Jump to content
SAU Community

Recommended Posts

Hey all,

I've been looking through here as my shocks are stuffed, Figured it's about time to put some coil overs in there anyway.

Things i've learned from SAU:

*Get BC's - don't cheap out

* non track car like mine - 6/4 is the go.

Called up justjap to order, and the bloke has strongly advised me to go with 8/6 as with 6/4 it will be "Flopping all over the place"

He's also mentioned I need to confirm wether I have push rod or forks at the back - which is odd, i thought all R34s were the same. Anyway.

Is 8/6 Civilised on the road?

8/6 is not civilised on the road. There are meny people on SAU who run those rates and swear that they're fine, but in reality they are more than double the original spring rate. it makes them very harsh on the road. Smooth roads - fine. Normal roads (manhole covers, rippled bitumen, tree roots, etc etc) - not nice. Even 6/4 is pretty stiff on the road. I wouldn't go any stiffer than that.

The Just Jap guy saying it will be "flopping all the place" needs an uppercut. That's the silliest thing I've ever heard. I have maybe 5.x kg springs at the front of my car, 4.x at the rear. It is very firm, almost unbouncable by hand on the front or rear guards.

My advice would be to not use BCs. In fact, not to use coilovers at all. Contact Sydneykid on here, buy a set of custom revalved Bilsteins and springs from him. Spend a bit more, sure, but get umpteen times better quality gear.

Edited by GTSBoy

Ok, much appreciated man.

shit shit shit, running out of time to get this sorted - Not sure what I'm going to do. I think they want two weeks even if i went with 6/4's because noone has em.

8/6 is very stiff for a road car unless you're on roads that are near perfect or you do a lot of Motorsport. Just jap guy probably only said that because he had 8/6 sitting on the shelf. No idea if 6/4 is any better but yes coilovers are pretty stiff.

I have 8/6 in a 32 (lighter than a 34) and 90% of the time its fine. Hell I drove from Adelaide to Brisbane once with them and they were fine. I do prefer a stiff car though.

The other 10% of the time you will hate them eg. train tracks, speed humps, roads that are shit.

If you want to track it now and then go the 8/6, if its only street driven go softer.

Also I find cars with BCs in them are real bouncy and the damper in them doesn't seem to do the job. May just be how they are set up.

Or if you're not going to go cheap buy tein superstreets and you can change the spring rates from the drivers seat via the built in electronic motor and hand controller. See this for details

Or if you're not going to go cheap buy tein superstreets and you can change the spring rates from the drivers seat via the built in electronic motor and hand controller. See this for details

No you can't change the spring rates from the drivers seat (there is a remote damper adjustment). Note that the spring rates they have chosen for a road and part-time track car are 5/4

  • Like 1

Don't buy BCs.

I did a heap of research before buying my coilovers from Shockworks.. Best purchase I've made thus far PM me if you want more info :)

Or as GTSboy mentioned getting some bilsteins setup for the car, or have a look at MCA coilovers which I believe are about to release some coilovers for the skylines.

Edited by owen1r

BCs imo are the cheaper option... but great for the money ($1100 ish)
with any damper adjustable coil, 6ish are good rates, if you want harder just up the damper a bit but your not gaining anything really by ging to huge rates.

Ok, much appreciated man.

shit shit shit, running out of time to get this sorted - Not sure what I'm going to do. I think they want two weeks even if i went with 6/4's because noone has em.

This is why he is suggesting 8/6

8/6 is pretty hard for a road car, even worse with low profile tyres, worse again when you use sticky low profile road/track tyres

Flopping all over the place is usually a sign of shit shock valving if you have springs in the ball park

This is why he is suggesting 8/6

8/6 is pretty hard for a road car, even worse with low profile tyres, worse again when you use sticky low profile road/track tyres

Flopping all over the place is usually a sign of shit shock valving if you have springs in the ball park

Actually the shock tests on the dyno for the BCs came up surprisingly well!

I'm using bcs and am really happy with them.. Car's not bouncy at all? With dampers on softest it's actually really comfortable to me.

Have also been impressed with their on track performance.

Oh, and I basically threw away a full set of bilstein shocks and hks springs before installing the bcs. Granted the shocks were nearing rebuild time though.

I recently bought a GTT which had some kind of hard jap coilover on them. Nfi what they are, never heard of them.

They are hard.

My previous car has Bilsteins which is the "I WANT EVERY OPTION POSSIBLE" from Sydneykid which I spent over $4000 on for everything.

Pretty much best mod I've made.

After driving the standard GTT with these (conceivably cheap?) hard coils on them, I can immediately feel the difference in trying to drive from what was probably the 'best' (or at least better?) setup vs a cheap set of hard coils.

It's just night and day.

I can also attest Shockworks stuff is good too - Housemate has a S15 with a set and the attention they put in for valving and drivability and most importantly the real question which is

'what do you want the car to be good for?'

'what are you planning to do with the car, please provide percentages'

Which really is the answer as to how good your 'budget' suspension will be.

IMO, save up and buy it once, properly, and you won't regret doing so

(PS, N/A R34's have eyelet rears. Turbos have fork rears)

  • Like 1
...

Called up justjap to order, and the bloke has strongly advised me to go with 8/6 as with 6/4 it will be "Flopping all over the place"

...

