Hmmm, looks like the website I'm hosting from is down currently... it should be back up later I hope. And agreed on a good writeup!

LMFAO

Nice write-up man

heads up for people putting the GC sleeves on

GC supplies some rubber bands that you wrote around the housing and create friction between the housing and the sleeve to hold it in place. Not the most technologically advanced system.

On one side, the rubber band has slid out of place so my sleeve is moving a bit. I don't think it's a huge problem, but I still have to get around to fixing it. I'd have to crack open the locking nut on top which means taking the whole thing off the car.

That and i need to get around to getting helper springs

Just use a few wraps of electrical tape until it's tight. Adjust your springs down and you can do a wrap of tape by lifting the sleeve up.

damn that setup is a grip! my buddy works at ground control and i wanna say they cost waaay less then what you paid

Do you want to clarify what costs way less... the GC coilover kit for $399 or OptionZero's whole suspension setup?

Can someone please take a picture of how far the bottom of the damper housing is from the lower control arm in the front? And how much room is there between the bottom of the damper and the mounting bolt on an S13? I'm looking to drop the shocks as low as possible because I want to be low. I'm guessing Koni doesn't make shorter stroke dampers? I can't seem to get Koni's catalog to load on my computer.

i would like to see lower, not slammed, but lower road race setups...............as a matter of fact how low can this setup go, without compromising roll center, and also has anyone thought of an even more efficient way to keep the springs from unseating...im tuned in

To keep the springs from unseating there's helper springs that are like only 100lbs resistance so when all the weight of the car is on the wheels the helper spring is compress but when weight is unloaded the helper spring expands and fills up the gap between spring and spring perch.

I have the front GC/Koni setup on my S13 with veilsides housings and im pretty low. You can either go really low and have good low center of gravity or sit them higher for correct roll center. Im using 6" long 2.5" ID 500# springs.

Im pretty sure though it can go super low but then you run into problems with the top of the tire hitting top of the fender well. Which im having a problem with at VIR in very heavy load high speed cornering.
Time for stiffer springs??

i have something kinda like this. great autocross setup

I'm looking to run something similar to this on my s13.

But I'd like to use the z32 aluminum uprights and q45 rear end, knuckles, etc.

The two caveats with this setup (IMO) are lack of separate lower perch adjustability, and the clunking issue due to unloading and reseating.

For Honda setups, ground control makes a decent extended tophat to prevent bottoming out the shocks. Is there not a similar Nissan application?

I guess I'll pm Richard to see if he can make those housings threaded with some height adjustment.

Like this... these are richards housings with Koni 8610's in them.
http://www.sr20forum.com/gallery/dat..._installed.jpg

The rears can go pretty low, and with the right spring length you will have pretty good adjustability out back. As for the clunking, I live in a pretty rough area and never hear clunking, even over uneven railroad tracks at speed, so I just don't see this as being an issue.

If you REALLY want to do something about it, just install a tender spring and be done with it.

Those are #1 on my list right now, but I just prefer to set ride height independently of preload. That's the only thing missing from that setup imo.

I don't even really mind *clunking* if it's not damaging anything, but it can be annoying and there's always that thought in the back of your head like 'what was that noise?' I know OptionZero posted something about needing tenders because of his seating and unseating randomly and the associated sounds...

im doing something like this for my e30. i wish someone would make a affordable plug and play kit that goes low for that car..

these are awesome.

great write up!

Those look like the dampers go all the way to the bottom of the housing. Do they? Or can you shorten them up a bit?

Wondering the same thing for the fronts, and how close the bottom of the housing comes to the lower control arm.

yep, the struts go all the way to the bottom.

Here's the best picture I have... they are close to the LCA, but I do have enough room under the housing to adjust compression.
http://www.prmsg.org/albums/album101...ings.sized.jpg

I'm glad to see there are some Zilvians who understand and appreciate what QUALITY suspension is!

I get no clunking/popping on my 8611/8610 setup. I have tender springs in the rear, and get actual usable wheel travel(about 2.5" of droop from static ride height).

Why are you guys set on preloading the main spring. Why would you ever want to do that? Unless you're just talking about keeping it lightly snug, but then again, what does that get you except from even the possibility of more droop travel via a secondary(tender) spring?

Ground Control complete kit for S14
 

Sorry for the thread necromancy... I'm still fighting with the crap on my car and I want to get it resolved.

I found this today. I don't know how long it's been around... I checked on GC's site some time before the holidays in 2009 and don't remember seeing it then, so it's relatively new...

