Fully Adjustable Coilovers for Drifting and Track Suggestions Needed

[gordon17074]

Fabrication work is no problem for me just thought it would be easier not to. Although if it saves me enough money and gives me as good of a result as pro stuff then by all means.

[e30davie]

yeah theres a company around here that does springs and coilvoer kit including springs for 300aud. I cant recall what i used on my old ones, but it was something simliar.

http://www.otomoto.com.au/p/4116535/hsd-51mm-sleeve-kit-5k.html

If i remember correctly there were two popular sizes of coilvoer spring, 62 ID and 65 ID? just a matter of making sure it matches your sleeve kit.

I used to trawl through shock catalogues looking for short stroke, I used SW20 MR2 rear shocks in my corolla. It wouldn't surprise me if they suit the e30 too. Easy enough to measure I suppose. AE92 fronts were another option for 51mm, just quite a bit shorter than the MR2 ones.

But all of this is not in the "easy and cheap drift setup" category. Go buy the BCs OP:)

[Jb325is]

If you start looking at costs, BC coilovers are like 1000bucks or whatever. Which includes the lot, springs shocks, camber tops, adjustment etc.

A decent pair of camber tops is like 400 bucks on their on. Springs are ~600 a set for a good brand, good quality B8 or higher end bilstin shocks are ~1200bucks.

How on earth can BC make a complete coilover set for 1000? cheap shitty shocks that's how.

I don't see too many people making their own coil-overs in the e30 world. I made some coil overs for my old corolla out of a set of struts, cut them down, welded on a threaded sleave and picked my shock and spring rate. Considering doing the same on the e30. then i can have whatever spring and shock i want with height adjustment as a bonus. on my old corolla i put in cheap KYB shocks at first, then later i upgraded to bilsteins. Used the same modified shock tube/coilover.

Yeah, BC does it cheap because the only thing they modify for every car is the lower cup and the hole pattern on the upper mount- This is why they are height adjustable using the shock body. They use the same threaded shock body for everything, then just modify the lower cup to fit whatever car or strut. Same with Fortune, K-sport, Megan, Kido, D2, etc etc... It's literally the same stuff anodized different colors.

As for DIY coilovers, you can do the same with the e30. Corrado strut inserts are ~3" shorter, so you cut your struts to your desired length (Usually 1.5" to 2.5" shortened) then use a spacer to take up the rest, then buy some cheap sleeves and choose your spring- pretty easy really. I've always used Koni's because the Bilsteins are tough to find as inserts for VW's, but I've heard of people using iX Bilsteins similarly. Ebay is a great place to find used coilover springs, and you can get cheap sleeves from Ireland Engineering (or ebay)

[e30davie]

If you start looking at costs, BC coilovers are like 1000bucks or whatever. Which includes the lot, springs shocks, camber tops, adjustment etc.

A decent pair of camber tops is like 400 bucks on their on. Springs are ~600 a set for a good brand, good quality B8 or higher end bilstin shocks are ~1200bucks.

How on earth can BC make a complete coilover set for 1000? cheap shitty shocks that's how.

I don't see too many people making their own coil-overs in the e30 world. I made some coil overs for my old corolla out of a set of struts, cut them down, welded on a threaded sleave and picked my shock and spring rate. Considering doing the same on the e30. then i can have whatever spring and shock i want with height adjustment as a bonus. on my old corolla i put in cheap KYB shocks at first, then later i upgraded to bilsteins. Used the same modified shock tube/coilover.

[Jb325is]

Yeah it's not even really about that...BC's and Fortunes have some really clicky knobs, and they sell them as 64 way adjustable or whatever. What matters is that each click does the same thing every time and that all 4 corners adjust similarly about the same range, this is where the cheap ones really suck. BC's have like 32 clicks of rebound adjustment, one shock might hit it's whole range in the first 4 clicks and another might not do anything until you get over 15, you just never know. That said, I am sure that there are some Fortunes out there that people have gotten to work really well, I've just never seen a legitimate motorsports outfit running an off-brand damper like that, and that's for good reason (in my opinion). If you're just building a car to go out and have fun, just buy the cheaper stuff and you probably won't notice a difference... When you really start getting into tuning on the car and you think you're being limited by the shocks, buy something better.

[gordon17074]

In my experience certain brands have huge gaps between adjustments. Gaps that would otherwise be the perfect setting, but I guess if there are enough adjustments then you can compensate for that.

