Modern Motorsports Ltd

J, specifically what I said is the Illumina's are a great insert but we routinely sell coilover setups to those with Tokico springs and all the other non coilover 'lowering' springs that are displeased with the spring results. Many of these customers started with the ebay jdmwerks setups. And for their package price the springs could be considered free so they don't feel quite so bad about tossing 'em later. My discussions with you were all factual, no BS. We've thrown out at least one set of each type from just local Vancouver customers that have turned them in. Reasons have included rides too low or too high, or not firm enough for the amount it's lowered to properly control the suspension etc. MAKE sure your final install results in having safe appropriate insert/suspension travel available. From all the standard Tokico Illumina sets into unmodified struts we've shipped we've never heard back on any fitment issues. We've done several strut installs here for locals and show purposes and to date they've all fit fine as well. Yes, it appears you've got it fitted properly now but I'd sure want to know I had the appropriate valving/insert. If you don't like how it rides once done, I'd recommend verifying PN on actual strut insert before troubleshooting elsewhere. Good luck with your mods,

Great effort Auxiliary! Kudo's to you for the work you did. This started as a great thread, some of the ensuing short versed quick back/forth discussion has created some confusion perhaps. I believe Steve was referring to the 200SX calipers having improved ebrake angle vs. the 280ZX rear calipers. He was not IMO referring to our 240SX rear setup which has fine ebrake geometry as pictured here, no sharp ebrake angles whatsoever.

Hypertek, 8's don't allow more drop...drop is controlled by adjustment height on your collar, available strut piston travel and appropriate related geometry assuming tire/wheel clearance remains appropriate. 8's can allow more tire/room clearance vs. 10's and when 8's are used it's typically at higher spring rates such that coilbind is not a concern. No need to die such a needless death turbo_fb! We've got several customers with your setup and many others with built turbo L6's not so different' date=' and we've shipped to Norway/Denmark etc. Spring choice takes into consideration many factors we discuss with each customer. Please drop us a line sales@modernmotorsports.com and we can engage in easily narrowing your choice. 300 lb/in would greatly stiffen your car but it would skate with little control on any bumpy/washboard like pavement at lower speeds which is NOT desireable just for starters for your expectations. Let alone typical street inserts will not typically coexist compatibly longterm with such a high rate on a Z car. Cheers,

No harm in taking some sandpaper to them in the event they might be glazed....if you see a shine/sheen on the pad surface they're quite likely glazed..just lightly sand this off and rebed them in and see if that improves.....easy enough to try (could just try fronts alone first). Good luck,

Tom, if you can get the strut out a few inches then I'd suggest spraying a good penetrating oil/rust breaker into the narrow annulus b/t the strut and strut tube...it quite likely has some corrosion in place that's jamming up on you or a slightly external dent/kink that binds at that point as Jon noted. With the strut partially out and mounted in a vice or otherwise you can put a pipe wrench on the strut insert to apply both torque and pull on the strut.....you may be able to progressively twist it out ....you don't care about damaging the old insert so it's fine to bite the pipe wrench right in. Once you do get it out, clean the inside very well.......I've used rust breakers sprayed, then a chisel/prybar end to scratch/break it up and a rag wrapped on a prybar twisted inside the strut and it'll bind right up and scrub it very well.....may take a few rags/efforts....had to do this to one strut tube for our recent show prep to get an insert into the tube. Good luck. PS, I'd caution against modifying those springs to achieve the 1.5" ride drop you were looking for when last we emailed this August. (assuming they don't yield the 1.5" out of the box) They may not limit your rear compression travel enough at that drop to yield proper tire geometry under load. PSS How's the 280 track buildup coming?

Bob, sounds like you're getting their, drop us a line if you've got any other questions. UPS indicates you recieved the washers yesterday at noon so perhaps someone in your household received them and didn't let you know? (Jon - our setup does not use oversize washers for the lower sleeve mount, that's a GC kit, ours are custom narrow profile pieces specific to the Z struts) Front OEM top mounts have bearings directly under the one piece top OEM unit, this then bears on our washer then the spring top aluminum thin hat sits. Rear OEM top mount do not have bearings but just have a single rubber donut spacer (rear's don't have to pivot as front does for steering). If you want to reduce that metal lip to maximize travel without sectioning etc as the top hat reduction is intended, we've found a sawzall/reciprocating saw to work simplest. Blade will get dirty and a bit of smoke but it's a pretty quick cut. Have the top mount well braced so you can easily do the cut quickly and properly. This is only required if you're lowering notably and need to retain max travel and allows you to just use the one single spacer on top of our top hat. Otherwise you can just use 3 and be done. Any other q's on this or your other packages please let us know,

Jon, as stated I found early ones to sieze. I should have clarified issues were most commonly with the ebrake mechanism seizing and the cam braking. They did require regular maintenance to keep lubed and wear the pads evenly I found as well as others. It was on my own car ebrake cam broke at one point which is a pain as essentially that's a caliper replacement (ie. pricey!) and not a rebuild by your typical shop. After noting my experience with others in early to mid 90's I became aware of similar occurences others related.

