Bilstien Shock Discussion

#61

Super secret Bavarian rasberry sauce?

#62

Yup, just need to blow it first.

#63

I talked to James Clay today about this. His take is that we should quit being so hesitant to raise the front of our cars a bit.

#64

Can I squeeze anymore James Clay info out of you lol? Is it just an issue with the front or does the whole car need to be raised? Rack? If whole car needs to be at a higher height?

#65

The discussion with James was about our lack of bump travel due to OEM strut housings and various solutions…one of which being cutting our struts and going to a shorter strut insert. The charm of raising the car’s front end is that it’s free. James’ point was that the idea that “lower is always better” is wrong. Suspension is complicated and there’s lots of variables. But there is one thing that we can most certainly depend on…of the various solutions to our lack of bump travel, raising the front of the car is the cheapest solution.

The discussion wasn’t about the rear nor about the rack.

#66

Im assuminh trimming bumpstops is against the rules. Although, I dont see why its not something to look into as it doesnt effect the valving.

#67

Back when I started with the old springs, I pointed out that there is an advantage to trim the bump stop. Even H&R sends you a document with the springs explaining to trim the bump stop. Now with the new spring setup, the top plate stack up counteracts the bump stop. Where I would be worried now to bottom out the wheel inside the fender before bottoming the bump stop.

#68

Yes, trimming bumpstops is against the rules. The rules are designed to limit cost. Every additional mod the rules allow adds cost. Or adds hassle if you do your own work.

The top plate “counteracts” the bump stop?

Bottoming out the wheel inside the fender? The new springs aren’t an opportunity to lower the front of your car. The springs effort helped us realize that we’ve been driving on our bumpstops all these years. The springs allow us to raise our front ends and get some suspension travel back. Sure, there’s going to be some hardheads that instead lower their cars. . Freedom includes the freedom to pursue bad ideas.

I raised my front end ~20mm.

#69

New setup has less top plate stack up. For the same ride height, the shock can travel more before bottoming out.

With that said, in the past, on my other car, I have ran into the issue where my wheel would touch the inside of the fender/whitebody/frame. Basicly, the bump stop was not preventing my wheel from traveling too far, causing weird wheel lockups.

About raising the front end. We can have much better roll centers now! Still studying and would need to take some actual dimensions, but there are basic actions that make good amounts of difference. Biggest advantage is the diameter of our spring.

#70

Just to bring a dead thread back. I bought a car again and noticed it had this “spring upgrade.”

I was surprised that the setup didn’t include a change to shocks. When the vehicle is at full droop I can take the rear spring out. It’s just barely touching the upper perch cone to keep it from falling out on its own. There’s nothing holding it in. I honestly can’t remember if this was a concern at all with the old H&R springs. Even the front spring has a 2" gap at droop. While I’m not so worried about the front, the rear is scary.

Can we at least add travel limiters with straps? Seems like a safety issue. Straps are probably $50 and would at least band aid the issue for a little while.

#71

My car has been on a lift now for a week. At full droop the rear springs are still high enough that the tip of the white plastic cone is inserted a bit, prob .5" into the top of the spring coil. My rear springs are pretty much bottomed out right now so the adjuster isn’t pushing them up anything unusual.

There is discussion elsewhere re. putting in a heavy washer below the springs to reinforce the trailing arm spring perch. Those washers are really thick so that would mitigate your issue a bit. Odd that you’ve got so much spring droop. Post a pic maybe?

#72

Scott,
Forgive my lack of depth of knowledge, but wouldn’t a helper spring “help” this issue? Seems like this spring looseness at full droop was brought up a couple of years ago on FB after some folks starting actually installing these kits, and I don’t remember much about the resulting discussion, and of course can’t look it up on FB.

Something like this, but of course for the SpecE30. Morehead Speed Works Hyperco Helper Spring Set

#73

That’s a very interesting idea. I’d never even heard of the things. You’re MidS region, correct? I’d suggest you write up that idea and send it to Brian as a formal request for a rule change. Talk to him about being allowed to install them on your car for testing. No way they’d get approved without testing.

