mistafosta Posted March 2, 2015 Share Posted March 2, 2015 So I'm looking to go DA on my Z, but for a different reason than usual on here. I have a car that is a drag./street car, and I would like to be able to adjust rebound separately from dampening, and hopefully stiffen up my rebound SIGNIFICANTLY. Ive seen that there are a few options, ranging from drop in Konis (Old tech, not the greatest setup) to penske triple adjustables. I can't find any pictures of the penskes installed or something similar to compare with. I would like a shock that I can get custom valved for my needs too. I'm not a casual racer, this car is currently the record holder for an LS powered 240z with an 8.7, and this year we are going to start going for the RIPz record (Don't know if thats the actual fastest 240z record still, but its a starting point) so I would like something that works well, and is safe at 175mph trap speeds. Any info would be great. I've searched a bunch and founds some really old threads but nothing more recent and not a lot of info on how to fit the more complicated setups. Thank you! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mistafosta Posted March 3, 2015 Author Share Posted March 3, 2015 Nobody has done anything similar to this? Or none of the guys with custom shock setups (that aren't just drop in cartridges) have any pictures? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Infidel Posted March 3, 2015 Share Posted March 3, 2015 Did you try a search? I know Coffey had something similar at one time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mistafosta Posted March 3, 2015 Author Share Posted March 3, 2015 He did, but I'm a bit short on part #s or adapter info. I just talked to Stance as recommended by Sakura Garage, and I think I found a great solution with them Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JMortensen Posted March 3, 2015 Share Posted March 3, 2015 You might look into stance a little deeper. I don't know what the requirements are for drag racing, but Stance is generally a low price, low end coilover. The fact that it has two knobs on it really doesn't give you any indication of it's quality or the suitability of its valving for drag racing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cgsheen Posted March 4, 2015 Share Posted March 4, 2015 Really Jon? I agree completely with your first sentence. I'll take your word for the first half of the second sentence (and I think "mistafosta" probably does know). I can't agree at all with the latter half of the second sentence. Your third sentence is spot-on. The guys at Stance-USA take racing seriously, are very accommodating when it comes to special projects and custom valving, shock dynoing. I'm very interested to see what they come up with. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JMortensen Posted March 4, 2015 Share Posted March 4, 2015 I'm sorry that my comment got your knickers in a twist, that's not my intent, but there's plenty of feedback on Stance suspension products in the Miata forums and there are a whole lot more Miata racers than Z racers. There is more and better quality feedback. They are considered a "get your car low cheaply" option in that market. Ohlins, Penske, Bilstein, and AFCO are the go to brands for serious racers there. AFCO now makes a strut for Mustangs, but I don't think they do any others yet. I'm pretty sure you can get all of the others on a Z car. Bilsteins and Penskes for sure. If I was building a car to go close to 180mph, I would want the best. YMMV. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mistafosta Posted March 4, 2015 Author Share Posted March 4, 2015 I'm sorry that my comment got your knickers in a twist, that's not my intent, but there's plenty of feedback on Stance suspension products in the Miata forums and there are a whole lot more Miata racers than Z racers. There is more and better quality feedback. They are considered a "get your car low cheaply" option in that market. Ohlins, Penske, Bilstein, and AFCO are the go to brands for serious racers there. AFCO now makes a strut for Mustangs, but I don't think they do any others yet. I'm pretty sure you can get all of the others on a Z car. Bilsteins and Penskes for sure. If I was building a car to go close to 180mph, I would want the best. YMMV. I totally understand your statemement. I spent a long time quizzing them on what they offer, and what I need. It seems like they can accomodate my needs, and they are eager to try something different like my car. They have been doing a lot of drag racing stuff lately, and seem to have very nice products. I'm not going to be buying a base level setup, this would be their Pro Comp 2 shocks, valved to the exact numbers that I want, and tested on their in house shock dyno. My suspension guy has very exact specs that he wants on the shocks, and they seem to be able to meet that. As for the Miata crowd.... I had a miata for a long time. That crowd is 45% Old guys that only think the car should be stock or have $10k ohlins suspension otherwise it was dumb, 50% Drift/"stance" style kiddies that just want a low car, and 5% reasonable people. I breathed a sigh of relief when I sold that car just so I didn't have to interact with the community anymore. I did drive a miata with a set of stance coilovers and it really wasnt bad at all. It actually handled quite well, and seemed to be a very responsive shock. I need a shock that can do an extremely tight rebound for my car, and they are up to the task. I'd rather not graft in mustang suspension for the car, Ohlins is insanely expensive, Penske is really nice but will involve a lot of fab work, Bilstein just doesn't offer something at the level I'm looking for, and most the other companies don't really have something that would work ideally. That being said, I would love to hear other suggestions, I haven't bought anything yet, but I'm heavily leaning towards Stance at this point. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RebekahsZ Posted March 4, 2015 Share Posted March 4, 2015 Mistafosta-you are talking about shocks for the front only, right? You are non-Z, live axle in the rear...what are the characteristics you are looking for and why? As usual, Im just trying to glean some knowledge from your quest. And what performance problem are you hoping to improve? Seems like you got plenty of traction.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mistafosta Posted March 4, 2015 Author Share Posted March 4, 2015 Mistafosta-you are talking about shocks for the front only, right? You are non-Z, live axle in the rear...what are the characteristics you are looking for and why? As usual, Im just trying to glean some knowledge from your quest. And what performance problem are you hoping to improve? Seems like you got plenty of traction.... Yeah, everything forward of my Solid axle suspension is factory Z stuff. The issue I run into my car is that it wants to either do massive dangerous wheelstands, or I can't leave hard enough for it. I generally 60' in the mid 1.3s which is terrible for this suspension. The turbo change from the blower hurt my 60' quite a bit, since I had to get used to launching it quite a bit differently. One of the issues I have currently is when I launch the front tires are off the ground for 10-20 feet or so, and the front shocks will fully extend to the limiters quickly. When this happens, it unsettles the cars and I spin quite a bit while the front end is still in the air. I need something that has a VERY stiff rebound setting to try to slow that shock travel and remove the impact of extension. This is pretty much the opposite of the old "90/10" shock settings, which when used with my car would cause it to flip over quite easily. (Short wheelbase is a bit of a PITA) I actually have a guy that is setting up my suspension (Good friend, does the suspension tuning on a few 2000-3000hp drag cars, and for some reason likes my car), so I am relaying what he wants for the car and the reasoning behind it. He knows his stuff without question, and I trust him to steer me right. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnc Posted March 4, 2015 Share Posted March 4, 2015 Why do you think you need double adjustable shocks when your only concern is rebound damping? FYI... I'm not being a jerk. Honest question. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mistafosta Posted March 4, 2015 Author Share Posted March 4, 2015 Why do you think you need double adjustable shocks when your only concern is rebound damping? FYI... I'm not being a jerk. Honest question. No offense taken. Mostly since on a single adjustable like I have now, if you turn rebound up, compression goes up with it. If my car has a lot of compression, it's probably going to bounce when it touches back down and the front end which is not going to be good for keeping the car settled which is pretty important now that I'm moving into the 1200hp range. We want to keep the car as smooth as possible on both transitions and keep the weight transfer slow. John, you did a penske triple before didn't you? Have any info on that? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Leon Posted March 4, 2015 Share Posted March 4, 2015 Stance has gotten a lot better than the reputation that seems to follow them. I bet they'd be a great option for you. We have a few customers running Stance coilovers including an Evo 8 track car with double-adjustables. The owner seems to like them just fine, he trains with a professional driving coach so we're not messing around here. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JMortensen Posted March 4, 2015 Share Posted March 4, 2015 Word of mouth is essentially useless in this instance IMO. Might as well take the word of all those people who put a big brake kit on the front, leave the rear brakes stock and then report that their braking is a whole lot better than before, even though their bias has to be screwed with stock rears. How many times have you seen that? What would prove the shock's worth to me would be repeatable dyno plots from different shocks done by someone other than Stance, and adjustments that worked and had no cross talk. The onus is on the newcomer to prove his worth. I'm not saying it's impossible that they make good stuff, I'm saying I want to see actual test results. Old, but good, shock tech: http://farnorthracing.com/autocross_secrets6.html On "Crap"Some feedback on what constitutes "crap" - it seems I may have gored a few sacred cows. That's not at