Jump to content
SAU Community

Recommended Posts

Well I've had these Bilsteins sitting around for ages so since my car has no engine I thought I'd have a go at putting them in.

First get the car off the ground.

Take the wheels off. This is probably not essential but I think makes it easier.

Undo the bolt holding the brake line to the strut and the nut holding the bottom eye of the shockie as circled.

post-7957-1133159821.jpg

post-7957-1133159869.jpg

A bit of gentle levering gets the bottom eye of the stud/bolt thingie that it's on and the whole thing drops out easy as a slightly wet poo.

To fit the new one, make sure you have the right one because they only go on one side and make sure you get it facing the right way because they only go in one direction. There is a little arrow on the top of the strut.

Slip it up and put the top nuts on loosly just to hold it there.

post-7957-1133160236.jpg

Then you can either lever the shock up onto the stud like in the pic. or put some weight on the brake assembly to push it down. It's a bit hard to put the weight on an manouvre the strut by yourself so that's why I used a lever.

Anyway, after that you redo the bolt holding the brake line onto the shock and the nut holding the shock on and the two on the top of the strut.

post-7957-1133212047.jpg

post-7957-1133212261.jpg

The rear ones will test you Adam ( you will have to remove the rear seat and ) but i'm sure you can do them , give me a buz if you get stuck . Is the donk finished yet ?

It's not too bad mate. Even i've done em. Yeah, you have to take the wheel off, otherwise it just makes it a pain.

Make sure that you do the bolts up tight enough (mainly the bottom one). One of my friend's had the shock come off. Not much fun.

I'll do the rears next weekend and add them to the thread. Maybe then it could be moved to the tutorials section.

The engine is halfway built Mr Hoon :D

I wanted to post a pic of the old shockie to ask people about it. The bit that slides in and out is normally shiny chrome like but this one is black. The other one was normal looking.

Why is that?

most probably it has done a seal and the piston has been coated in the shock oil. does the shock still seem ok? does the black stuff wipe off? if it doesn't then you've got me stumped.

hahaha, Beeer Barron posted while I was posting. Yeah, if it comes off, then it is shock oil (the oil is black)

or if the chrome looks like it's been sanded off, it's scored. besides, the stockos aren't worth anything anyways, so don't worry about it

Edited by MANWHOR3

Nah the other one is chrome like. It doesn't wipe off either. I do know that that is the side that hits the bump stop on the track sometimes. Never the other side. Also there is evidence of it leaking.

Oh well, 95000 and bilsteins going in so who cares really. I was just curious.

Well I've done the rears now (pics to follow as I've left them in the camera) and I'm a little worried.

They were almost as easy to do. You have to remove the back seat and rear parcel tray to get to the top mounting bolts. Also I needed a second person to put some weight on the disc/hub so as to get the bottom part of the shock off and clear.

The bit that worries me is the height. The car was already off the ground when I started so I couldn't measure height.

With the front strust assembly when I took off the top cap bit the spring expanded a few inches past where it was compressed to but the new springs that came with the bilsteins the spring's uncompressed height was the same as when the cap was bolted on. Overall both the bilsteins with new springs (which I would have assumed to be lower than stock and matched to the bilsteins) and the stock shock and springs were the same height when out of the car side by side. The bilsteins may have been up to a cm shorter as I didn't measure them properly.

On the rears I put the bilsteins with springs and the stockers put side by side on the ground and the bilsteins are at least an inch shorter.

Now either the fact that the bilsteins came from a 2 door and my car is a 4 door has just come in to play or this is normal or something else.

Please advise me peoples.

Well I've done the rears now (pics to follow as I've left them in the camera) and I'm a little worried.

They were almost as easy to do.  You have to remove the back seat and rear parcel tray to get to the top mounting bolts.  Also I needed a second person to put some weight on the disc/hub so as to get the bottom part of the shock off and clear.

The bit that worries me is the height.  The car was already off the ground when I started so I couldn't measure height.

With the front strust assembly when I took off the top cap bit the spring expanded a few inches past where it was compressed to but the new springs that came with the bilsteins the spring's uncompressed height was the same as when the cap was bolted on.  Overall both the bilsteins with new springs (which I would have assumed to be lower than stock and matched to the bilsteins) and the stock shock and springs were the same height when out of the car side by side.  The bilsteins may have been up to a cm shorter as I didn't measure them properly.

On the rears I put the bilsteins with springs and the stockers put side by side on the ground and the bilsteins are at least an inch shorter.

Now either the fact that the bilsteins came from a 2 door and my car is a 4 door has just come in to play or this is normal or something else.

Please advise me peoples.

Free height is not an indicator of installed height.

There is no difference between 2 door and 4 door springs.

Lowered rear springs usually have progressive windings which collapse (sit on top of one another) as soon as the weight of the car is placed on them. That is how they remain trapped at full droop (legal requirement), but still result in a lower ride height.

Post up some pictures of the rear springs and I can most likely tell you how much progression there is from the free height coil gaps.

:) cheers ;)

But i do know putting the lower shock bolt back in is heaps easier if you put a jack under the brake disc to get it to the right height.

Duncan,,,If I ever catch you with a jack under a brake disc your gonna look pretty funny walking around with your torque wrench up ya bum.

Neil.

Well I actually had to push the brakes etc down rather than up to get it to fit.

