Cosmo coil over for the track???

[DSP74]

[quote=nando;1120294 Would you argue anything out of china even closely matches the quality and design that goes into Vorshlag's camber plates? [/quote]


The bearings in their plates ARE MADE IN CHINA. (or at least were) And there are plenty of people who love those plates.

[nando]

Again, apples and oranges..

I never said nothing that came out of china was quality - I don't know how vorshlag decides on what bearings to use in their plates, but I doubt they are getting them based on price alone. In fact, I would bet that the bigger bearing companies have simply moved their production to china - where labor is cheaper and enviromental and safety standards are lax.

It's up to vorshlag to make that decision - they have the capability to test many different possible parts/vendors and decide which one is the best for them. I bet they get decent customer service from their suppliers as well, with the volume of bearings they are purchasing. That is not a position that many self funded E30 racers are in - I don't have the time or the money to do that on my own. Do you?

[red]

My friend has an STI with Tein coilovers, the dampening is adjustable from inside the car. So I'm sure its not impossible...

[z31maniac]

My friend has an STI with Tein coilovers, the dampening is adjustable from inside the car. So I'm sure its not impossible...

Yup they just have a little electric motor over the adjuster knob.

[Fair!]

Wow... I make one little crack about cheap Chinese sourced suspension kits and look at this mess... :p At least it spawned a good discussion. Sorry to take it so far off on a tangent but I'm getting dragged here...

Hey man, I think I've been in correspondance enough with you for you to know that I'm not out to ruffle your feathers.....

But, my issue with this whole thing is the 'mindset' such as above.....Everyone assumes cheap is junk. Which may not be the case.

True. We often have the lowest price on certain things we manufacture (mostly because we don't have hideously high margins for BMW products), and for that we sometimes get lumped in with lower end products. Luckily we've been around long enough for our reliability history to be extremely strong, and the products have been in enough hands and in front of enough eyes to show how much better built our parts tend to be than the similar cost products. There is always a perceived quality:cost ratio... but yes, many times it is deserved.

For instance: build shocks in The Netherlands, with a modern factory and $50M in CNC centers using decades of racing and shock building experience... then go send one of their shocks and knock it off in a random factory on the other side of the world, where you can pay a 70 year old grandma $2/day to make similar parts. A factory that's never seen nor heard of a "shock dyno" and that does zero actual testing. Which will be cheaper? Which would you feel is going to have the most consistent quality? Innovation? Support?

There are levels to everything........For instance compared to AST4300's or Motons, JRZ, etc, Ground Control and Koni's are JUNK!!!!

Well we don't compare ASTs to twin tubes, ever. There is not a good comparison, because it is apples to oranges. Of course Koni makes monotube adjustables (the 2800 series) and that's a more fair comparison - and they tend to cost 5 to 10 times more their own twin tubes do.

Now the recent Chinese knockoffs shocks (even "monotubes") are funny... we get these e-mails almost daily showing pictures (usually only CAD renderings) for some new company that's ripped off somebody's shocks... The wording and descriptions are usually all jacked up, of course, until they get a U.S. rep to cover for them. The problem is you have some factory building something they have never used on any car, and don't really know what they are copying. They can just reverse engineer something, and make brackets similar to a stock strut so it "fits a car", but don't know what "valving" is or what materials or coatings everything should be made with, much less what tolerances to use everywhere. And innovation? Forget it.

This is why almost all of the Chinese built knockoff shocks have "adjustable preload" mounting brackets, so they can stick one insert into a bunch of applications... they often brag on that as a feature! That's really just a crutch so "one size fits all". Cracks me up when I see people on forums bragging on "24 way adjustable shocks" (which is utter nonsense - they are usually 1-way adjustables with 24 detents) and then ask us why we don't have adjustble length bodies on all of our struts. Bah! Because we make strut bodies specific to each car, not some junky bracket and a universal insert... but I digress.

There is just some really some bad information out there.

To most of these guys they think that the Cosmo setup is junk. It's all based on personal opnions rooted in the 'you get what you pay for' thought process. WHICH GENERALLY IS TRUE. China doesn't necessarily mean JUNK does it? You plate bearings aren't junk are they?

The bearings in their plates ARE MADE IN CHINA. (or at least were) And there are plenty of people who love those plates.

Well you baited me here, twice, and you got it wrong - so now I have to answer. :) The "bearings in our plates" are most definitely not made in China. The spherical bearings (the most important piece of the puzzle) we use in all of our camber plate designs are made in the USA. Link to tech article. They are hugely expensive compared to the Chinese equivalent and/or Commercial line of sphericals other manufacturers use, but we won't skimp on this most crucial part. We've also never had to replace a single spherical bearing in 5+ years of manufacture of the MotorForce/Vorshlag design (this is also due to the over sized nature and higher quality version we picked).



Now the sealed radial single- and double-row ball bearings we use in our upper spring perches that go with our plates are sourced from Asia - because there are no U.S. sources anymore. :( The American bearing manufacturers have given up on certain things, but luckily this radial bearing is a hard one to screw up, plus our designs are so massively and completely over-engineered, and it hasn't been an issue. We've never had one of these returned or replaced, either. Also, there's still levels of quality from Chinese sources - we could pay half for a cheaper version, but we don't.

