *goes into internal debate*

[chmercer]

SPL coilovers... take one look at the shock dyno... trust me they are primo

[gabossie]

****! I forgot all about the Eibach meet! Damnitall!

[silkk]

Ohlins = win.

[Nismo_Freak]

Ohlins = win.

Ohlins, Aragosta, Moton, Penske, the list goes on

[skylndrftr]

I read a collum in race car engineering (incredible brittish magazine) about the whole shock dynoing process and the myths anr truths about it, im going to see if i can find the article, but it basically was a running commentary about the ideas of testing different shocks back to back using the same settings and velocities, those clicks on your teins may just not be affecting the vavling in a range where you are testing them but could actually have an effect when used properly

EDIT: uploaded page one i'll come back and upload page two later when i get bored again this gentleman is a regular columnist and is just about the freakin smartest person i have ever read anythign by
Modified by skylndrftr at 5:26 AM 10/30/2004

[rico05]

Aragosta = teh win

Intersting enough, the Nismo S-Tues have KYB shocks and Eibach springs. Gotta love that.