all surprising, given the amount of disinformation and myth accepted as common sense when it comes to shocks. So then, why "not on this list, almost certainly crap"? Because the amount of crap I found on the dyno is simply staggering. It was INSANEjust how much blatant, evil-wrong stuff I found running shocks on the dyno. Stuff that I had always considered decent based on reputation and referral turned out to be crap once tested. With that track record, any given shock is more likely to be crap than not - especially if the shock supplier can not or will not provide an individual dyno trace for each shock he sells you. If he can not (because he doesn't have a dyno) then HE has no idea what the shock is doing either, and if he will not (he dynoed it but won't give you the data) then he is hiding something and should not be delt with. My experience with shock builders who have Secret Squirrel valvings is that they DO have something to hide - the fact that they do crappy work.Insist on dyno plots! As far as my criteria for what constitutes the line between "crap" and "good", it is actually pretty basic: A rebound adjuster should only adjust rebound and a compression adjuster should only adjust compression. A small amount of crosstalk is acceptable (a couple of percent) because building truly independent adjusters turns out to be trickier than it sounds, but if a "rebound" adjustment makes a similar or greater (!) change to compression (or vice versa) then it is "crap". Koni Yellows pass this test; all the ones I dynoed (that weren't obviously dead) are pretty good about rebound-only with little to no crosstalk. Any adjuster, when adjusted "harder" or "softer" should actually go in the correct direction. If you move the adjuster "harder" and the shock gets "softer" (or vice versa) - crap. Again, Konis pass this test. The adjuster should be as linear as possible, meaning that the force change per click should be equal throughout the adjustment range. This turns out to be REALLY difficult to do, and even the best shocks struggle to pass this test - particularly on the "full soft" portion of the range. When you understand how the adjusters work, this makes total sense - if, for example, you are dealing with a low-speed bleed adjuster, once you have reached the flow limit of the bypass passage no amount of "softer" on the adjuster will have any effect. So I'm willing to apply a little common sense here: nonlinearity at the extremes of the adjuster is OK as long as there is SOME portion of the range that is linear. Konis usually pass this, with the caveat that the last half-turn before full hard is usually VERY nonlinear (with very small adjustments making very large force changes) and the last half-to-full turn before full soft usually doesn't do very much. Adjusters should be repeatable, meaning, if I set the shock to a particular setting, it should produce a particular force, within a couple of percent. Some shocks care about which direction you come from, such that the shock will produce a different force depending on if you got there by softening or stiffening (most of the time, this was hysteresis in the adjuster detent - Bilstein PSS9) and that is OK as long as it is repeatable. Any shock with a non-detented adjuster (meaning no "clicks" but instead a smooth knob) is going to struggle on this test, more so depending on how sensitive the adjuster is. The Penske rebound adjuster can be made nearly perfect by matching the shocks and then clocking the adjuster window. Konis wind up eyeballing the knob, and the maximum realistic resolution is 1/8 turn. Depending on where you are on the adjustment range linearity, this may or may not be good enough. If you have a set of the Koni "compress and twist to adjust" shocks - good luck! For most people, assuming you have dyno-matched shocks, you can get away with this on a Koni Yellow. It's not perfect; it's not as good as Penske, but it is close enough for government work. But any shock where the adjuster is a random force generator == crap. Any two shocks with the same valving should produce the same force. Bilsteins are EXCELLENT at this, almost (almost!) to the point where you don't need to dyno them after assembly (almost! - I have caught my own assembly errors by religiously dynoing everything after assembly) Anything with an adjuster is going to struggle a little bit here, based on tolerances within the adjuster. Penskes can usually be set this way by matching and clocking the adjuster. Koni Yellows have to be bought in batches and then matched - and YES, there IS enough variation in off-the-shelf Yellows to make this necessary. (I've heard through the grapevine that there are some Koni engineers who take exception to this claim; that they say all their shocks are dynoed before they leave the factory. Well guys, the stuff coming out of the boxes and onto my dyno behaved just the way I'm saying here. I suspect that what might be going on here is that I dynoed at peak speeds of 3 in/sec (where the important stuff happens) rather than at 10 in/sec peak speeds or even faster. It was not at all unusual to see shocks (and not just Konis) that were nearly dead-nuts identical at 10 in/sec peak speeds but were way different at 3 in/sec peak speeds.) More detail in