#74

Yes, technically Mid-South. Brian = Edmonds?

#75

So, the concern is that there is no preload to keep the spring in. I don’t see how this is safe at all? The front is contained within the assembly, but the rear…

#76

I think your point is reasonable. So what now? If you like Patrick’s (HiFiGuy) idea, you could help him submit the rule change request. Or if you have a better idea, you could take it to your region class leader.

Here’s the trick. Folks point out problems all the time, but the # of times that one of those folks spent the time to figure out a solution, win some support, formally write up the solution and submit it to their regional class leader, is so close to zero that…well, it actually might be zero.

So, I’m with you man, but my opinion doesn’t mean much. In fact, my opinion(s) mostly just seem to annoy folks. You feel strongly enough about the issue that you’re willing to put some work into it?

I don’t recognize your forum username btw. Do we know each other?

#77

I think your point is reasonable. So what now? If you like Jay Patrick’s (HiFiGuy) idea, you could help him submit the rule change request. Or if you have a better idea, you could take it to your region class leader.

Here’s the trick. Folks point out problems all the time, but the # of times that one of those folks spent the time to figure out a solution, win some support, formally write up the solution and submit it to their regional class leader, is so close to zero that…well, it actually might be zero.

So, I’m with you man, but my opinion doesn’t mean much. In fact, my opinion(s) mostly just seem to annoy folks. You feel strongly enough about the issue that you’re willing to put some work into it?

I don’t recognize your forum username btw. Your in Cliff’s region, correct? @cpp

#78

The engineering answer is…it depends.

There’s more in play here. I can go back to the H&R springs apparently. It does not surprise me that making a large jump in spring rate without appropriate shock tuning didn’t improve anyone’s lap times.

To fix the shock it needs to be shorter. Looking at the cost of the spring kit and the shocks, there seems to be a few E30 complete adjustable actual race damper sets out there. Is there a non-adjustable shorter shock? I’m all for non-adjustable. I don’t want to spend $0.10 if I don’t have to. BUT, we now have a completely mis-matched setup.

Fixing the short spring can easily be done with limiting straps, though you still have a shock problem. It does appear as though we are sitting on bump stops. No idea if bilstein would be willing to rebuild them with much shorter stops. The rears don’t even have any internal stops (per Bilstein emails recently).

I’m staring at my car I have for sale and knowing I have two options and I hate both of them:

  1. take the coilovers off which means I have to go find new knuckle/uprights. Now I know there are two different sizes so I’ll have to take the current ones off and measure everything. No idea how much two new uprigths are going to run me.
  2. Go buy limit straps and try to find someplace to bolt them in and run significantly underdamped shocks on track while riding on bump stops. You could maybe use helper springs, but the swing arm is on an arc and I don’t see those working all that well.

I mean, there’s a BC turner coilover kit that is $1k total. Wasn’t this ground control spring kit $500 by itself? I think the Bilsteins are $400-500 for the set? I’m looking around at all the options.

#79

The new springs didn’t improve the times of the fast folks. It improved the times of the mid and backpackers–In some cases a lot. We found that at Roebling, which is a fast track, midpack times improved by 1sec and backpackers by 2secs. The result is that the racing became a lot tighter. All good. At tracks with important but slow turns, the improvement was less.

Our rear springs spent a lot of time coilbound. With the new springs they are no longer. Our non-adjustable front height had us resting on the bumpstops all the time. Now we can raise the front and get it off of the bumpstops. What we got with the new springs wasn’t so much increased spring rate but suspension travel.

You have a SpecE30 for sale that has a popular and proven suspension package that you personally don’t like. If it was me I wouldn’t do a thing. I’d just drive on with selling the car. Or, you could channel your concern into a force for good and help out Jay Patrick with his idea.

#80

Loud and clear. Got it.