Whoodoo
Well-known member
Hey everyone, I am throwing around the idea of building my own custom coilovers using evo MR bilsteins. I have already played around with evo suspension, but never really got the ride height I wanted and I was not satisfied with how the springs ended up sitting. I'm also pretty sure I messed up the spring rates pretty badly. Don't get me wrong, the suspension feel improved greatly over the 20 year old stockers, but I was never really happy with the tradeoffs required to make it work.
First of all, I have to give credit where credit is due. Dennis Grant of Far North Racing has put a lot of time and effort into his online book 'Autocross to Win', and it is chock full of very useful information and lots of his own personal insights. If you havent read it, you should. His work with suspension has inspired me to do some of my own.
Here is what I have mapped out to do so far for this project:
1) buy MR bilsteins
2) modify rear bottom mounts like any other evo suspension
3) cut off old spring perches and add a snap ring groove for the coilover sleeve
4) add a schrader valve at the bottom for filling the nitrogen chamber
5) slap on the coilover sleeve and spring, do all the necessary mods to the top hat and pillowball mount
In order to do this, I'll need to source a few items
-bilsteins (~$300)
-schrader valve (~$5 ea x 4 = $20)
-torrington bearings and races (~$40 for all of them)
-coilover sleeves
-springs (hypercoils are ~$75 ea x 4 = $300)
-maybe some helper springs (hypercoils are ~$35 for a set)
-maybe a bilstein rebuild of the shocks need it (~$100)
So, I'm looking at around $900 (depending on how much the sleeves cost) plus some of my time for a complete coilover setup that can potentially be tuned specifically for my own car. Not bad i would say. Here's where i would like some advice. I have looked and looked for decent coilover sleeves that are long enough to use helper springs (7in), but I am unsure about quality and the functionality of the locking mechanism on the bottom spring perch. Most of the ones I have found use a set screw on the bottom spring perch to lock it down. It seems to me like that could potentially mess up the threads on the aluminum sleeve. I would love to find a set that has a second locknut instead, but it looks like you can only find those in the cheap ebay kits which have short sleeves. Can anyone give some insight on the different locking mechanisms and/or give suggestions on where to find good quality but inexpensive sleeves?
First of all, I have to give credit where credit is due. Dennis Grant of Far North Racing has put a lot of time and effort into his online book 'Autocross to Win', and it is chock full of very useful information and lots of his own personal insights. If you havent read it, you should. His work with suspension has inspired me to do some of my own.
Here is what I have mapped out to do so far for this project:
1) buy MR bilsteins
2) modify rear bottom mounts like any other evo suspension
3) cut off old spring perches and add a snap ring groove for the coilover sleeve
4) add a schrader valve at the bottom for filling the nitrogen chamber
5) slap on the coilover sleeve and spring, do all the necessary mods to the top hat and pillowball mount
In order to do this, I'll need to source a few items
-bilsteins (~$300)
-schrader valve (~$5 ea x 4 = $20)
-torrington bearings and races (~$40 for all of them)
-coilover sleeves
-springs (hypercoils are ~$75 ea x 4 = $300)
-maybe some helper springs (hypercoils are ~$35 for a set)
-maybe a bilstein rebuild of the shocks need it (~$100)
So, I'm looking at around $900 (depending on how much the sleeves cost) plus some of my time for a complete coilover setup that can potentially be tuned specifically for my own car. Not bad i would say. Here's where i would like some advice. I have looked and looked for decent coilover sleeves that are long enough to use helper springs (7in), but I am unsure about quality and the functionality of the locking mechanism on the bottom spring perch. Most of the ones I have found use a set screw on the bottom spring perch to lock it down. It seems to me like that could potentially mess up the threads on the aluminum sleeve. I would love to find a set that has a second locknut instead, but it looks like you can only find those in the cheap ebay kits which have short sleeves. Can anyone give some insight on the different locking mechanisms and/or give suggestions on where to find good quality but inexpensive sleeves?