Cool writeup, after riding it let us know what you think!!!

The categorization of certain coilovers as "grip" or "drifting" is mostly a myth . . . all cars can benefit from better suspension, regardless of what they're used for.

There are smarter people than me that can explain it better, but my view is the level most drifters are at, the coilovers they have really don't matter. Drifting is, technically speaking, the sport of pure car control for car control's sake- not for the sake of outright speed around a track (why do you think there's no clock?). Most of the crappy coilovers out there have high spring rates with insufficient damping or improper damping characteristics. Since most people just wanna get sideways for the fun of it, however, the suspension flaws are simply irrelevant.

Better coilovers come with better dampers that supply enough compression and rebound damping to allow springs to compress and decompress gradually in a controlled manner, rather than simply slamming up and down (no damping at all, bouncy) or worse . . . springs so stiff that they don't compress at all, turning the car into little more than a shopping cart.

I'll let someone smarter than me take over.

wow! excellent write up!

quick question though, do the aftermarket shock bodies allow for more wheel clearance? and do they let you place the shock lower to get more travel out of it? I have an off-the-shelf koni/GC setup and those are my two complaints. with the car on the ground the shock is towards the bottom of its travel. and there is very little clearance between the spring perch and the tire sidewall. it kinda limits me to how wide a tire i can stick in the front.

been running the 8611's for about the same time as mccoy has. I got 8611's up front with 550lb GC kit and Koni Yellows in the back with 400lb GC's. I saved money buying used yellows.
Had D2's, KTS, and Tein Flex's on my 240s. these are by far the best setup I think I can get for the money. I'd spend around 2000 for a comparable coilover setup. I've done a bunch of track day with these and every time someone rides with me they are amazed at how well they perform.

I would say these are more ideal for track day, autox, road racers, cause most drifters won't spend the money. as i wouldn't either if i was planning on hitting shit with my car.

my most recent picture with V3 housings, i'm not looking to get the car as low as possible, so ride height is not a problem especially since the shock travel is somewhat low with 550lb springs.
http://home.comcast.net/~yourmom.124/100_1374r.jpg
This is full camber, 17x9 +22 RPF1's, 245 re-o1r.
http://home.comcast.net/~sr20s13/100_1183.JPG

I just realized a blindingly simple solution to the barrel-shaped springs problem. I have two barrel shaped springs and two consistent diameter springs.

I can just put the barrel shaped ones in the back, where there's loads and loads of clearance. Gah. I'm stupid.

From what other owners have said, there's way more space with these housings.

Do you really want your 8k springs in the back and your 6k up front?

fuck

i was solely thinking in terms of length

forgot all about rate

shoot me

^^ But you can try it to se how is the feeling of the car (6k front and 8k on the back) and adjust bound and rebound of the shocks towards your desire. If you don't like it then change them again.

i wanna do this setup, wish it was a bit cheaper though...

Used GC hardware and tein plates, 8610's up front and koni yellows out back is going to be the most cost effective way to go. Probably in the $1500 range if your a good shopper... I ran this setup for a while, minus the adjustability, it rode as nice as the 8611F/8610R setup I have now.

what do you think of the upper camber plates sold by delubozparts on ebay? ~$90 shipped...
oh and what koni yellows for the rear would you use if using z32 rear uprights?
also what is the model of 8610 series you would recommend, since i noticed the numbering goes 8610-xxxxSPORT

Great write-up, thanks for the comprehensive presentation!

correct me if I'm off, but aren't the 8611 shocks with the 2-way externally adjustable rebound & compression?
How many ppl would even benefit from that feature?

Seems the the 'off the shelf' koni yellows would be a much cheaper solution.
IIRC, a set of ots regular yellows would be around $500.
maybe saving a few hundred off the total price.

That could be a more cost effective alternative,
if fine tuning the rebound & compression isn't a necessity.