Ground Control - Complete Kit - Nissan 240SX (95-98) S14

http://www.ground-control-store.com/...6066.70_fs.jpg

I see threaded sleeves and height-adjustable lower perches, upper perches, front pillowball upper mounts / camber plates, and an adjuster on top of the rear shaft (unlike my OEM replacement Konis).

It doesn't look like the rear upper mount has any articulation (it can't tilt - ?).

How does this compare to OptionZero's custom setup?

Edit: I just emailed Ground Control for more info, including a list of parts included in the kit, and questions about the upper mounts. I'll try to remember to post their response when I get it.

Wow that is really good find!!! Not much information on this but I wonder if these are the double adjustable 8611s.... because this thread talks about using the correct 8611 shocks... I hope they are....

that is interesting to say the least.
strange that they would sell it @ 1700 w/out any specs whatsoever.
my guess is that they're just using the ots Koni yellows, & not the nicer, double adjustable 8611's
(which is really more than sufficient for prob 90% of us, including myself).

I would rather get some KWs for that kind of money.

^^

I don't think you can fairly compare, unless you know the specifics of the said GC coilover.
KW's are wonderful however.

koukimatt,

I just emailed GC too. This is exactly what I've been waiting for. An off-the-shelf tuned coilover set-up from a top manufacturer with Koni's that isn't too expensive. I hope they get back to me soon and also hope some of the second party aftermarket parts vendors can carry these at a slightly lower price.

I am currently piecing together a setup and wonder what you guys think of this coilover-sleeve setup- 90-97 Mazda Miata EURO Style Coilover Kit 331090 : eBay Motors (item 160417693900 end time May-25-10 14:26:48 PDT)

I wondering if the upper spring perch on those look usable? They are flat rather than conical like I see on other setups. And the tender/helper springs? For the rear? What difference between the two? helper only "holds in place" and tender preloads?

Would the spring seperator/perch( between spring and tender-spring) work as a torrington bearing? or I would still need them? Put tender spring above the main spring? and torrington bearing below everything? or?

Have= 9k/7k stance springs in 7inch and front tein camber plates.
Need= shocks, housings, misc (bushings, torrington bearings etc), and coilover kit/upper spring perches, and rear top hats.

We're talking about 2 separate things here: the upper spring *perch* (which keeps the spring centered around the shock shaft) and the *mount*, which should allow the shock to pivot independently of the spring.

Take a look at this.

Autocross.dsm.org - Build Your Own Konis

In case that link doesn't work, here's the first picture hosted on Tinypic:
http://i41.tinypic.com/2h84wid.jpg

This is what the top of a coilover *should* look like. The upper perch is separate from the mount. Most coilovers have pillow ball joints in the upper mounts.

I bought an OEM-style set of Koni yellows, and used them with Ground Control sleeves and stock upper mounts. The front Konis are probably trashed; when I raise the front of the car and take the wheels off, I can see shock oil dripping out of the tops. The shock shafts may be bent and/or the internal shim stacks and valves may be destroyed. The most likely cause is the lack of articulation in the stock upper mounts.

Don't do it that way.

If you could rig a real upper perch on top of a Koni yellow, and then bolt it up to a Tein pillow ball mount, that might work. But the Koni yellows, plus the Ground Control kit (sleeves + perches + springs) cost me as much as a set of Stance GR+ Pro coilovers. The amount of frustration that I went through just to put the front shocks together wasn't worth any possible cost savings or performance improvement vs. a set of pre-assembled coilovers.

I would say that torrington bearings aren't required, but they will probably reduce squeaking and they will make the springs behave better.

The upper perches in the eBay auction you linked to are functionally identical to the perches that came with my Ground Control kit. They *might* work if you could secure them to the shock shafts properly (which I wasn't able to do with my setup). You don't want the upper perches to move around on the shaft at all.

Helper/tender springs are supposed to collapse as soon as any force is placed on them. Their only purpose is to keep the (main) springs in contact with the spring perches, so the springs don't bounce loose from the perches if the suspension is unloaded (for example, if the car gets airborne).

I missed the bit about camber plates for some reason. The Teins are fine but you still need some real upper perches, like the Vorshlags that OptionZero recommends in the first post.

Honestly, I would either copy OptionZero's setup as closely as possible... or just buy some coilovers. The only thing I didn't like about my Stances was that even at the max safe height, they were too low for me, considering the roads in my area.

Something else I have realized about suspensions: Don't assume that stiff springs and/or low ride height will cause an improvement in handling. If you want your car to feel planted through corners or while drifting, you should probably look at anti-roll bars (sway bars) and shocks first.