DaleMX, just a few differences to that ebay setup you referenced and our own. That ebay setup utilizes the early 280ZX calipers which many have found prone to seizing, let alone the smaller diameter 10" rotor setup it's based upon impedes ebrake to CV (if one goes to CV's ) clearance. We've got an older writeup on some pros/cons of our 240SX caliper/Z31 rotor rear conversion vs. the typical original 280ZX rear setups noted here, http://www.modern-motorsports.com/xtrainfo/reardisk.htm Any other questions let us know. Not all 14" wheels clear our setup as is. We've had a select few customers modify our setup slightly to reduce the overall diameter to clear some 14" wheels that were staying on their Z so that's always an option (Terry O helped one such customer complete a 14" install). Any other questions let us know, Cheers,

Cozy, you're more than welcome! Great to see parts put to such fine use! We'd love to see your ride (and many others) in the 'rides' section of our website if you get a chance. If you need help dialing in the rear suspension we've got the fully adjustable rear control arms available now. Cheers and enjoy your Z!

Great to meet up once again as you got into town tonight DISCUS! Looking forward to driving the car tomorrow in the Autox Temporary cure for torque deprivation, this is one sweet ride guys! ....it won best modified 'old school' car in THE big Edmonton show (like a good guys event/but Canadian ) and easy to see why. Great to hear more feedback on our new rear adjustable control arms, install shops love 'em and customers are greatly enjoying the improved handling and improvement in steering effort reduction apparently from getting their car's setup truly square! AND one does NOT haver to pull their spindle pin for the installation......less than a minute with a sawzall to cut one OEM control arm end link free from the OEM control arm frame, then slide OEM frame and cut link off and install our end links/slide them through our frame, bolt back up/align and enjoy!

The 'penultimate' mod they call it, bit of work to accomplish properly but serves the dimes well as some reputable dime masters have reported (Dietz/Savage/Michael etc).

Auxiliary, a lot of opinions offered on this one to date, here's mine: Depends on your driving/shifting habits etc: this car is not a stump puller with torque smacking you off idle if you're not powershifting and putting great shock load to the rear (ie. 2-3 power shift, not sure if your turbo would keep the boost for an insane power shift?) then I see no reason for your setup to have a rear spring rate greater than 200 lb/in. You don't have excess torque to control at the rear (power rolling on smoothly is quite different) so no point adding unneeded stiffness. (assuming you're at a ride height and have appropriate suspension travel your Z's rear is within proper travel etc, lower rate = more travel under torque, not necessarily bad) Up front it's up to you and how good your roads are in combination with your other inputs etc: your car's lighter and you intend to enjoy street and autox, for autox especially you'd like nice/nimble turn in I may have missed it but I didn't see any mention of a strut bar? Crisp front brakes along with a tight front end can make your turn in a lot more enjoyably IMO. (My 280ZX was quite a different beast but I loved 375's up front in that car, too bad the Tokico's didn't like that! It was very neutral 375/250 f/r) You may prefer your front springs one step below rear for slightly improved ride quality but I'd like to see you try the reverse with at least one stage (ie. 25 ft/lbs) different and preferably two if you really get into enjoying heavy front braking or even good taps to initiate the transfer etc. I'd suggest 225/200 f/r. A powerful car with strong braking is wicked when you've got very tight nose control minimizing nose dive, helps maintain improved suspension alignment (combined with strut bar) and even steadier confidence in harsh braking as speed increases If you stick with Eibach's then use 10" length's for reasons I noted before in this thread or a similar one ongoing right now on spring, (they're not favourable near coilbind and reduce available travel to coilbind). If you go Hyperco's, the 225's I can put you into a set of 8's, got 'em on the shelf. Just options. Feel free to drop us a line directly to discuss any other questions you may have.

ECP48, I'm curious to here on that as well! I never heard tell of it ever previously and would have done it in a wink if I'd read it/understood and agreed with it. The squat actually makes for some great traction I quite enjoyed when setup with reasonably firm springs and good struts. Our solution for this (required once 280ZX rear Illumina's were discontinued) is very complete, fully adjustable integral strut/coilover system package for the 280ZX rear. You can read full spec's here, any questions at all drop me a line. http://www.modern-motorsports.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=66 Cheers,

Auxiliary, what's the rwhp/tq curve look like for your intended motor buildup? AT what rpm etc to what degree is this motor getting nazty?

Not my cup of tea. Nissan revised that caliper design a few times due to the light ones flexing a lot and the heavy ones, well they're heavy! Those are a very hefty rotor as well. Stripped same stuff from my S14 shortly after purchase and put my own custom 13" setup on it, dropped some unnecessary weight and gained wheel clearance (those calipers typically protrude forward notably). Keep in mind those setups were typically intended to stop 3500+ lb cars on Z32's. Their's a number of old posts here where this was discussed and a couple guys brewed their own Z32 caliper solution and both stated in hindsight they wouldn't do it again.

