what do you use like suspensions ?
09-27-2006, 09:37 PM
Post: #2
 
Julien,

Loads of options here. There are already a number of topics about this so you can start by searching around. Couple of things we always advise.

First thing to start with are bushings. Bushings on your car are most likely warn out after 20 or so years. Toyota advises replacing your bushings every 10 years or so. Good and cheap upgrade are Prothane bushings, you can often find these on ebay. We should have these for sale hopefully by the end of the year ourselves. These are polyurathane bushings and give a slightly harder and more controlable ride.

You can also buy stock bushings from Toyota offcourse, more expensive but not recommended for track use. This is more the prefered option for people that want to stay with the stock car.

Another option is going for TRD rubber bushes, much more expensive then the Prothane, but you basically obtain the same goals. They say they wear less fast since they are made of rubber instead of polyurathane, can't really judge. You also can go for powerflex, again polyurathane but they say a higher quality, but probably the most expensive option of the bushings lot.

The very best solution, but most expensive however is to replace all the joints with uniball joints. This however is the ultimate sacrifice of comfort at the gain of control. T3 (http://www.technotoytuning.com) sells the battle version line of adjustable 4 links, panhard rods and controll arms. This is definately not recommended for street drivable cars (allthough people do use it on street cars, its just how much secrafice you are willing to make).
T3 is not the only seller of these products however, there is a guy in HongKong that was on this forum awhile ago that sells similar products and I believe Sym from Pass racing is working on a line of these products. Check out the commercial sales section for more detail.

Then suspention wise, loads of options here ranging from cheap to expensive, easy to difficult.

Easiest upgrade is just to go for new shocks and springs. You can get a pretty driftable car by just getting some good gas shocks and some good springs. Most people find that if you buy the right stuff you don't really need to go for all the adjustable mumbo jumbo, its just fun toys. It is recommended you go for a so called 'short stroke' setup. Often you find that if you go for stronger springs these come in a size that with the longer stroke shocks the springs will come loose when the car is lifted off, not a problem for everyone but in some countries this is MOT failure. Also you have to realize you can run into bump stop problems.
Read this more then excelent write up on club4ag about the difference between long stroke and short stroke shocks, why you would need short stroke, how you can convert standard struts to short stroke etc:
http://www.club4ag.com/faq%20and%20tech_...ersion.htm

It also talks about how to adjust the struts to accept adjustable sleeves for height adjustablity at the front. I definately recommend going short stroke if you are serious abotu going track or drift.

For non adjustable shocks in Europe your best choice is bilstein shocks, these actually require you to modify your front strut differently then the writeup on club4ag as the height adjustability is part of the bilstein shock.
In America KYB shocks can be found pretty cheaply and are just inserts, I think these come in long and short stroke.
Also very popular are TOKICO shocks, these have TOKICO blue shocks that I believe are insert, and TOKICO HP which I believe are bolt on but I'm not sure, Max (see commercial section on this board) sells these I believe and can give you more info on these.

If you do fancy adjustable shocks there are a couple of choices you have.
Within Europa KONI Yellows are the most popular choice. Very high quality oil based shocks. Note that the shocks for AE86 are long stroke and not adjustable on the car. There are no short stroke koni's for the rear, you can buy KONI's for AE92 KONI's which are short stroke for the front but you'll need to add some spacers. These shocks are adjustable on car.
AGX KYB also sells adjustable shocks, these are the cheapest adjustable shocks that I know of and are gas based. Most argue that they are best value for money but they aren't the best choice. T3 sells these if I am not mistaken.
Tokico HTS are probably the best choice around although many are divided between KONI and HTS. Most drifters in US and Japan including Keiichi are rumored to swear by HTS, these again are gas shocks, short stroke, fully adjustable but getting hard to get. Max sells these. I also believe Sym from Pass racing also can get them.

Springs there are alot of options aswell, there are alot of lowering springs available from APEX, KONI, INTRAX, etc but these are usually something like 3kg/mm front 2kg/mm rear which is nice for street but not for track or drift. There is alot of arguement about what is best for track and drift, you'll have to make up your own mind. I'm going for 6.25kg/mm front and 4.5kg/mm rear which should do nicely as a track setup that is still somewhat comfortable. Many swear by 8kg/mm front by 6kg/mm rear, but I've also heard from one drifting with a high success rate he likes a 6 by 6 ratio.
Note that many US based guys use the LBS notation, there is a formula for going from kg/mm to LBS in the technical FAQ.

