Just adding to this, I daily drove on my "Lee Grimes Spec" B-stock Koni's on stock AP1 springs and while signficantly "bumpier" than stock, it was nothing ridiculous. I've driven in cars that were horrible in their high speed bump damping; the Koni's were perfectly fine for the street.

If I decide to run BS in a CR next year (50/50 on that or an STR build) I am going to try running the Koni's from my AP1 setup, except with signficant gas pressure. (That is, unless my codriver wants to buy Moton's... at which point those will go on the car without a 2nd thought. )

Nick

 

Just adding to this, I daily drove on my "Lee Grimes Spec" B-stock Koni's on stock AP1 springs and while signficantly "bumpier" than stock, it was nothing ridiculous. I've driven in cars that were horrible in their high speed bump damping; the Koni's were perfectly fine for the street.

If I decide to run BS in a CR next year (50/50 on that or an STR build) I am going to try running the Koni's from my AP1 setup, except with signficant gas pressure. (That is, unless my codriver wants to buy Moton's... at which point those will go on the car without a 2nd thought. )

Nick
[/quote]

My CR never liked the pressure, it killed the fronts ability to bite. Using the swaybar was more effective for some reason. The CR already sits high in stock form as it is. On my custom valved Yellows (modified from the Auto-x valving) we added more low speed rebound and ran them degassed just like the auto-x valved product. High speed compression and rebound is pretty brutal when you turn the Konis up. I suggest running them on the lowest setting if street driven. The feel a tad floaty, but its much better than the alternative. I have the TC Klines off the National winning car from last year if your interested.

-Marc

 

Just adding to this, I daily drove on my "Lee Grimes Spec" B-stock Koni's on stock AP1 springs and while signficantly "bumpier" than stock, it was nothing ridiculous. I've driven in cars that were horrible in their high speed bump damping; the Koni's were perfectly fine for the street.

If I decide to run BS in a CR next year (50/50 on that or an STR build) I am going to try running the Koni's from my AP1 setup, except with signficant gas pressure. (That is, unless my codriver wants to buy Moton's... at which point those will go on the car without a 2nd thought. )

Nick
[/quote]

My CR never liked the pressure, it killed the fronts ability to bite. Using the swaybar was more effective for some reason. The CR already sits high in stock form as it is. On my custom valved Yellows (modified from the Auto-x valving) we added more low speed rebound and ran them degassed just like the auto-x valved product. High speed compression and rebound is pretty brutal when you turn the Konis up. I suggest running them on the lowest setting if street driven. The feel a tad floaty, but its much better than the alternative. I have the TC Klines off the National winning car from last year if your interested.

-Marc
[/quote]

Good to know about your experience with gas pressure on Koni's on the CR, thanks! My main reason for wanting to run them gassed was my concern about rubbing the front fenders/fender liners. Are you saying I will be OK with 275 Fender liner clearance running them degassed (and the subsequent lower ride height) as long as I have enough swaybar and compression to compensate)?

I'll keep your TC Klines in mind .

Nick

 

Just adding to this, I daily drove on my "Lee Grimes Spec" B-stock Koni's on stock AP1 springs and while signficantly "bumpier" than stock, it was nothing ridiculous. I've driven in cars that were horrible in their high speed bump damping; the Koni's were perfectly fine for the street.

If I decide to run BS in a CR next year (50/50 on that or an STR build) I am going to try running the Koni's from my AP1 setup, except with signficant gas pressure. (That is, unless my codriver wants to buy Moton's... at which point those will go on the car without a 2nd thought. )

Nick
[/quote]

My CR never liked the pressure, it killed the fronts ability to bite. Using the swaybar was more effective for some reason. The CR already sits high in stock form as it is. On my custom valved Yellows (modified from the Auto-x valving) we added more low speed rebound and ran them degassed just like the auto-x valved product. High speed compression and rebound is pretty brutal when you turn the Konis up. I suggest running them on the lowest setting if street driven. The feel a tad floaty, but its much better than the alternative. I have the TC Klines off the National winning car from last year if your interested.

-Marc
[/quote]

Good to know about your experience with gas pressure on Koni's on the CR, thanks! My main reason for wanting to run them gassed was my concern about rubbing the front fenders/fender liners. Are you saying I will be OK with 275 Fender liner clearance running them degassed (and the subsequent lower ride height) as long as I have enough swaybar and compression to compensate)?

I'll keep your TC Klines in mind .

Nick
[/quote]

The swaybar and rebound is what kept my tires from rubbing "too much." You will rub no matter what as some lots will have bumps that bottom out the suspension. Your just trying to keep the tires off for the normal auto-x elements. If you go too stiff on the compression (IMO very little compression), the car wont turn. The Koni yellows with the rebound maxed and the big swaybar at 4/6 seemed to work fine. My liners finally had to be replaced this year. They lasted 4 seasons though ... 3 of which were on the re-valved Yellows. I would suggest starting at the settings Jay and I ended up with and modify it to your liking from there. It seemed to have worked for the two of us!

-Marc

 

Ok, I have been reading for three days now, and I still have a few questions about some things. I have done my best to find the answers but there is a lot of crap floating around in various places so here is the deal. I have a very early production 2000 ap1 that I am preparing for STR. Not looking to go nationals but I want to be competetive against the locals. Things I have done or am planning to do soon.