Ground Control and John can both be right, depends on many factors which is why coilovers can be hit and miss when you brew your own because all items aren't considered. Ground Control uses Eibach springs which last I checked, do not have the the same available compression to coilbind that hyperco springs have, amongst other differences. GC will also be more concerned about coilbind or even APPROACHING coilbind as Eibach springs are not designed to EVER see coilbind, they are not fully elastic at full compression and will change in property thereafter! Hyperco springs are the only ones I use and are superior in 3 aspects: -metallurgy -design -treatment They're designed to go PAST coilbind meaning if you fully compress or even come close to this they still retain full normal elastic (original as purchased) properties. teir narrower diameter wire allows more travel to coilbind as well. They're actually even used in common fully compressed states in top level competition off road racers/military HMV's etc. Stacked with 2-3 springs in one column to allow full droop and rise more so than entire length of our Z strut assemblies! Comments on clearance somewhat correct, if spring sites fully above your tire (ie. an 8") AND you situate the threaded tube perch appropriately (hence our 8" tube option!) you'll only have the width of the tube section between your tire and strut tube (less than 3/16"). I've played with tire clearances and once slightly rubbed some anodizing off one of my sleeves:) Correct also that GC uses oversized washers as lower mounts, I used their's years back initially and had to grind mine down to improve clearance. In our own kits we supply custom made narrow profile lower weld on supports that fit your tubes easily for simple welding and maximum clearance. These parts are what contribute to our slightly higher price vs. others but the package is more than justified. Cyrus, our coilover customers answer many questions prior to our making a recommendation. Directly email us if interested and we'll tailor your setup to meet your expectations. If this is the same Cyrus I'm thinking of, your Xtreme brakes and Billet drivetrain goodies are shipping early this week:)

Great pics Wigenout, looking great! Drop us a line once installed with your impressions on performance . Traub83' date=' I assume you've got a 70-78 Z (and not an '83?). Calipers are: *Calipers are OEM pieces for Toyota 89-95 4WD Pickups and 4/89-91 4Runner, stamped on caliper is S12W Rotors are: 84-85 300ZX, buy non-turbo for 4lug and turbo for 5lug as wigenout noted. (Tony, most 15's and larger clear, some 14's require slim 1/16" up to 1/4" spacers to clear caliper to wheel face, we make them infrequently as required for customers that encounter this) Full package info noted here: http://www.modern-motorsports.com/catalog/product_info.php?manufacturers_id=&products_id=48 Cheers,

Hawk pads have their place certainly and are excellent in their designed high heat track scenarios etc but not on typical Z builds IMO. Our brake packages have always included KVR pads in ,most all but competition autox or competition track scenarios, and we've never had one complaint on them. Low dust/no noise (I've yet to ever use a noisey pad, but that would drive me nuts!) and excellent linear friction response with excellent rotor wear. I can set you up with the maxima pads as well (any KVR application), just drop us a direct email if interested.

FWIW, I've been selling these kits for some time but have been remiss in posting them up on my site. Price has been $290 shipped to your door/insured for the full Suspension Technique swaybar upgrade kits (240 or 280, same price) and will continue until I hear of a price change. No taxes/duties owed in addition. Just an option.

Nick, appears to be some confusion. I'd appreciate additional direct email info from yourself to help clarify 'good input' so we can help you to see your install thru. You received your packages over a year ago with emailed instructions you acknowledged, and this 2005 year I've got two emails from yourself. One dated July 4th with a couple typical coilover questions to which we replied within 7 minutes with complete coilover installation instructions. Second email was dated 1310 hrs today to which I'm just responding by resending our coilover installation instructions and addressing your new question directly. We have no other emails on record this year from yourself. If the instructions don't make sense to you then please feel free to query us on any aspect you don't understand. We much prefer to see our packages in use and enjoy helping the packages get into function!

Done:)

Just enjoyed a good chat with Speeder! We've quickly resolved his question. It was my own miscommunication and I'll make sure our other R230 package users have the right info:) Cheers,

Alex, thanks for your note. Thanks to the others who responded to Alex's online query as well. Alex, we just got your email sent this am and could have responded direct previously on the weekend if we'd heard previously. (thanks to others to suggest Alex email us, we like to support our products!) Appears you have a very rare strut housing we've encountered twice before from customer info. This rear housing casting is thicker in the top region with 2-3 mm's additional metal (precise amount we don't know as only ones we've heard of before were geographically distant and in the process of being ground. It's along the top line of the strut housing as I recall and their's lots of meat on the housing to take it down in that area. As you found the bolt patterns are perfect and it's a simple cast OEM housing interference. We did revise our design this spring including one tweak to eliminate this rare issue from occurring. On your caliper piston/pad fitment, the 240SX calipers (and many other rears) have a piston design that has to be screwed back into the piston body to retract it, not just squeezed with C clamp etc. You can use the notches on the piston face and a robertson screwdriver, or pliers etc to turn it back into it's own body. Good luck and any other questions feel free to email us directly. Any other questions please let me know, Cheers,