There are two main lines of springs that are very popular, both really require a shortstroke setup. One is TRD, which I believe Max sells. The other are swift springs that Sym sells. Don't ask me which is best, I guess they are both good.

If you don't feel up to buying all the parts separately and putting it all together yourself, there are a few manufacturers that sell fully assembled shocks or even complete sets. Some of these even sell complete setups that also contain a rear coil over set (hachi are separate spring and shock setup rear). T3 is most popular in this case offering a great quality setup but also Paradise Racing offer a setup and Sym is busy on one I believe.

Last but not least, there are a few more interesting things that you're going to need to complete your setup. Camber plates are important, they allow you to set up the camber on the front wheels. Very usefull on a drift car to increase grip on the front wheels. T3 sells a cool set, not sure about Max and Sym, do check their page. We're busy on something that might become available early next year.
Also very important on lowered cars are RCA, search on why and how on this board but believe me, you'll want these. Again T3 sells these, but we've also had some group buys before on this board for these. We're looking into having these made aswell.
There's some other tidbits aswell, I'm sure others will jump in, this is all that comes to my mind at the momentBig Grin

T3: http://www.technotoytuning
Max and Sym are both on this board, check the commercial section, and offcourse keep an eye on me because in the coming months some developments from us should be coming alongBig Grin

Greetz,

Bastiaan "mux213" Olij

Moved down under, no more hachi Sad
Find all posts by this user


Messages In This Thread
what do you use like suspensions ? - Spy - 09-27-2006, 08:29 PM
[] - Mux213 - 09-27-2006 09:37 PM
[] - NoHachi - 09-27-2006, 10:40 PM
[] - Ivan141 - 09-27-2006, 10:47 PM
[] - NoHachi - 09-27-2006, 10:55 PM
[] - Mux213 - 09-27-2006, 11:17 PM
[] - kungfumaster - 09-28-2006, 12:30 PM
[] - Mux213 - 09-28-2006, 12:51 PM
[] - NoHachi - 09-28-2006, 02:45 PM
[] - Mux213 - 09-28-2006, 02:52 PM
[] - NoHachi - 09-28-2006, 03:06 PM
[] - Mux213 - 09-28-2006, 03:14 PM
[] - mr monster - 09-29-2006, 12:50 AM
[] - Mux213 - 09-29-2006, 08:27 AM
in addition to the nice write up :) - cj - 09-29-2006, 11:01 AM
[] - Mux213 - 09-29-2006, 11:17 AM
[] - mr monster - 09-29-2006, 11:48 AM
[] - jamiemirror - 09-29-2006, 11:59 AM
[] - Holli - 09-29-2006, 12:07 PM
[] - mr monster - 09-29-2006, 12:13 PM
[] - Mux213 - 09-29-2006, 12:16 PM
[] - Mux213 - 09-29-2006, 12:17 PM
[] - NoHachi - 09-29-2006, 03:40 PM
[] - Holli - 09-29-2006, 04:34 PM
[] - Mux213 - 09-29-2006, 05:01 PM
[] - Holli - 09-30-2006, 08:47 AM
[] - Spy - 09-30-2006, 11:59 AM
[] - Mux213 - 09-30-2006, 12:45 PM
[] - Spy - 10-01-2006, 01:39 PM
[] - SutteR - 10-01-2006, 03:01 PM
[] - Spy - 10-01-2006, 03:33 PM
[] - Mux213 - 10-01-2006, 04:19 PM
[] - mrgud - 10-01-2006, 04:46 PM
[] - Mux213 - 10-01-2006, 06:01 PM
[] - Apolan - 10-14-2006, 01:58 AM
[] - szczursk - 03-25-2009, 08:40 PM
[] - Jan Pedersen - 03-26-2009, 08:40 AM
[] - szczursk - 03-26-2009, 08:11 PM
[] - joker12 - 03-27-2009, 03:37 PM
[] - Uzelac - 04-14-2009, 10:20 PM

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