Jump to content
SAU Community

Recommended Posts

Yeah I used to run a set of those on the race car before I moved to Bilstein/Eibach springs.

I think they were pretty common out of Japan back in the day. The springs probably don't have markings but they are likely to be firmer than you might want, the shocks are probably old and crap by now, and I it looks like the strut tops have pillow ball / ball joints not bushes which are very likely to make knocking noises as they age.

I saw you had another thread as well. You have the option to recondition the Ohlins but the most likely source of a noise is the strut tops which are not always included in new shocks. 

Ah intersting, i didn't think that these were common. 

When you say strut top, do you mean the area where the strut connects to the strut tower in the engine bay?

 

And what do you mean "recondition" the ohlins? Is there an affordable way to get the car to ride better? 

7 minutes ago, kevboost7 said:

Also, are these considered "coil-overs"?

 

Coil over damper, so yes

90% of OEM suspension is "coil over", just no adjustments in them, typically 

22 minutes ago, kevboost7 said:

Are you guys running pillow ball mount or rubber bushing mount?

Almost every street car will have rubber in the strut top. Spherical joints can be a bit too harsh to live with up there.

There is an important point to consider though. Most (Skyline) people call these "strut tops", because they call their suspension units "struts". They are not in fact "struts", in the sense that "struts" refers to MacPherson struts and these are not them. Mac struts carry ALL the suspension loads into the top of the tower. Those being uppy downy bump loads and also lateral and longitudinal loads, because the strut is the upper suspension "arm".

On a Skyline, these are just spring and damper units. Just the spring and damper. They are not a structural part of the suspension. All the lateral and longitudinal loads are carried by the upper and lower arms. The suspension unit just carries the uppy downy loads.

A Mac strut car actually has to have some sort of bearing in the top anyway, to handle the twisty steering motion. But the rest of it is a massive construction designed to carry all those loads. Skyline "strut tops" are simple and small by comparison.

So, where a spherical upper would be VERY harsh on a mac strut car.....it's not quite so bad on a Skyline. I still wouldn't do it though, for a streeter. I have a smattering of sphericals in my suspension and they transmit a million times more noise than poly bushes do.

  • Like 1

I think all the questions got answered except the recondition bit

Shocks tend to fail by:

leaking past seals

loosing pressure / going wallowy

siezing

As you're in the US you would surely be able to find the Ohlins rep in country who can organise to rebuild them to original spec; which was probably pretty good. They are a top 25% quality damper, not cheap crap

  • Like 1
9 hours ago, GTSBoy said:

Almost every street car will have rubber in the strut top. Spherical joints can be a bit too harsh to live with up there.

There is an important point to consider though. Most (Skyline) people call these "strut tops", because they call their suspension units "struts". They are not in fact "struts", in the sense that "struts" refers to MacPherson struts and these are not them. Mac struts carry ALL the suspension loads into the top of the tower. Those being uppy downy bump loads and also lateral and longitudinal loads, because the strut is the upper suspension "arm".

On a Skyline, these are just spring and damper units. Just the spring and damper. They are not a structural part of the suspension. All the lateral and longitudinal loads are carried by the upper and lower arms. The suspension unit just carries the uppy downy loads.

A Mac strut car actually has to have some sort of bearing in the top anyway, to handle the twisty steering motion. But the rest of it is a massive construction designed to carry all those loads. Skyline "strut tops" are simple and small by comparison.

So, where a spherical upper would be VERY harsh on a mac strut car.....it's not quite so bad on a Skyline. I still wouldn't do it though, for a streeter. I have a smattering of sphericals in my suspension and they transmit a million times more noise than poly bushes do.

thanks for this explanation, im learning so much about this car. Just when i feel like i figured something out, theres a another part on the car that i need to upgrade lol 

9 hours ago, Duncan said:

I think all the questions got answered except the recondition bit

Shocks tend to fail by:

leaking past seals

loosing pressure / going wallowy

siezing

As you're in the US you would surely be able to find the Ohlins rep in country who can organise to rebuild them to original spec; which was probably pretty good. They are a top 25% quality damper, not cheap crap

interesting, i never thought about re-furbishing the old ones. Would i have to purchase new springs? 