Here are some pics of the top of the strut with the seat out as well as the bottom. It's not a stud arrangement on the bottom, you take the bolt out from through the eyes. I had to use a breaker bar to get the nuts of as they were bloody hard to move.

post-7957-1133906489.jpg

post-7957-1133906558.jpg

post-7957-1133906744.jpg

As you can see from the first pic here I broke a bit off the parcel tray.

When you pull it out you need to push down a little in the corners near the glass so you don't break the little bit like I did. It doesn't really make any difference now as you can't tell I broke it but still.

Sydneykid - the second pic is of the 2 struts side by side. As you can see the bilstein has the spring mounted lower on the shock body than the stock one but that's not where all of the difference in height is coming from.

post-7957-1133906875.jpg

post-7957-1133907413.jpg

This is a picture of a Whiteline rear spring installed in an R34GTT. Bit hard to tell from the angle but the top 2 coils are closer together than the other 5 coils. This ensure that the spring is trapped at full droop (as in the picture). Once the weight of the car is applied those 2 top coils collapse, sit on top of each other and the suspension movement (eg; compression over bumps) is then taken up by the remaining coils.

R34_GTST_Rear_Suspension_Full_Small.jpg

I will be very interested in how you find the handling and ride with your design of rear coil spring.

:P Cheers :D

Edited by Sydneykid

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'm looking for some real world experiences/feed back from anyone who has personally ran a EFR7670 with a 1.05 exhaust housing or a .83 I'm leaning towards the .83 because its a street car used mostly for spirited driving in the canyons roads. I"m not looking for big numbers on paper. I want a responsive powerband that will be very linear to 8000 rpm. I dont mind if power remains somewhat flat but dont want power to drop off on top. The turbo I've purchased is a 1.05, although the mounting flange T3 vs T4 and internal vs external waste gates are different on both housings, I not concern about swapping parts or making fabrication mods to get what I want. Based on some of the research I've done with chat gpt, the 1.05 housing seems to be the way to go with slightly more lag and future proofing for more mods but recommends .83 for best response/street car setup. AI doesn't have the same emotions as real people driving a GTR so I think you guys will be able to give me better feed back 😀   
    • Surely somebody has one in VIC. Have you asked at any shops?  Is this the yearly inspection or did you get a canary?
    • This is where I share pain with you, @Duncan. The move to change so many cooling system pieces to plastic is a killer! Plastic end tanks and a few plastic hose flanges on my car's fail after so little time.  Curious about the need for a bigger rad, is that just for long sessions in the summer or because the car generally needs more cooling?
    • So, that is it! It is a pretty expensive process with the ATF costing 50-100 per 5 litres, and a mechanic will probably charge plenty because they don't want to do it. Still, considering how dirty my fluid was at 120,000klm I think it would be worth doing more like every 80,000 to keep the trans happy, they are very expensive to replace. The job is not that hard if you have the specialist tools so you can save a bit of money and do it yourself!
    • OK, onto filling. So I don't really have any pics, but will describe the process as best I can. The USDM workshop manual also covers it from TM-285 onwards. First, make sure the drain plug (17mm) is snug. Not too tight yet because it is coming off again. Note it does have a copper washer that you could replace or anneal (heat up with a blow torch) to seal nicely. Remove the fill plug, which has an inhex (I think it was 6mm but didn't check). Then, screw in the fill fitting, making sure it has a suitable o-ring (mine came without but I think it is meant to be supplied). It is important that you only screw it in hand tight. I didn't get a good pic of it, but the fill plug leads to a tube about 70mm long inside the transmission. This sets the factory level for fluid in the trans (above the join line for the pan!) and will take about 3l to fill. You then need to connect your fluid pump to the fitting via a hose, and pump in whatever amount of fluid you removed (maybe 3 litres, in my case 7 litres). If you put in more than 3l, it will spill out when you remove the fitting, so do quickly and with a drain pan underneath. Once you have pumped in the required amount of clean ATF, you start the engine and run it for 3 minutes to let the fluid circulate. Don't run it longer and if possible check the fluid temp is under 40oC (Ecutek shows Auto Trans Fluid temp now, or you could use an infrared temp gun on the bottom of the pan). The manual stresses the bit about fluid temperature because it expands when hot an might result in an underfil. So from here, the factory manual says to do the "spill and fill" again, and I did. That is, put an oil pan under the drain plug and undo it with a 17mm spanner, then watch your expensive fluid fall back out again, you should get about 3 litres.  Then, put the drain plug back in, pump 3 litres back in through the fill plug with the fitting and pump, disconnect the fill fitting and replace the fill plug, start the car and run for another 3 minutes (making sure the temp is still under 40oC). The manual then asks for a 3rd "spill and fill" just like above. I also did that and so had put 13l in by now.  This time they want you to keep the engine running and run the transmission through R and D (I hope the wheels are still off the ground!) for a while, and allow the trans temp to get to 40oC, then engine off. Finally, back under the car and undo the fill plug to let the overfill drain out; it will stop running when fluid is at the top of the levelling tube. According to the factory, that is job done! Post that, I reconnected the fill fitting and pumped in an extra 0.5l. AMS says 1.5l overfill is safe, but I started with less to see how it goes, I will add another 1.0 litres later if I'm still not happy with the hot shifts.
×
×
  • Create New...