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I have a set of bilstein I bought used. How do I check their condition? What am I looking for?
I have the car in pieces, and I want to figure out if these need rebuilding, or they’re ready to be installed.
This is not on a race car, this will be on a DD.
I’d be interested in knowing how to check their condition too. I just replaced my shocks and struts because they had ~80 events on them. The front struts had oil in the housings, but I couldn’t say for sure if that meant that they were leaking or if someone had intentionally put oil in the housing for “cooling”.
There was no obvious sign that they were worn out.
My guess would be that in the absence of an obvious problem, only a shock dyno could really tell you if the shocks were still healthy.
Do shocks “degrade” or are they generally good until they fail?
I always thought they were good till the valves inside fail and then it will be obvious because there will be no resistance when you compress them or they won’t uncompress properly.
While shocks can suddenly fail, the more common failure mode is gradual degradation from weal in the seals and valve.
I hope this reply is okay with the site administrations…
Weekend-Racer.com provides shock dyno services and can rebuild your shock if it is found to be out of spec. Check out all the details SE30 Shock Dyno product page.
https://www.weekend-racer.com/spec-e30-bilstein-shock-dyno-service-p_582.html
As an aside, I am the NASA Spec Miata National Director so no funny business is going on here. We’re just offering services that have been used by Spec Miata racers for a few years now. We use the same techniques and parts that the manufacture uses when they rebuild. I can assure you that any shock that flows through Weekend-Racer.com will test 100% legal.
Until the rules change, Weekend Racer cannot rebuild our shocks.
9.3.8.3.2. Other than rebuilding by Bilstein, no modifications of any kind are permitted.
I emailed John about that. Hopefully he can help us get the factory specs so we can publish those and open up rebuilding to shops like Stewart.
[quote=“FishMan” post=57471]Until the rules change, Weekend Racer cannot rebuild our shocks.
9.3.8.3.2. Other than rebuilding by Bilstein, no modifications of any kind are permitted.[/quote]
Over the Winter I called up Bilstein about rebuilding my shocks. They encouraged me to contact one of their venders so that’s what I did. The vender said “BMW E30 shocks? No we don’t do those. We do circle track shocks.”
So I bought new shocks and struts.
Weekend Racer is authorized to rebuild Bilstiens. And all Spec class shocks. He is the MAN.
[quote=“kgobey” post=57477]John is also an official sponsor of SoCal SE30.
Ranger - call John[/quote]
Sorry, your advice is 5months too late. In 3yrs I’ll give him a call.
NASA had to do this for Spec Miata, it’s just a natural progression of the class (to keep parts truly spec). SM’s will be posted soon and I’ll ping my contacts at Bilstein to lend a hand on the SE30 parts.
9.3.8.3. Rear Shocks.
9.3.8.3.1. Bilstein Sport shocks - part number B36-2027 shall be used.
9.3.8.3.2. Other than rebuilding by Bilstein, no modifications of any kind are permitted.
9.3.8.4. MacPherson strut inserts.
9.3.8.4.1. Bilstein Sport insert - part number P36-0335 or P30-0334 shall be used.
9.3.8.4.2. Other than rebuilding by Bilstein, no modifications of any kind are permitted.
As an official rebuilder - authorized by Bilstein - John is allowed as per the interpretation of The NorCal and SoCal Series directors … Scott and Shawn … This is because Bilstein will refer you to the vendor (Weekend Racer) for the rebuild in our area.
I am sure Carter can work towards changing the wording to be more real-world.
There are shocks being custom valved already, this work will go towards monitoring for and removing parts that fall out of the spirit of th class intention.
You can also call midnight oil motorsports in San Diego for more information on this issue. Talk to Seth.
I’m not a lawyer, but again, the rules are pretty clear. Carter needs to clarify… If rebuilding is allowed, we need a dyno standard and allowable variance. It just seems to be more simple to leave rebuilding out of the equation. If allowed I don’t think it can be monitored effectively. I could see pulling a rear shock for a dyno test, but not the fronts.
It would be easier for Carter to simply bless a rebuilder or two. Besides, rules that aren’t enforceable are a mistake. No ones going to know who rebuilds your shocks. And as long as this guy rebuilds it to spec, your shock will pass any test.
The reality is very very few can rebuild these shocks without external modifications. Bilstien can do it but they usually refer you to authorized service providers, which BTW we are not. But, none of the auth service providers can or want to do the work… So if you suspect your socks are not working as they should currently your only alternative is to purchase new? No, I’m sure there are unauthorized service providers who will do them any way that you want.
Like Steve said, I’ll approach Bilstien, just as I did for Spec Miata for them to provide what the performance specs really are. Stewart Development (my shock rebuilder) already has this data (reverse engineering) and will ONLY rebuild SE30’s to that spec. But I think it’s a good idea to get Bilstien’s info and it would provide data-points for tech.
The reality is the first part of the rebuild rule is not enforceable (9.3.8.4.2. Other than rebuilding by Bilstein, no modifications of any kind are permitted). The rule needs to be updated with real specs because if you think all the “spec part number shocks” out there are legal I’ve got a bridge to sell you. Until the rule gets revamped all I can say is if you go through Weekend-Racer.com for a rebuild I can assure they will be 100% legal.
The last thing to know is my company is just the marketing, transaction & customer service portion of the shock rebuilds… Yes we make a percentage on the sale, but my end really is not much. Personally I like offering this service because it is something the racing community needs and if I can help keep the playing field level for spec classes then I feel like am doing my part.
The situation I don’t want to run into is say I am running a 3 year old Bilstein shock and maybe it isn’t working as good as it was when new and falls outside of these “specs”, I don’t want to be DQed because I was too cheap to get it rebuilt or to buy a new one.
Exactly. This sort of thing can happen… Last yr at the NASA Nats the SM winner was DQ’d for a non compliant shock. Now, this person had a history of cheated-up stuff but there were no specific written specs (measurements) of what was or was not legal. There still are some questions as to if his out of compliance shock was rebuilt that way, was damaged/broken or just was a Bilstien manufacturing anomaly.
I’ll make the rule change request. I’m the # rule change requester anyhow and I’ve already run up against this situation where Bilstien didn’t want to rebuild my shocks. Look for it in the '12 rules. Meanwhile, I’d just go ahead and send shocks to the guy for rebuilding. He seems to be a pretty straight up guy. It’s probably not his fault he’s on the left coast.