 

and do you have your car lowered? 

Springs can sag over time but that is less likely to be a problem, When you say you don't like the current suspension because it is hard and noisy over bumps that suggests the springs are either OK or potentially too firm. The shocks are more likely to give you a firm feel (where you go into a bump or depression and it feels like you have no suspension at all), particularly if one or more is seized up

The Bilsteins I have in the Stagea are custom valved to be pretty firm because I was towing heaving loads (2500kg) at the time, and they have whiteline springs to match. They have been on there for about 200,000klm and have been rebuilt by Bilstein in between, they would probably be due again some time. The custom setup I have is not readily available any more as the guy who was doing it has moved on. I run the same shock with different valving in the rally/race car which I also find excellent (relatively soft due to the roads we rally on)

You need to start with what you want from the car and then get something to suit that. I think it might have been another thread where you were recommended to talk to MCA or shockworks; I've never dealt with either except one race on MCA golds, but both have an excellent reputation for knowing what they are talking about rather than just selling x thousand units from china.

  • 2 weeks later...

Does the clearance i have make a difference? I'm trying to logically understand it, but if the tire dosen't have that much room to travel up and down, the shocks/springs has to be stiff to prevent it from going through the fender dosent it? If i want a softer ride, does it mean i go up higher? 

or is it possible to keep the car lowered but have it ride good. 

 

gtr3.thumb.jpg.9292fd3b5d4d6b53ffcfd6f0a6572acc.jpg280433746_700422637842604_2078143199084616384_n.thumb.jpg.a48ea3bf4757455522db873aee6dc852.jpgGTR6.thumb.jpg.4af92cdb4b4972983f3a7daaaa9e34b3.jpg

That depends mostly on the width and offset of your wheels and tyres, and a little on your camber.

If you want to know if you can lower your car with the current wheel/tyre combo, jack up a corner, take the shock out and use a second jack under the wheel to push it up to the top of it's travel. If it doesn't hit the guard in that range of travel you can lower it without wheel contact.

Same at the front, except you should repeat the test at full left and full right lock as well.

If it is going to touch on the way past you can

1. not lower it

2. roll the guards which folds back the lip on the inside of the guard for another 1 cm of clearance. This can cause the pain to crack inside the guard and at the fold, and I wonder if yours has already been done due to paint chips in the second pic

3. flare the guards, similar process as 2 but you continue pushing until the guards are pushed out a little. Done carefully this can be hard to notice, but done badly it will look totally crap

4. shorter the top upper suspension arm. This will give you mode camber at all times which might cause tyre wear depending on your current settings, but as camber increases as the wheel goes up it also helps the wheel tuck into the guard on the way