I've had the OTS Koni yellow w/ GC w/ custom rate setup on my old civic & miata with great results.
Then again, the cars were only for occasional track/autoX events,
not built for competition use.
Maybe most of us here could probably skimp on the 8611 shocks for regular Koni yellows.

Def uses the deluboz plates, so they seem fine. I believe others on NissanRoadRacing.com use them as well.

I don't know which Koni yellows are best for z32 rears. Purely speculation on my part, but an S13 might be able to use the Z32 application, since i believe they are the right length. An s14 is different, so i have no idea. Best to call up Koni?

As for the 861x series . . .

Front:
8611-1257 or
8610-1436

Rear:
8611-1258 or
8610-1436

DOUBLE CHECK WITH VEILSIDE180SX BEFORE ORDERING, no sense ordering the wrong one

The only difference is the length, i think.

Someone should correct me if I'm wrong, but i believe the Yellow doesn't let you go as low . . . if that doesn't matter to you, then it doesn't matter :)

Maybe I missed something, but what was the benefit of the housings?
Does it have to do with lowering and/or inside/outside clearance?

Just contemplating potential cost-cutting measures & the respective trade-off's.
8611 are indeed badass shocks however you look at it though.
would they require more frequent rebuilds?

Need to get back reading more stuff on that Nissan Road Race forum.
Good stuff there!

The housings go lower and allow for more travel when low, they also provide more inside clearance.

Plus measuring and cutting up housings yourself requires labor and tools. If you can do it yourself, more power to you . . . but its more than i can do.

Got it, so the housings are pretty much the solution to the whole Koni/GC compatibility issue with 240's from the beginning.
Not a cheap part, but I can certainly see it's value!

Be interesting to see how much lowered your car is, and comparative driving impressions.
Pls keep us informed.

Thanks!

Richard's housings (front) work with 8610s and 8611s. I don't know if they work with yellows. 8610 are single-adjustable and less expensive than 8611.

On the rear of my S13, I used Eclipse shocks (p/n 8041-1208Sport). These are externally adjustable, WITHOUT needing to remove them from the car. They have adjusters at the top of the strut shaft just like the 86xx stuff. The S13 yellows must be removed from the car to adjust. For a few more bucks the Eclipses work great. I have no idea if they'd work with an S14 though - the Eclipse shocks are a few millimeters shorter than the S13 shocks, which doesn't matter when the car's lowered. I understand the S14 shocks are substantially longer though, so they might not work.

for yellows, you can just use the stock housings.

brilliant thread! thumbs up

To clarify: the yellows are inserts in the front, stand-alone in the rear

I have heard of people using ots front koni's in the rear so they can be externally adjustable.

I am also thinking rebuilding a megan street coilover set and putting koni's in them, anyone have any experiences? or measurements of the ots yellows?

Some points to add, I have a Koni setup on the front of mine and spent a bit of R+D time making it work and learned a bit.

The Deluboz plates will work, but I had a lot of trouble getting them to bolt on, after I added the upper springplate to the assembly.
The little shouldered spacer they give you to center the strut shaft in the pillow ball made it so that I could not get thread engagement on the upper strut bolt. I had to make my own spacers, but this may be because of the upper spring plates I used.

If you're cheap, you can do this for about 1/3rd what the OP spent, but his setup is really the way to go if you can save the cash to do it right.
Doing it cheap means one of two things, you're either doing it ghetto as hell (my original setup) or you're going to end up doing some trial and error fitment and making some stuff like I am now.
I used ebay coilover sleeves, threw all of the hardware away but the sleeve itself and the little steel ring they give for the sleeve to sit on, the spring itself is garbage and you shouldn't use it, imo.
But the sleeves themselves are suprisingly good quality and haven't crossthreaded or seized in a year of weather exposure and occasional daily driving. Note, if you're really serious about suspension setup, the cheaper sleeves are coarser in thread pitch than the GC and would probably make it difficult to get the car cornerweighted really well.