We do go to great lengths to avoid the lowest bidder sources on everything we make or buy, and virtually everything we make is sourced from U.S. or European manufacturers. The temptation to move something we machine over to China is great, and the dollars you can save are significant, but it won't be long before it shows up cloned on fleaBay and/or before you start to have tolerance/material/quality issues. We have avoided this completely.

As for remote adjustability for shocks, well anyone can do that. Tokico did that more than a decade ago. Tein is doing it on some of their shocks now. The OEMs do it on some shocks that come in modern sports cars. A little stepper motor rotates an adjuster on all four shocks all at once (but I have not seen one that can adjust Front and Rear independently, which is where they fail for racers). AST has remote adjusters for certain applications; we even have remote ride height adjustability if you want to spend the money. Its mostly all a gimmick, except for applications where access to the adjuster is poor or nill. For that we have a cool (manual) cable adjuster that can route the knob up to 24" away and around corners. Our Mini Cooper and Mazda RX8 AST4100 kits have that cable adjuster included, as do several others we make.


Note the rear shock rebuond knob on an E90 4100 rear shock. It would be completely hidden by the inner fender liner... but at right we have added a remote cable adjuster for easy access from within the trunk or passenger compartment.

Springs so soft? Man I've already been down this road OVER AND OVER again with the F-body guys........

(sounds like a Strano influence...TF) ;)

There are different ways to skin a cat. Just because it feels like a go kart doesn't mean it's better. Keep the tire happy with enough static negative camber and enough roll resistance to maintain that camber, and tune the responsiveness of the car with SHOCKS, then WHO CARES how you acheive the same end result.......

I didn't mean to say that "stiffer was better", as this obviously isn't the case, but that the "Cosmo kit" only included one set of fairly soft springs, which is good since it can be used on any strut/shock combo - not necessarily one tuned to dampen higher spring rates. That's a good thing.

And sometimes a suspension is so poor that stiffer rates are better because it limit suspension movement and roll - and camber loss, toe change, etc. Its a bit of a crutch when you are stuck with bad geometry, but it can work. Of course you can go to far, and people often do. BMWs don't exactly have uber designs... they are all struts up front, for instance.

By the way, Sam Strano is a dealer for Vorshlag and AST. We hope to have more products for the type of customers he services (05-up Mustang, C5 Corvette, F-Body, Subaru, EVO, and BMW) very soon.

[JGood]

By the way, Sam Strano is a dealer for Vorshlag and AST. We hope to have more products for the type of customers he services (05-up Mustang, C5 Corvette, F-Body, Subaru, EVO, and BMW) very soon.

Really? He can get any of your products?

[rwh11385]

WOW! Great response Fair! Highly informative with supporting pics, noncombative, and mature.

Let's compare:

http://www.r3vlimited.com/board/showpost.php?p=1120763&postcount=17

I wonder who people are going to be more prone to buy from... :)

[DSP74]

Wow... I make one little crack about cheap Chinese sourced suspension kits and look at this mess... :p At least it spawned a good discussion. Sorry to take it so far off on a tangent but I'm getting dragged here...


True. We often have the lowest price on certain things we manufacture (mostly because we don't have hideously high margins for BMW products), and for that we sometimes get lumped in with lower end products. Luckily we've been around long enough for our reliability history to be extremely strong, and the products have been in enough hands and in front of enough eyes to show how much better built our parts tend to be than the similar cost products. There is always a perceived quality:cost ratio... but yes, many times it is deserved.

For instance: build shocks in The Netherlands, with a modern factory and $50M in CNC centers using decades of racing and shock building experience... then go send one of their shocks and knock it off in a random factory on the other side of the world, where you can pay a 70 year old grandma $2/day to make similar parts. A factory that's never seen nor heard of a "shock dyno" and that does zero actual testing. Which will be cheaper? Which would you feel is going to have the most consistent quality? Innovation? Support?


Well we don't compare ASTs to twin tubes, ever. There is not a good comparison, because it is apples to oranges. Of course Koni makes monotube adjustables (the 2800 series) and that's a more fair comparison - and they tend to cost 5 to 10 times more their own twin tubes do.

Now the recent Chinese knockoffs shocks (even "monotubes") are funny... we get these e-mails almost daily showing pictures (usually only CAD renderings) for some new company that's ripped off somebody's shocks... The wording and descriptions are usually all jacked up, of course, until they get a U.S. rep to cover for them. The problem is you have some factory building something they have never used on any car, and don't really know what they are copying. They can just reverse engineer something, and make brackets similar to a stock strut so it "fits a car", but don't know what "valving" is or what materials or coatings everything should be made with, much less what tolerances to use everywhere. And innovation? Forget it.