You can use the OEM-style Koni yellows with stock springs. You'll have 4x4 fitment, but your car will ride better than it would with the stock KYB GR2 shocks. However, the Konis don't come with lower spring perches like the GR2s do; you have to cut apart the stock shocks and shove the Konis into them. If you fabricate stuff on a regular basis this would probably not be a big deal for you, but it was a pain in the ass for me. Oh, and the rear OEM-style Konis can't be adjusted while they are installed on a car. Again, either go big (OptionZero setup, Koni double-adjustables with the correct upper perches and mounts) or go cheap and get Stances or something. The middle ground isn't worth the hassle or the perceived cost savings.

FWIW I never got a reply to my email or the voicemail I left for them.

I would be happy if they would simply list which shocks they were selling with the kit, and if they had more pictures of the tops of each coilover, so I could verify that they were built with real, separate upper spring perches and pillow ball mounts.

I already have a set of megan streets. Too much rebound at low speeds and not enough dampening at high speed.
I got them used, and for temporary setup, don't flame please... I KNOW they suck.
I have stock front sway bar and no rear(base model), I have stock rear one, but have not installed it yet.

I am just confused in the names, I will just call them upper spring mount/perch and upper shock mount :)

I still don't understand why I NEED "real" upper spring perches.
Do the upper spring perches look ok on the ebay link? All I need is some space for some movement/articulation? and make sure they centered on the shaft?

Middle ground not worth the hassle? to me its worth it, my megans suck... really bad.
heres my calculations so far--
have-
90= tien camber plates
70= stance 9k/7k springs(can replace later)
need-
100= ebay coilover kit, has sleeves, tendersprings and upper spring perches
800=8610 insert x4
600=housings front and rear
50-100=misc bearings, bushings, etc
~100= rear pillowball top mounts

I am looking at ~1800ish after its said and done.

much further than the 2400+ people spend to do it "right" with 8611's
I don't want to deal with the dual adjustable shocks, I don't have data logging or the cash to use them fully.
I also don't want to use the yellows, no external adjustment in the back and the front does not have much shock travel on lowered car.

I have only ridden in 240sx's with my megans or my friends tien he's which are better than the megans, but still left me wanting more. I've never ridden on stance, but all the koni's setups I have ever ridden on were ALWAYS great or good(both comfort and handling), never bad or ok. The megans are ok at best.

(I know this is an old ? but I wanted to clarify)

Actually, it's possible but far from ideal. I had to do that recently when we were in a time crunch to get on the track,and couldn't fab a whole set of housings in time. you only gain roughly 1/2" of bump travel over stock I believe, the tire clearance is far from great, and no off-the-shelf gland nuts are cut in a thread that will work with a stock housing i.d.- something needs to be made. However, if you're realy hurting for cash and can make some of your own parts, they will fit and work pretty well if you don't go too low.

Just thought I'd throw the info out there.

Do they fit in the stock strut tube? I never tried(haven't had set of stock struts for a LONG time). Good to hear they can work. You could always get an off the shelf pipe die and bushing, but those are usually a bit pricey in that size, and pretty heavy.

9/7 kg/mm springs are pretty damn stiff - I'd say that's the absolute limit of what works on street tires on an S Chassis. I have 9.2/6.6 kg/mm springs for reference.

Deluboz(or whatever it is) front camber plates work just fine. I'm currently running them. Also some eBay plates from I think the same guy that were only advertised for a Z32(exact same bolt pattern/everything). They're just a piece of aluminum, some studs, and a cheap spherical bearing that shouldn't be rotating if you setup the rest of the stuff correctly. If you're trying to make things rotate at the spherical bearing you're doing it wrong - end of story.

yeah, we tried a 1.25" npt but the threads in the tube would cut the wall too thin. it has to be an oddball thread size to fit while still having enough thread depth to make me feel ok with it's ability to hold. the m48 nut from koni was too shallow, and the m50 would cut too deep. the insert fits well though, needed a bit of aluminum shim to be snug at the bottom. if one were using the off-the-shelf GC sleeve and short spring (basicly build it and set it up as if it were a regular yellow) it would still be a huge leap above a lot of other options.

You can also try welding on the threaded portion with the matching gland nut off some OEM strut tube like those that came from MR2.

any idea where to source a vorshlag piece now without the camber plate?

They're not available separately anymore according to Vorshlag. Seems like Vorshlag decided that it was too great of proprietary piece to be sold separately to us mere commoners *sarcasm*

Manonegra, time to cash in man. Make these top-hats and I'll even send some money in advance.

Oh?

Do tell! haha

The MR2 and some other cars (IIRC Toyotas and Volvos) has serviceable OEM struts with a removable gland nut to hold the internals in the strut tube.