1. DIY catch can. (it was fun)
2. Planning on picking up set of 17x9 +63 6ulr on 255 rs3's
3. Tein flex coilovers (Now look, I know people dont like tein, or whatever. Truth is they are what I have and based on financial reasons, and the fact I got a steal on these).
4. Powerflex Poly all the way around
5. Ordered roll center adjuster front (Question regarding this to follow).
6. Mugen front compliance bushings
7. corner balance to follow

Question 1.
I am a bit confused on how to properly set up the coilovers for droop and preload. I havent installed them yet, but when I do I want to have an idea of what I am looking to do. I will set the coilovers according to the tein guidelines at first (they have a set of measurements for the recommended preload and total damper length). I plan on lowering about 1 inch, and I just dont know if I need to preload the springs or not. They are 559 front and 670 rear which seems quite stiff compared to stock off course, but what will adding preload do for me? Oh, and I should mention I will daily this setup and I live in uptown new orleans. I will put a beer on it that our streets are the worst in the country. I drive very carefully.

Question 2.
Roll center adjusters and bump steer. I have ordered front RCA's and bump steer kit (rack spacers). I know in ap1 that the rears actually have an issue with bumpsteer worse than front. Since I plan on only going about an inch lower do I need to install the front RCA? Front bump steer kit? and should I worry about the back? I certainly dont want to do more harm than good, but I dont wanna do it wrong either. I guess thats more than 2 questions but you get the drift.

Question 3.
Will these 6ulrs rub? I see mixed results it seems like. With 255s is it even possibly for the ulr to rub at the fender at this offset? I know itll probably rub the inside but I can live with that, buckling a fender is less fun. This is also why I want to set the travel on my dampers correctly.

I guess lets start with that stuff and go from there. I plan on probably picking up a front bar soon as well.

 

Q1: I don't know anything about teins but the preload should be separate than ride height adjustment. Just do what ever they tell you to do in the instructions if you do not know what you are doing.

Q2: I know the roll center adjusters are illegal in STR and if I'm not mistaken so are the bump steer kit.

Q3: They will be fine. It may rub the fender liner a bit but shouldn't hit the metal part of the fender.

 

Thank you for the information. Obviously I need to peruse the rules a little deeper. It seems sort of counterintuitive to me that they would not allow RCA's and bump steer kits. On the one hand they do help the performance, but on the other hand they add stability which is sort of nice to have on the street. Oh well. Cest la vie.

Here is a question about the Teins again. Ok so when I install I am going to put everything to factory settings. I understand the idea of what preload is more or less but I am curious as to when more is beneficial? I guess that was my question about that. Another question though is, when I go to corner balance Should I do this by adjusting the spring perch (preload) vs adjusting the indepedent ride height adjustment (lower shock body adjuster). IE, if I need to lower a smidge to get balance how much is changing the preload ever so slightly going to affect the handling? Or should I just bite the bullet and take it all apart to corner balance. That seems like a long hard row to hoe.


Oh and one more thing. How do you guys who have adjustable rebound dampening get to the rears to adjust between races. I had planned on not getting the edfc, although it would be nice. Do yall just leave the carpet out all the time? Like on the street as well? And getting to the one under the gas filler neck, is that hard?

 

Preloading the spring will mean that you are increasing the force required to make the spring compress more. Think of it as creating a breakaway force. If the load going into the coilover is less than this breakaway force, the coilover will not move. I don't think many people who commonly post in this thread have spring assemblies that allow for preloading the main coil spring. That said, I don't see a situation where you would want spring preload.

I made a tool that I leave in the damper assembly to help with the adjustment of the damper that is under the fuel filler lines. The interior panel that covers the spare tire is easily removable, so don't worry about that one. You may be able to retrofit flexible adjuster extensions onto your rear dampers. Here are some from AST - adjuster extensions.

 

Japanese shocks are pretty much the only ones with preload adjustment to my knowledge, the high end penskes, motons, etc, don't have it. It doesn't make a huge difference in my mind. But, my understanding was that you definitely want equal preload left to right, and that preload should be very slight, almost 0. In other words, move it so it touches the spring and then just go very slightly further, like 1/4 turn or something, keeping how much further you go constant on both sides. And that's it...don't use it to tune handling.

I don't think you want to use it for corner balancing since that will add very odd behavior left to right since you'll have different preload left to right. You want to do corner balancing the normal way which is with the lower spring perch.

Again, I am by no means an expert on adjustable preload since I've never had shocks that have it so if someone knows different feel free to contradict.

In terms of the other questions, those I can answer better. The EDFC is not legal for STR (no driver controlled shock adjustments), so that's out. For adjusting shocks, at local events I just leave the spare tire cover and the trim piece covering the driver side shock out - no one reasonable will worry about that at a local event. At bigger events I put the trim in with one clip so I can quickly pull it back, adjust, then put it back. You could also cut a hole in that piece of trim so you don't have to do this if you want. I've been leaving the spare tire cover off even for bigger events since that seems to be what most do although there are a couple people I've talked to that think that might be actually against the rules (even they didn't care enough to actually worry about other people doing it though). Even at nationals there were a bunch of people with no spare tire cover and no one got protested, so I'm not worrying about it at this point.

To get the driver rear one the tip of the shaft of my penskes had to be cut off by an inch or two, and I keep a little allen wrench in there at all times. Others have done similar things with other shocks. It's a pain to adjust but can be done without too much trouble. Not sure if the teins can work with no modification or not.

Hope all that rambling helps.

 

Thanks for the info again. Yeah I think the adjustable preload is for those herrafrush guys who are one pothole away from fender destruction. Setting it such that its at full load as not to bottom as much.

I was thinking about doing something similar to what you suggest with the extensions, except I was thinking maybe just tight fitting some fuel hose around the adjuster, Im just afraid I wont be able to feel the clicks. I guess for the price it would cost me to do it (2 dollars) its worth a shot.