A little over a year ago, we decided that my brother's supra needed a better suspension that blown stock stuff. I decided that the best solution would be to put something together myself. I'm not too impressed with any of the off the shelf stuff except the stuff that's priced through the roof, so putting together my own setup seemed like the best idea.
I used Bilsteins because of their reputation and I am very impressed. I measured the car, geometry, weights, etc and calculated the spring rates and valving that I wanted to run on the car. I based this on how I wanted the car to handle, how much I wanted the suspension to move and a bunch of other parameters.
The setup is currently using 1000lb/in springs in the front and 600lb/in springs in the back. The setup is very neutral with stock sway bars. I valved the dampers for stiff performance in the low-speed handling region of the dyno curves and valved them to be softer in the high-speed region. The amount of force in the high speed region determines how the car will ride because most of the harshness from the road makes the damper move at higher speeds, but low amplitudes. I think the car feels amazing, very predictable and very well behaved. It's been tested on the road course at Pocono and been to several drift events and works very well for both.
Some valving changes could be made to suit different drivers and styles. And the damper could be stiffer without compromising any ride quality. And since it's more work to take the damper off the car than to revalve the thing, I still like to mess with the valving when I feel the need.
Anyway, enough about that, here are some pics of the setup.
The shocks and accessories as they arrived.
They ship from bilstein with nothing but the piston. No shims, no oil, no gas.
One of the shocks on the dyno.
In the middle of a revalve.
The shocks all put together. I'm using helper springs in the rear to get the car to sit the way I want, but not in the front anymore. I shortened the shafts to get the car to sit lower and they aren't needed anymore.
The fronts mounted on the car. It's an old picture and the setup has slightly changed since then. Like I said below the last picture, no more helper spring in the front.
Here is how the car sits now.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zeByCoXpB3A
Video of the car at a drift event.
http://www.youtube.com/user/wiisass
There's some other video from Pocono on there, but nothing where you can really see how the car behaves in the corners.
As always, these things are always in development. They get revalved if the weight of the car changes much. So they will get totally worked over once the cage is put in and spring rates might even change, we'll see.
I'm also working on a similar setup using Bilstein OE replacements and stock upper mounts for another car. They're going to be using threaded aluminum sleeves for spring height adjustment and they will be valved to match the car and whatever spring rates I decide to run with this other car. I can't wait to get these done, it should cut out a lot of the little problems I ran into with the shocks that are on my brother's car.
Tim
I used Bilsteins because of their reputation and I am very impressed. I measured the car, geometry, weights, etc and calculated the spring rates and valving that I wanted to run on the car. I based this on how I wanted the car to handle, how much I wanted the suspension to move and a bunch of other parameters.
The setup is currently using 1000lb/in springs in the front and 600lb/in springs in the back. The setup is very neutral with stock sway bars. I valved the dampers for stiff performance in the low-speed handling region of the dyno curves and valved them to be softer in the high-speed region. The amount of force in the high speed region determines how the car will ride because most of the harshness from the road makes the damper move at higher speeds, but low amplitudes. I think the car feels amazing, very predictable and very well behaved. It's been tested on the road course at Pocono and been to several drift events and works very well for both.
Some valving changes could be made to suit different drivers and styles. And the damper could be stiffer without compromising any ride quality. And since it's more work to take the damper off the car than to revalve the thing, I still like to mess with the valving when I feel the need.
Anyway, enough about that, here are some pics of the setup.
The shocks and accessories as they arrived.
They ship from bilstein with nothing but the piston. No shims, no oil, no gas.
One of the shocks on the dyno.
In the middle of a revalve.
The shocks all put together. I'm using helper springs in the rear to get the car to sit the way I want, but not in the front anymore. I shortened the shafts to get the car to sit lower and they aren't needed anymore.
The fronts mounted on the car. It's an old picture and the setup has slightly changed since then. Like I said below the last picture, no more helper spring in the front.
Here is how the car sits now.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zeByCoXpB3A
Video of the car at a drift event.
http://www.youtube.com/user/wiisass
There's some other video from Pocono on there, but nothing where you can really see how the car behaves in the corners.
As always, these things are always in development. They get revalved if the weight of the car changes much. So they will get totally worked over once the cage is put in and spring rates might even change, we'll see.
I'm also working on a similar setup using Bilstein OE replacements and stock upper mounts for another car. They're going to be using threaded aluminum sleeves for spring height adjustment and they will be valved to match the car and whatever spring rates I decide to run with this other car. I can't wait to get these done, it should cut out a lot of the little problems I ran into with the shocks that are on my brother's car.
Tim