Really though, if you're not willing to waste a bunch of your time playing with it, just buy new stuff.
I just saved a shitload of money by buying worn out dampers and having them rebuilt locally, which I was told could not be done but was able to get done for $100 by a circle track shock guy.
They work well now, even if they die soon, I paid so little for them it's no huge loss.
I'll admit that my setup doesn't perform quite as well as OptionZero's, as his is really the best way to do it and uses very good stuff.
Veilside180sx's bodies look WAY better than my current ones, worth the coin for sure imho. Mine are strong, but not the prettiest looking.
I'd have gotten his if I had seen them before I did mine.
However, if you can weld or know someone who can and don't mind doing a bunch of pain in the ass parts gathering from mcmaster and trial and error fitting, you can get a decent setup for less than you'd spend the cheapest of ebay coils if you can get a hookup on used dampers.
I've probably got about $400 in mine total and am pretty happy with the outcome.

Rittmeister, you got any info or pics of the eclipse shock install in the rear? im wondering what the lower perch looks like... can you add a threaded sleeve to them for height/corner weighting? Do they require custom upper mounts or something so the adjustment knob fits?

Id love to have easy access to damper adjustment for all four corners, if possible and I dont want to spend a million bucks... might be just what ive been looking for...

The Eclipse rear (this is NOT a product line from Koni, it's a Koni shock for a Mitsubishi Eclipse) is functionally the same as a Koni S13 rear shock, it's just a few mm shorter overall (doesn't matter if you're lowered) and has a 12mm diameter shaft instead of the S13's 10mm shaft. The larger diameter is necessary to accomodate the adjuster within the shaft, so you can turn the knob at the top to adjust it, instead of removing it from the car like you must do with the S13 shock.

As far as uppers, you just use the Tein plate or the factory mount, with whatever bushings and spacers match up. You can get to the adjuster by opening the trunk. In a coupe you have to cut out some of the trunk trim, but if you've got an upper strut bar you already did that anyway.

For threaded sleeves, you use Ground Control just like with the front. No offense, but Duh! :D

Here's a pic the first time I installed it, before removing it to ditch the GC upper mount in favor of a Vorshlag unit.

http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c8...3/IMG_2215.jpg

And here's a detail of the top, after some surgery, but showing the adjuster etc.

http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c8...IMG_2258-1.jpg

Like in OptionZero's directions, you just need a spacer under the Tein mount, and a bronze bushing from McMaster to match the Tein plate to the strut shaft. The OD is 18mm and the ID is 12mm, same as the shaft.

Hope that helps.

hell yea man, thats exactly what I was looking for. what's that thing the threaded sleeve resting on? does the shock have a built in spring perch, or just those little rings for them to sit on... like this: http://www.redshiftmotorsports.com/m...er%20Large.JPG

GC sleeve is pretty short, (2"?) but should be legit as long as i get the right length spring... how lowered is your car anyways?

Look at the picture of the housing
there's a perch for the sleeve to rest on

Yeah, the pic shows it. The shock body has a snap ring like the pic you linked, and then the silver perch sits on that.

You can't use a longer sleeve or it sticks above the top of the shock body and the upper assembly could hit it under compression. Bad juju. It doesn't have a huge range of adjustment and you can't slam it to the ground, but then most guys don't understand that if you lower it that far you've compromised your roll centers anyway...

I just put up pics in the Pic Thread - look in the last couple days for a silver S13 coupe with Silvia front and R33 wheels.

damn, that car looks sick. I like the ride height, thats probably about what im going to be going for... I want to run 275/40R17s though so i might want to go just a little lower lower if possible because of the taller tires.

shouldn't break the shock bottoming out or anything... it'll have bumpstops and fairly stiff springs... but will it affect the damping in any other way?
EDIT: just found on konis site that yellows are not position sensitive, neato!

my ball joints are shot... i might get roll center adjusters but i think its lame to pay an extra hundred bucks just for a shank thats a little longer...