TRD Springs need short stroke shocks?

[jamiemirror]

Sell Bilsteins and get short-stroke shocks.

[apardal]

Which ones?

What modifications do I have to do when using short strokes?

Best regards

[jamiemirror]

Make some kind of shortlist - dig into the forum.
Maybe Koni, Tokico etc. - the choice is yours. If they are designed for AE86 - possibly you can use them without modifications.
PS: And don't listen to NoHachi - he will send you to Ohlins (and sudden bankruptcy)

[Mux213]

Apardal,

This has been discussed time and time again on the board, there are several threads in which I believe you also participated in which it was stated countless times that if you have springs over 4Kg or so, you will either need to go shortstroke to make sure your springs do not come loose, or accept that they come loose and drive with that setup. Don't act all surprised at the end result mate You can only use long stroke with weaker springs or springs that have a progressive part build in.

KONI AE92 front shocks will fit nicely, but rear short strokes I still haven't had in my hands, they say camaro rear KONI shocks can be made to fit fairly easily (has a bigger ring at the bottom or something). If you search well you should be able to get a full setup for 300 to 400 euros.

Tokico HTS has short stroke shocks for all fours of the hachi, they will set you back around 550 USD + shipping and import.

Both solutions require you to cut and weld the struts (or get 6cm spacers but that sucks).

[apardal]

I was surprised for the fact that the trd springs i ordered needed short stroke shocks.

Anyway... I'll just have to decide meanwhile.

Thank you, best regards.

[Mux213]

Apardal,

Well it has nothing to do with brands. Simple physics. To obtain a certain rideheight the springs have a certain length when under load. The springrate defines how much they "shorten" when load is applied (= how much force they give back, the less they "shorten" the more force you need to put on them to move equally).

So, say that a hachi weighs 1000 kg, then each spring has 250kg of load when your car is standing still.

A spring with a spring rate of 2kg/mm will thus be 125mm longer when you hold them in your hands compared to when they are when the car is under load (standing on its wheels).

A spring with a spring rate of 6kg/mm will thus be 42mm longer when you hold them in your hands compared to when they are when the car is under load. So you've already 'created' a gap of 83mm (8cm) just by going from 2kg/mm to 6kg/mm springs.

Add to that that your TRD springs are calculated to give you 4cm to 6cm lowering, you have increased the gap to atleast 12cm.

Ergo, you need shocks with 12cm less extention for the springs not to come loose.

[JamesAE86]

on a similar note, can I run TRD blue shocks with just -40mm lowering springs using the original struts i.e just fit trd shocks and -40mm springs?

[NoHachi]

jamiemirror Wrote:PS: And don't listen to NoHachi - he will send you to Ohlins (and sudden bankruptcy)

Just stating that YES you can shorten Billstein shocks (and have them revalved), YES it will give you a decent shock..in combination with the Öhlins hardware probably the single best shock you could throw at an AE86 and YES it will cause bancrupcy

Most of the cost is labour though...so if you know how to pull a few strings..

[Mux213]

James,

I don't know what the optimum range of the TRD shocks are but my guess is the 40mm lowering won't matter to much but is at the edge. Don't forget RCAs in this case though.

It does depend on what springrate your new lowering springs are. If they are normal lowering springs slightly stiffer then stock springs, they probably won't come loose as the stock springs are always partly compressed when shocks are fully extended.

Atleast all aftermarket lowering springs I've seen so far don't have any problems of that sort. They do however often have rubbing problems, especially with these sorts of lowering, as under cornering the spring compresses more then stiff racing springs.

[Jan Pedersen]

I wouldn't run Konis, since TRD is SO much better - definitely worth the money! And yes I've tried both...