[Jb325is]

The brand of coilover kit doesn't define how it 'handles' or the amount of body roll, etc...

Those things are functions of spring rate and shock settings, among other things. Any good coilover 'kit' will allow you to choose the spring rate and will also come with shocks that cover a range of adjustability to suit your driving style and car setup. It doesn't matter if you're running GC, Ohlins, or a DIY kit, if you have a XXX pound springs and XXX compression/rebound valving on the shocks, the car is going to do the same thing. What you're paying for and what will be different between manufacturers is build quality, customer support, consistency, ease of adjustment, etc...

As stated in this thread multiple times, GC is a great start, and is probably the cheapest quality coilover kit that actually works as intended for track use. Anything cheaper like BC, etc... likely have adjustability inconsistencies when it comes to the shocks. The shocks are the most important part, that's what you're paying for. A spring is a spring for the most part.

Pretty much spot on. I would say that the motorsports stuff does have significantly better bump control that is pretty apparent. I actually have a video from our car that shows this a little bit, although not a perfect comparison.

E30 M3 @ Barber- Fresh (1st weekend) Continental slicks 245/40/15 or something. Watch the behavior of the car over the curbing in the kink (~2:54 in the video)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8yDroIkzdWE

E30 M54 @ Barber- Fresh Dunlop Z2 StarSpec street tires. Same part of the track, big curb hit, watch driver's hands (~1:08 in video)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1JEcZXVndao

Lap times were nearly identical I think.

[JGood]

Well specifics as in body roll, stability, etc. Maybe you can compare lap times. Anything quantifiable.

The brand of coilover kit doesn't define how it 'handles' or the amount of body roll, etc...

Those things are functions of spring rate and shock settings, among other things. Any good coilover 'kit' will allow you to choose the spring rate and will also come with shocks that cover a range of adjustability to suit your driving style and car setup. It doesn't matter if you're running GC, Ohlins, or a DIY kit, if you have a XXX pound springs and XXX compression/rebound valving on the shocks, the car is going to do the same thing. What you're paying for and what will be different between manufacturers is build quality, customer support, consistency, ease of adjustment, etc...

As stated in this thread multiple times, GC is a great start, and is probably the cheapest quality coilover kit that actually works as intended for track use. Anything cheaper like BC, etc... likely have adjustability inconsistencies when it comes to the shocks. The shocks are the most important part, that's what you're paying for. A spring is a spring for the most part.

[gordon17074]

Well specifics as in body roll, stability, etc. Maybe you can compare lap times. Anything quantifiable.

[agent]

most people here aren't good enough to know the difference between good and less good or not good at all.

Quoted for future sig use.

[Jb325is]

I thought you wanted specifics, then you ask how it "handles"? My answer to that would be, good. The GC handled good too but not quite as good. I'm sure BC's handle good as well, probably less good than the others. That said, most people here aren't good enough to know the difference between good and less good or not good at all.

[gordon17074]

So how would you say it handles compared to the GC system you had before, and which GC system did you have?

[Jb325is]

I have MCS 2-way remotes. A little overkill for most, but my car is a shared-seat enduro race car (in the making) so the baller shocks make it easier to talk good drivers into driving it. Each click of adjustment does what you'd expect it to every time and the technical support is amazing. I wouldn't say I'm super knowledgeable and definitely not super fast yet, but I am pretty interested in chassis/damper tuning and learning about it from multiple perspectives, so I wanted to go with a known quantity. They offer a less-expensive single adjustable kit, also bolt-on for an e30, that is a pretty good deal IMO but if you think GC is expensive you're going to think these are crazy. I do recommend going with GC camber plates regardless, I have them on my MCS and really like them.

I did have a full GC kit on my car a long time ago too and it was a really nice happy medium between street/track/autocross.

[gordon17074]

So what do you run and how do you like it?

[Jb325is]

What do you want to know? Generally I think drift setups are not very damper dependent, more on geometry, and even then most people just bolt random parts on the car for steering angle and that's the end of the thought process. Lots of people run cheap shocks like BC, Fortune and have no issues.

For track use, BC/Fortune are pretty useless IMO, but it all depends on what you want to do at the track. If you're just going to have fun, you'll be fine with whatever, if you're actually trying to learn and tune on the car, do not buy BC/Fortune/etc. They are cheap shocks and won't give you consistent performance or feedback