BS.

I'm running 6/5 on an R34 sedan and the rates are perfect, very happy I didn't go the standard rates. I've got uprated sways at both ends too.

Don't buy BCs.

I did a heap of research before buying my coilovers from Shockworks.. Best purchase I've made thus far PM me if you want more info :)

Or as GTSboy mentioned getting some bilsteins setup for the car, or have a look at MCA coilovers which I believe are about to release some coilovers for the skylines.

Have you driven a with BCs vs. another one with Shockworks? Hard to compare two setups otherwise...

I had yellow Konis, King Springs and bigger swaybars in my Monaro and the ride quality was excellent. In my experience the ride on the BCs on the Skyline are equivalent.

My ride quality in the Bilsteins vs 'whats on there' was pretty similar, enough that people were saying 'dude just leave these in there and save the trouble!'

Except you could drift the car around quite easily with stock power. Which is great, it was consistent and smooth, but stock power, vs having CONSIDERABLY more actual grip under power... with near on 400rwkw.

Honestly, you have to have your suspension fit your need. If you are only ever going to have 260rwkw in a punchy setup, you prob don't need or want to spend 4k on getting it to hold onto the road, because you don't need it. See housemate's shockworks S15, with 250rwkw it juuussst loses grip on power, but add 100RWKW on it and it'd be undrivable in a straight line.

Srsly the best cars no matter what level they are, are the ones where everything is matched up properly to what you're doing with it.

...

Honestly, you have to have your suspension fit your need. If you are only ever going to have 260rwkw in a punchy setup, you prob don't need or want to spend 4k on getting it to hold onto the road, because you don't need it. See housemate's shockworks S15, with 250rwkw it juuussst loses grip on power, but add 100RWKW on it and it'd be undrivable in a straight line.

...

Back in my LS1 days a lot of people with decent power 300-400rwkw who wanted good straight line traction (read: drags) ended up going back to the stock FE2 suspension in the rear. More travel + softer springs + less inflated tyres = better traction off the line. Your typical coilover has a lot less travel and is much harder than factory suspension, a lot of the Jap stuff I've seen comes with completely outrageous 10 or 12 kg/mm rated springs that have no place on our roads.

Totally agree that you should get your suspension to fit you need. In my case BC + softer springs is a happy balance between ride quality, handling and budget.

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now


  • Similar Content

  • Latest Posts

    • I guess one thing that might be wrong is the manifold pressure.  It is a constant -5.9 and never moves even under 100% throttle and load.  I would expect it to atleast go to 0 correct?  It's doing this with the OEM MAP as well as the ECU vacuum sensor. When trying to tune the base map under load the crosshairs only climb vertically with RPM, but always in the -5.9 column.
    • AHHHH gotchaa, I'll do that once I am home again. I tried doing the harness with the multimeter but it seems the car needed a jump, there was no power when it was in the "ON" position. Not sure if I should use car battery jump starter or if its because the stuff that has been disconnect the car just does send power.
    • As far as I can tell I have everything properly set in the Haltech software for engine size, injector data, all sensors seem to be reporting proper numbers.  If I change any injector details it doesnt run right.    Changing the base map is having the biggest change in response, im not sure how people are saying it doesnt really matter.  I'm guessing under normal conditions the ECU is able to self adjust and keep everything smooth.   Right now my best performance is happening by lowering the base map just enough to where the ECU us doing short term cut of about 45% to reach the target Lambda of 14.7.  That way when I start putting load on it still has high enough fuel map to not be so lean.  After 2500 rpm I raised the base map to what would be really rich at no load, but still helps with the lean spots on load.  I figure I don't have much reason to be above 2500rpm with no load.  When watching other videos it seems their target is reached much faster than mine.  Mine takes forever to adjust and reach the target. My next few days will be spent making sure timing is good, it was running fine before doing the ECU and DBW swap, but want to verify.  I'll also probably swap in the new injectors I bought as well as a walbro 255 pump.  
    • It would be different if the sealant hadn't started to peel up with gaps in the glue about ~6cm and bigger in some areas. I would much prefer not having to do the work take them off the car . However, the filler the owner put in the roof rack mount cavities has shrunk and begun to crack on the rail delete panels. I cant trust that to hold off moisture ingress especially where I live. Not only that but I have faded paint on as well as on either side of these panels, so they would need to come off to give the roofline a proper respray. My goal is to get in there and put a healthy amount of epoxy instead of panel filler/bog and potentially skin with carbon fiber. I have 2 spare rolls from an old motorcycle fairing project from a few years back and I think it'd be a nice touch on a black stag.  I've seen some threads where people replace their roof rack delete with a welded in sheet metal part. But has anyone re-worked the roof rails themselves? It seems like there is a lot of volume there to add in some threads and maybe a keyway for a quick(er) release roof rack system. Not afraid to mill something out if I have to. It would be cool to have a cross bar only setup. That way I can keep the sleek roofline that would accept a couple bolts to gain back that extra utility  3D print some snazzy covers to hide the threaded section to be thorough and keep things covered when not using the rack. 
    • Probably not. A workshop grade scantool is my go to for proper Consult interrogation. Any workshop grade tool should do it. Just go to a workshop.
×
×
  • Create New...