the Buyer's Guide Shocks where the force curves will vary wildly shock-to-shock with the same part number == crap. The shocks should be fade resistant enough to survive AT LEAST my dyno sweep. My dyno program (SPA BTP-2000 Dyno 6.1) ran 10 cycles at 3in/sec peak speed (I could go faster, but rarely did, as the interesting stuff is sub-3 in/sec) and then averaged the runs. Looking at the individual runs, they should be mostly on top of each other and with reasonable hysteresis. Each run getting progressively softer is a sure sign of fade. If I do a full rebound sweep and go back to the start as a confirmation, that value should be identical as when I started, within a couple of percent. Koni==good. Bilstein==good. Penske==good. Japanese==crap. Note that NONE of these criteria talk about the shape or the amount of the force curve - that I consider as a "configuration" issue and is up to the engineer. Any given off the shelf force curve may or may not match a given instance of a car, but matching or not matching off the shelf is NOT an indication of quality or crap. That is, of course, contingent on rebuilding/revalving services being available - if you cannot revalve the shock for love or money, then an crappy off the shelf force curve (Japanese stuff again) makes for a crappy shock. I like Konis Yellows quite a bit - well enough to sell them, when that's what I was doing. They have their foibles, but they are really very good for the price, and there are workarounds for the foibles. If you absolutely MUST have a knob, and you cannot afford Penskes, then they are really the only choice. The biggest downside to a Koni Yellow - not user serviceable, meaning that you are not Master of your Own Domain when it comes to revalves. This is a big enough PITA that I think you're better off forgoing the knob and going with a Bilstein, where you can field-revalve in minutes. My car had Bilsteins on it... The other bit of pushback I get on "crap" all the time is: "If you know which shocks are crappy and which rebuilders do shoddy work, why not tell us"? And the simple answer is: litigation. I get enough nasty letters from people as it is without specifying brands and people by name. Sometimes, it seems like the truth is not necessarily enough protection to prevent people from just suing if you post data that is not flattering to their product. I'm dancing close enough to the edge as it is. I wish this wasn't the case. I wish I could come out and just say who the worst offenders really are. But I can't. So I talk about the good stuff instead. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnc Posted March 4, 2015 Share Posted March 4, 2015 The Koni 8610 is a single adjustable rebound only. There's no change in compression damping when rebound is changed and no cross talk. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mistafosta Posted March 4, 2015 Author Share Posted March 4, 2015 The Koni 8610 is a single adjustable rebound only. There's no change in compression damping when rebound is changed and no cross talk. We still want compression adjustment, just the rebound is critical. The main issue is my car needs a lot more rebound than most so it will most likely need a custom valved shock either way. The Koni is pretty reasonable but after getting it revalved, and with the lack of dampening adjustment it isn't really a viable option. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnc Posted March 4, 2015 Share Posted March 4, 2015 I suggest you contact Angelo at ANZE. http://www.anzeengineering.com/ or Erik at EMI Racing (714) 713-9096 I ran a set of Penske 8760s built by EMI Racing. Erik has experience with setting up the shocks for drag racing FWD and RWD. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mistafosta Posted March 4, 2015 Author Share Posted March 4, 2015 I suggest you contact Angelo at ANZE. http://www.anzeengineering.com/ or Erik at EMI Racing (714) 713-9096 I ran a set of Penske 8760s built by EMI Racing. Erik has experience with setting up the shocks for drag racing FWD and RWD. I'll give them a call today. Penske was my other possible option from what I can tell. Do you remember what was involved to fit it into a 240z? Did they supply the mounting hardware? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnc Posted March 4, 2015 Share Posted March 4, 2015 Penske does not make a S30 application. ANZE and EMI do. Mine was the first back in 2000 and was completely custom with parts machined by Penske in the UK. It cost me $12,000 for four shocks and weld in threaded adapters for the 240z strut tubes. Springs, camber plates, etc. we're all extra. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mistafosta Posted March 4, 2015 Author Share Posted March 4, 2015 Penske does not make a S30 application. ANZE and EMI do. Mine was the first back in 2000 and was completely custom with parts machined by Penske in the UK. It cost me $12,000 for four shocks and weld in threaded adapters for the 240z strut tubes. Springs, camber plates, etc. we're all extra. Jesus, that's a bit out of my range. I'm just a student with a good job so that is way too much for what I'm looking to do Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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