Colorado general chat...

[Roland H]

They do not make a 4000 series for the Mini. What are the advantages of the inverted shock?

Less flex in high-speed and heavy load turns.

I don't like hearing this, I'm about to order some soon! Hasn't Chris been running AST's for a few years? What does a rebuild cost?

I had a set of the original 4200s that Chris had for a while too... Chris ran his for 40k miles or so without issue before they needed rebuilds from what I remember. I ran mine for about 2 years/10k and sold them. Chris now has 4100s IIRC and I'm not sure how far he's made it on those...

I've had two friends with 4100s need their shocks rebuilt twice within the first year, and another friend of mine just dumped his 4200s for a set of JRZs, which is what I would have done if I was building the car for track-only.

They are some of the best riding and handling shocks I've owned, but the long term quality leaves more to be desired. If I ever build another car for track, it will likely have JRZs or better.

[Bimmerman325i]

I also have 4100s (Subaru application) but I can't comment to the long-term reliability of the shocks. They perform well, but my biggest qualm with AST is that they use customers for R&D. Not just for my Legacy, the E36 shock has gone through many revisions as a result of using paying customers as unwitting beta testers. Not good IMO, and I wish I had known that or researched that before I bought mine and ended up being an unwitting Alpha tester.

My experience left a sour note for sure; I'm not as ardent a fan of them as I once was. They do handle amazingly well though, and as far as I can tell they are holding up well. I do want to sell mine though, I just have not been happy with them for maaaaany reasons.

So.....yea. Great product when it works. :shrug:

[iamsam]

^^ this info would steer any potential customer away from AST. I'll stick w/ Konis/Billys and Eibach/H&R.

[CO318is]

Lots of people have needed rebuilds, one of my friends has a set of 4300's on his Evo 6 that he has put less then 10k on since the shocks were installed that already need a rebuild. I would say wait and see what the 4150's are going to look like, they might have made big steps in reliability with the redesign.

[blefevre]

This is a long shot, but I know there are a lot of people that ride bikes here. Does anyone get deals on Cannondales?

[Eric]

^^ this info would steer any potential customer away from AST. I'll stick w/ Konis/Billys and Eibach/H&R.

The E30 already has h&r coilovers which use a bilstein shock. Good stuff, but im looking for a more track oriented kit, not one for street cars.

[Bimmerman325i]

This is a long shot, but I know there are a lot of people that ride bikes here. Does anyone get deals on Cannondales?

My buddy does, but he just used his discount on a new Scalpel 29er

The E30 already has h&r coilovers which use a bilstein shock. Good stuff, but im looking for a more track oriented kit, not one for street cars.

You're using E36 5lug right?

Some options, depending on what class you are building for and what your budget it:

TCK SA or DA kit
GC SA kit, either the E30 or E36-on-E30 kit
AST 4150 (there's a price bump over the NLA 4100s)
Bilstein PSS9, then convert to linear springs
KW V2/V3
Moton SA Street Sport (no remote res)

Bilstein Clubsport DA (new fancy)
JRZ DA
AST 5x00
Moton DA SS
MCS DA


Without knowing your budget and goals it's hard to recommend something.

[Bimmerman325i]

^^ this info would steer any potential customer away from AST. I'll stick w/ Konis/Billys and Eibach/H&R.

My experience isn't normal....but yea, it's hard for me to recommend them.

If you weren't going to rally your car I'd recommend GC or TCK SA coils, but rallying would destroy those.

[downforce22]

anyone ever seen one of these before?

Got a new cluster, i guess it came out of an early e30

[lambo]

It's a clock!

[Eric]

You're using E36 5lug right?

Without knowing your budget and goals it's hard to recommend something.

Nope, everything under the car is E30 M3 bits. From what i've looked at:
old AST4100's/4200's
AST 5100's
JRZ
GC/Advance design.

I've owned GC a few times in the past, and they are not top quality in my opinion. Plus the AD stuff is guaranteed to need rebuilds every season.
5100's are about the top of my budget, or I can get 4100's and run different rubber. I like the option for the 5100's to be expanded into 52/5300's later, which I don't think the 4000 series can do. JRZ is just outside of my price range. My goal is to loose 10 seconds at HPR this year.:weak:

Got a new cluster, i guess it came out of an early e30

Nice, I'm glad you picked that up! That's definitely out of a euro car w/ the fuel in liters and a KM spedo.

[flying_violin]

Had a bit of fun over the weekend...





Swapped it out for a new one tonight, though. All better now! I managed to drive it for 100 miles with the pan in that condition back home. Put six quarts of oil in on the journey, and only got 3 quarts out when I got a bucket under it when I finally parked it for the night!

[Cloudbase]

^ Holy Shit man! You need to buy a lottery ticket.

As far as the shock discussion goes I'm working on a set KW Variant 3's for the M Coupe. I drove the car they were installed on and was very impressed with the ride quality / performance. From what I've read they have pretty good reliability too. Eric consider going back to considering those.

[Eric]

^ Holy Shit man! You need to buy a lottery ticket.

As far as the shock discussion goes I'm working on a set KW Variant 3's for the M Coupe. I drove the car they were installed on and was very impressed with the ride quality / performance. From what I've read they have pretty good reliability too. Eric consider going back to considering those.

I've had V2's on my E34 M5, and V1's on the mini. I believe the V3's are still a twin tube setup like the V1/V2 which are basically custom valved koni's. The E30 only see's track duty, So I figure it was time to put a track only suspension on it.

I did do quite a few laps around the ring ridding in an E30 M3 with KW competition suspension... it was sublime.

[Bimmerman325i]

Another option would be the JRZ RS1s that are coming out this/next month-- call up Bimmerworld. They have an E30 M3 JRZ RS kit, so I'd imagine the RS1s would be possible as well, and would definitely fit your budget.

As for ASTs, the new 4150/4250s are upgradeable like the 5x00 series.