This is why almost all of the Chinese built knockoff shocks have "adjustable preload" mounting brackets, so they can stick one insert into a bunch of applications... they often brag on that as a feature! That's really just a crutch so "one size fits all". Cracks me up when I see people on forums bragging on "24 way adjustable shocks" (which is utter nonsense - they are usually 1-way adjustables with 24 detents) and then ask us why we don't have adjustble length bodies on all of our struts. Bah! Because we make strut bodies specific to each car, not some junky bracket and a universal insert... but I digress.

There is just some really some bad information out there.






Well you baited me here, twice, and you got it wrong - so now I have to answer. :) The "bearings in our plates" are most definitely not made in China. The spherical bearings (the most important piece of the puzzle) we use in all of our camber plate designs are made in the USA. Link to tech article. They are hugely expensive compared to the Chinese equivalent and/or Commercial line of sphericals other manufacturers use, but we won't skimp on this most crucial part. We've also never had to replace a single spherical bearing in 5+ years of manufacture of the MotorForce/Vorshlag design (this is also due to the over sized nature and higher quality version we picked).



Now the sealed radial single- and double-row ball bearings we use in our upper spring perches that go with our plates are sourced from Asia - because there are no U.S. sources anymore. :( The American bearing manufacturers have given up on certain things, but luckily this radial bearing is a hard one to screw up, plus our designs are so massively and completely over-engineered, and it hasn't been an issue. We've never had one of these returned or replaced, either. Also, there's still levels of quality from Chinese sources - we could pay half for a cheaper version, but we don't.

We do go to great lengths to avoid the lowest bidder sources on everything we make or buy, and virtually everything we make is sourced from U.S. or European manufacturers. The temptation to move something we machine over to China is great, and the dollars you can save are significant, but it won't be long before it shows up cloned on fleaBay and/or before you start to have tolerance/material/quality issues. We have avoided this completely.

As for remote adjustability for shocks, well anyone can do that. Tokico did that more than a decade ago. Tein is doing it on some of their shocks now. The OEMs do it on some shocks that come in modern sports cars. A little stepper motor rotates an adjuster on all four shocks all at once (but I have not seen one that can adjust Front and Rear independently, which is where they fail for racers). AST has remote adjusters for certain applications; we even have remote ride height adjustability if you want to spend the money. Its mostly all a gimmick, except for applications where access to the adjuster is poor or nill. For that we have a cool (manual) cable adjuster that can route the knob up to 24" away and around corners. Our Mini Cooper and Mazda RX8 AST4100 kits have that cable adjuster included, as do several others we make.


Note the rear shock rebuond knob on an E90 4100 rear shock. It would be completely hidden by the inner fender liner... but at right we have added a remote cable adjuster for easy access from within the trunk or passenger compartment.


I didn't mean to say that "stiffer was better", as this obviously isn't the case, but that the "Cosmo kit" only included one set of fairly soft springs, which is good since it can be used on any strut/shock combo - not necessarily one tuned to dampen higher spring rates. That's a good thing.

And sometimes a suspension is so poor that stiffer rates are better because it limit suspension movement and roll - and camber loss, toe change, etc. Its a bit of a crutch when you are stuck with bad geometry, but it can work. Of course you can go to far, and people often do. BMWs don't exactly have uber designs... they are all struts up front, for instance.

By the way, Sam Strano is a dealer for Vorshlag and AST. We hope to have more products for the type of customers he services (05-up Mustang, C5 Corvette, F-Body, Subaru, EVO, and BMW) very soon.

To clarify someone on here posted a picture of your plate and one of the visable bearings clearly had China on it. Not sure of which bearing etc, I shouldn't have drawn the conclusion all bearings were made in china. My bad..........But even still (and this may be a never ending discussion back and forth) MY POINT was that just because something is from china doesn't automatically mean junk........


As far as the Cosmo coilovers in question....I'm going to buy them.....I don't feel they can go wrong here. I like the spring rates. I don't feel that you need HUGE spring rates for teh car to work properly. That is another discussion.....
The adjusters In question are a no brainer. Apparently not anodized which is fine. I don't think that will be a problem. But I still might have them done (could be free for me through a company we work with at my company)

On shocks I without question agree with you. On about all accounts.....Having said that I would like to point out that with big money shocks the biggest advantage you are paying for is linearity in adjustment and accuracy or valve's shock to shock. Which isn't to say that isn't important as it's huge. Anything otherwise starts to negate ANY advantage to an adjustable shock...........

On cheap adjustable shocks............Alot of supposed 1 way adjustable shocks have so much cross talk between rebound/compression that to increase rebound damping to any kind of useable level, the compression is SKY high also-------DUMB.

I didn't know that Sam sold your stuff. I didn't ask since you were a small "autoxer" business company too.......Again I think that customer service is VERY important. And is why I would have to go through Sam. There isn't a parts supplier around that would be in the rain, helping you work on your car or under a trailer in 114 heat indexes with a hot car right off course on top of it, again working/looking over your car......

What I really want are those slick 4300 rear shocks with resevoirs. Droop travel is good. The price is bad.

[Hallen]

Which isn't to say that isn't important as it's huge.

What?:crazy:

[Aptyp]

All i have to say. You get what you pay for, and really doesn't matter where it's built.