5. buy better fitting wheels/tyre combo

  • Like 2

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

    • Update 3: Hi all It's been a while. Quite a lot of things happened in the meantime, among other things the car is (almost) back together and ready to be started again. Things that I fixed or changed: Full turbo removal, fitting back the OEM turbo oil hardlines. Had to do quite a bit of research and parts shopping to get every last piece that I need and make it work with the GT2860 turbos, but it does work and is not hard to do. Proves that the previous owner(s) just did not want to. While I was there I set the preload for the wastegates to 0,9bar to hopefully make it easier for the tuner to hit the 370hp I need for the legal inspections that will follow later on. Boost can always go up if necessary. Fitted a AN10 line from the catch can to the intake hose to make the catchcan and hopefully the cam covers a slight vacuum to have less restrictive oil returns from the head and not have mud build up as harshly in the lines and catch can. Removed the entire front interior just shy of the dashboard itself to clean up some of the absolutely horrendous wiring, (hopefully) fix the bumpy tacho and put in LED bulbs while I was there. Also put in bulbs where there was none before, like the airbag one. I also used that chance to remove the LED rpm gauge on the steering column, which was also wired in absolute horror show fashion. Moved the 4in1 Prosport gauge from sitting in front of the OEM oil pressure gauge to the center console vents, I used a 3D printed vent piece to hold that gauge there. The HKB steering wheel boss was likely on incorrectly as I sometimes noticed the indicator reset being uneven for left vs. right. In the meantime also installed an airbag delete resistor, as one should. Installed Cube Speed premium short shifter. Feels pretty nice, hope it'll work great too when I actually get to drive. Also put on a fancy Dragon Ball shift knob, cause why not. My buddy was kind enough to weld the rust hole in the back, it was basically rusted through in the lowermost corner of the passenger side trunk area where the wheel arch, trunk panel and rear quarter all meet. Obviously there is still a lot of crustiness in various areas but as long as it's not rusted out I'll just treat and isolate the corrosion and pretend it's not there. Also had to put down a new ground wire for the rear subframe as the original one was BARELY there. Probably a bit controversial depending on who you ask about this... but I ended up just covering the crack in the side of the engine block, the one above the oil feed, with JB Weld. I used a generous amount and roughed up the whole area with a Dremel before, so I hope this will hold the coolant where it should be for the foreseeable future. Did a cam cover gasket job as the half moons were a bit leaky, and there too one could see the people who worked on this car before me were absolute tools. The same half moons were probably used like 3 times without even cleaning the old RTV off. Dremeled out the inside of the flange where the turbine housing mates onto the exhaust manifolds so the diameter matches, as the OEM exhaust manifolds are even narrower than the turbine housings as we all know. Even if this doesn't do much, I had them out anyways, so can't harm. Ideally one would port-match both the turbo and the manifold to the gasket size but I really didn't feel up to disassembling the turbine housings. Wrapped turbo outlet dumps in heat wrap band. Will do the frontpipe again as well as now the oil leak which promted me to tear apart half the engine in the first place is hopefully fixed. Fitted an ATI super damper to get rid of the worn old harmonic balancer. Surely one of the easiest and most worth to do mods. But torquing that ARP bolt to spec was a bitch without being able to lock the flywheel. Did some minor adjustments in the ECU tables to change some things I didn't like, like the launch control that was ALWAYS active. Treated rusty spots and surface corrosion on places I could get to and on many spots under the car, not pretty or ideal but good enough for now. Removed the N1 rear spats and the carbon surrounding for the tailpipe to put them back on with new adhesive as the old one was lifting in many spots, not pretty. Took out the passenger rear lamp housing... what do you know. Amateur work screwed me again here as they were glued in hard and removing it took a lot of force, so I broke one of the housing bolts off. And when removing the adhesive from the chassis the paint came right off too. Thankfully all the damaged area won't be visible later, but whoever did the very limited bodywork on this car needs to have their limbs chopped off piece by piece.   Quite a list if I do say so myself, but a lot of time was spent just discovering new shit that is wrong with the car and finding a solution or parts to fix it. My last problem that I now have the headache of dealing with is that the exhaust studs on the turbo outlets are M10x1.25 threaded, but the previous owner already put on regular M10 nuts so the threads are... weird. I only found this out the hard way. So now I will just try if I can in any way fit the front pipe regardless, if not I'll have to redo the studs with the turbos installed. Lesson learned for the future: Redo ALL studs you put your hands on, especially if they are old and the previous owners were inept maniacs. Thanks for reading if you did, will update when the engine runs again. Hope nothing breaks or leaks and I can do a test drive.
    • No those pads are DBA too  but they have colors too. I look at the and imo the green "street" are the best.
    • I’m not sure what happened I told them about sonic tunes free OTS tune and the next the I know .. I was booted..   To funny 
    • Yea - I mean I've seen my fuel pump which is decades old and uh, while I'm not saying this with real knowledge... but I sure get the ick at using anything in the fuel system that produced the state of that pump. Many years ago I went through multiple pumps (and strainers) before I dropped the tank to clean it out with extreme violence. I'm talking the car would do maybe 50km before coming to a halt, which resulted in me cleaning out the filter with some brake cleaner and going on my way. None of my stuff ever looked like what came out of your fuel tank. I don't think I'd be happy with it unless every single component was replaced (or at least checked/cleaned/confirmed to be clean here).
×
×
  • Create New...