While I was searching for a way to simply hold the 8611-1257 inside a strut tube I found that a lot of people are actually doing this.

They would cut the threaded portion with the gland nut off the MR2 strut tube, measure and modify their own strut tube to fit the 8611, then weld on the threaded section to hold the Koni insert in place.

It sounds a bit convoluted but in the hands of a competent welder I'm sure it will beat the hell out of buying the pipe threading tool money wise.

Ah...

I've seen it done on AE86s and stuff.

Might as well cut off the brackets that mounts to the knuckles and move those up as high as you'd like so for the really low guys they still have suspension travel.

I would rather section the strut tube below the mounting bracket to drop the strut lower. I know sectioning strut tubes are frowned upon by some but to me its a simpler path to approach the "not slammed enough" problem.

Oh yeah, hello fellow NRR member :D.

That is actually an idea we considered, since the stockers only usually use one bead around the bottom that is easy enough to grind away. this would also let you use a thicker wall tube that would be great for an m48 gland nut. However, the problem you run into is that the stock lower brackets leave you iffy room for tire-to-perch clearance. it wouldn't be impossible, but you'd have to mess with it a bit. you could always use shorter springs, but then you're juggling bump travel and coil bind. I've been playing with numbers a lot recently, and while I think it could be done it would need to be just right. it's on my to-try list though, so if I can get one together I'll post an update.

I'll do some digging around tonight, but I have a set of Vorshlag Hats on my 8611 setup, that I sourced from a BMW place out in CA. I can't recall the name now.

However TechnoToys Tuning (t3) offers a nice caster camber plate, as well as a 2.5" ID swivle hat now for springs...may be worth checking out as it's considerably cheaper than the vorslahgs...

That is a lot of work just to try and save some bucks, and even then, if you have to machine parts and use other lower brackets and stuff, then it might be worth the price that Richard is asking for his housings, as they come complete with gland nuts and everything, and not for a ridiculous price either.

That way everything can be put together like on the OP and you'll be driving in less than 2 hours, and 2 hours is really taking your time to put everything together and bolting them onto the car haha

Yeah, I firmly agree that richard's housings are worth every penny. I was working with a 4 day deadline and was lucky enough to have a machine shop at my disposal. personally, I think richard's setup is the way to go, but if you are really scraping by, taking some measurements and hand-picking parts to reuse your stockers doesn't cost that much. I think it gets financially lpointless at cutting the lower bracket off and such tho, unless you already have access to a mill/welder/lathe . just stuffing them in stockers ends up with a guesstimated 1/2" gain in bump travel (not enough, I know, but you don't LOSE any at least), and otherwise worked well. again, so far from ideal but the old school yellow/gc setup served a lot of people well for a long time despite the drawbacks, so effectively duplicating that arrangement with a superior and cost effective dampener, imho, is much more productive that either staying stock, or buying taiwan brand coilovers. and I figure you can always just pull them out and swap your inserts and gc bits to a set of richard's housings later as money allows, too. again, not ideal, but if you're desperate....

What is the cheapest GC setup possible with new struts? Will it work to just buy the GC coilover conversion kit and KYB GR-2's, no other parts required? It would be great for those of us with no money to be able to spend $600 on a system that can easily be upgraded to top of the line Konis.

The idea would be to upgrade later to Koni's, but I guess this isn't possible since the GC kit would fit the different diameter of the shock.

I had GR2s on my car when I first lowered it. The shocks were toast within a few weeks. I don't think GR2s like to be lowered.

GR2s are stock replacements, which means valved for stock spring rates.

Lowering your car will probably cause it to bottom out internally when you hit bumps with the soft spring rates from the lowering springs, thus killing them in no time.

KYB GR2s sucked even with Tanabe GF210 springs.

So yeah, I do not recommend GR2s to anyone unless they're literally replacing blown stock struts/shocks and is still running stock springs.

What about Koni yellows? Just the Koni's plus the $400 GC kit and I'm good to go?

you forgot camber plates. The Koni yellow sport shocks are inserts for the fronts. You will need your OEM McPherson housings. The rears are bolt ons.

So I don't even need the GC kit?

Just lowering springs, Koni yellows, and camber plates?

IIRC the fronts require you to cut the spring perch off of the OEM struts to get the guts out of the front strut tubes, in which case, you'd have to either weld on a sort of spring perch for some springs, or you can go with the GC style coilover sleeves for some adjustments.

Personally, I'd save up some money and hit up ebay for the circle track discards for the sleeves and stuff, since an adjustable ride height would be a good thing to have.