evildky Posted April 20, 2006 Share Posted April 20, 2006 so I got a full set of techno Toys Tuning Camber plates and Coil over hats, they made me a good deal on the full package and I highly recomend them, they did say taht their plates would work with any coil over hats taht were tapered, mine were not so I got theirs as well my question is with coil overs in general, why so they bother with the spherical bearing? if the strut is to tilt so will the spring hat does this simply push the hat down onto the spring in as it compresses and rebounds adding to the spring energy? it jsut seems to me the hats shoud be pivoting at the bearing and not the starionaly plate? am I confused? ren't pretty much all of them like this? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CruxGNZ Posted April 20, 2006 Share Posted April 20, 2006 Once the strut is attached you will see how it all works. You're thinking to hard Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1 fast z Posted April 20, 2006 Share Posted April 20, 2006 Look at what Ive built, this lets it piviot on the bearing without any bind. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CruxGNZ Posted April 20, 2006 Share Posted April 20, 2006 There is not that many degree's of movement to warant seperating the hat from the camber plate that far, is there? I have never checked myself, but it couldn't be that much. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
katman Posted April 20, 2006 Share Posted April 20, 2006 That's a problem with the Tilton style upper spring perch with the thrust bearing. Also adds a smidge of bending to the shock shaft, but doesn't seem to be a long term issue on race cars that use that arrangement. Street car with more travel and miles? Dunno. I've always liked the thrust bearing as opposed to bearing on the spherical, since the shock loads tend to beat the lining out of the bearing in short order (at least at the rates we're running on race cars) and having the car weight added to that just exacerbates the problem. Ground Control has a spherical thrust washer type arrangement that I thought was clever. Maybe I'm getting old, but the more I think about it the more I like the original rubber isolators to take the high frequency vibes away from my arse.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnc Posted April 20, 2006 Share Posted April 20, 2006 Combining the upper spring perch with the monoball reduces side loads on the shock shaft and frees up the suspension. But, monoballs are not designed to handle large side loads so camber plate manufacturers typically put the spring loads from the upper spring perch directly into the camber plate. This does impart side loads on the shock shaft from the bow that is put in the spring as the strut assembly moves up. Its a compromise that's done to keep from having to frequently replace the monoballs. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
evildky Posted April 20, 2006 Author Share Posted April 20, 2006 so if the amount of pivot is so insignificant then the spherical bearing is not needed? it just seems pointless to allow for the shaft to povot is the spring hat is keeping the strut from pivoting? are all of them designed this way? the spacer allowing the hat to pivot seems the logical solution but the load on the bearing does scareme as it's held in with only a thin lip of aluminum, I know I am making mountains of molehills as it seems everyone just runs them the way they are are doesn't worry about such trivial things, i'm just trying to figure out if there is a way to safely improve them or if I'm better off leaving well enough alone Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zed240au Posted April 21, 2006 Share Posted April 21, 2006 ok this is something ive been trying to figure out as well to me i thought i would need to keep the coil top away from the the camber plate as per 1 fast z spacer so that the load is taken up by the mono ball and there is no binding of the coil hat to the camber plate when steering is this correct or wrong I dont have as much space on my bilstein strut to make spacer as big as 1 fast z but believe the spacer i have machined up will give me just enough The other reason i thought the load should be on the mono ball was i had heard people saying the coil overs and camber plates where noisy banging so i thought if its nice and tight with all things bolted tight should stop noise am i on the right or wrong track Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnc Posted April 21, 2006 Share Posted April 21, 2006 As Keith and I posted above, there have been a number of camber plates that use the monoball to take the vertical loads from the springs. All the racing applications of the ones I have seen have to have the monoball replaced frequently. Monoballs are not designed to take big side loads so the inner lining fails first causing the ball to bang in the race which either: 1. Further damamges the monball. 2. Pounds out the mounting area in the camber plate. 3. Busts out the snap ring holding the monoball in place. As long as you are willing to frequently inspect and replace the monoball as soon as there's any sign of lining failure, they should work fine. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nope Posted April 23, 2006 Share Posted April 23, 2006 Hey just wondering if the shock shaft slip fits into the top spring hat or is there a bunch of clearance. If there's clearance from the OD of the shock shaft and the ID of the spring hat, what is that difference in diameter? Post some pics of this if you can. There should be clearance and if there is then i can probably answer your question. Btw, I'd like to hear more about how the setup is working for you, I was planning on ordering them this coming week. Good luck. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JMortensen Posted April 24, 2006 Share Posted April 24, 2006 I don't know about his, but I just checked mine since they're sitting right next to my desk and the GC top hat has probably .120 clearance between the shaft -- I'm guessing .060 per side. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nope Posted April 24, 2006 Share Posted April 24, 2006 Cool thanks Jon. Well in that case (and hopefully the TTT setup is the same) the spring hat is fine being pressed up against the monoball unit as in the first pic. However, the spring hat will never tilt as seen in the second pic due to the shaft clearance I was asking about. The spring hat will take 100% of the axial (vertical) spring load and transmit it into the entire camber plate and not the monoball. As the suspension goes through its travel and the strut changes angle, the spring will compensate by shearing (or bowing) in a sense which is totally harmless. Kinda like a slinky if you were to move the top to the left and the bottom to the right but keeping all the rings flat against each other. Meanwhile, the shock shaft pivots at the monoball correctly in the space within the spring coil. As far as loading of the monoball, it takes 100% of the shock load only. As far as side loads.. I can’t picture any other than insignificant vibration. For the TTT setup, the needle bearing between the spring hat and monoball unit is just there to allow rotation while steering and protect other parts over time due to constant un-fixed contact and vibration. Otherwise its aluminum on aluminum, and that wears pretty bad. It looks like the arizona z setup has the aluminum spring hat jammed right up under the aluminum monoball holder with nothing in between. 1 fast z, your spacer idea might be intuitive but I think it’s also more harmful by putting all of the suspension load (spring + shock) straight into the monoball. I don’t know if youve driven your car like that but I would be afraid of hitting a hard bump and blowing the monoball straight through the aluminum lip on top that’s holding it in. So evildky, the monoball is needed for the strut to pivot without bending shock shaft. Also, the spring hat does not pivot with the strut because of the clearance it has from the shock shaft. Hopefully this makes sense since I’ve yet to play with any of these camber plate setups but this is what I gather from checking out pictures and stuff. Here’s a ms-paint thing I drew to help explain what I wrote. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BlackBeaut Posted April 24, 2006 Share Posted April 24, 2006 Nice explanation John, thanks! Out of interest has anybody made up an assembly that has a female rod end simply screwed on to the threaded end of the shock which then mounts on to some cunning clevis thing bolted to the 3 original mounting holes? Seems to me like it would work, might change the pivot point location at the top by a few millimeters, don't know how critical that is. The only real downside I can see is that if you've got adjustable dampers with the adjuster at the top of the threaded bit you're a bit screwed. Sorry for slight thread hijack! Cheers, Rob Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Clifton Posted April 24, 2006 Share Posted April 24, 2006 1 fast z' date=' your spacer idea might be intuitive but I think it’s also more harmful by putting all of the suspension load (spring + shock) straight into the monoball. I don’t know if youve driven your car like that but I would be afraid of hitting a hard bump and blowing the monoball straight through the aluminum lip on top that’s holding it in. [/quote'] That's how the AZC design is. I haven't heard of any failures and mine have been trouble free. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JMortensen Posted April 24, 2006 Share Posted April 24, 2006 Cool thanks Jon. Well in that case (and hopefully the TTT setup is the same) the spring hat is fine being pressed up against the monoball unit as in the first pic. However' date=' the spring hat will never tilt as seen in the second pic due to the shaft clearance I was asking about. The spring hat will take 100% of the axial (vertical) spring load and transmit it into the entire camber plate and not the monoball. As the suspension goes through its travel and the strut changes angle, the spring will compensate by shearing (or bowing) in a sense which is totally harmless. Kinda like a slinky if you were to move the top to the left and the bottom to the right but keeping all the rings flat against each other. Meanwhile, the shock shaft pivots at the monoball correctly in the space within the spring coil. As far as loading of the monoball, it takes 100% of the shock load only. As far as side loads.. I can’t picture any other than insignificant vibration. For the TTT setup, the needle bearing between the spring hat and monoball unit is just there to allow rotation while steering and protect other parts over time due to constant un-fixed contact and vibration. Otherwise its aluminum on aluminum, and that wears pretty bad. It looks like the arizona z setup has the aluminum spring hat jammed right up under the aluminum monoball holder with nothing in between. So evildky, the monoball is needed for the strut to pivot without bending shock shaft. Also, the spring hat does not pivot with the strut because of the clearance it has from the shock shaft. Hopefully this makes sense since I’ve yet to play with any of these camber plate setups but this is what I gather from checking out pictures and stuff. Here’s a ms-paint thing I drew to help explain what I wrote. [img']http://iacs5.ucsd.edu/%7Ejamarque/camberplate.jpg[/img] This is exactly correct, and I can prove it. I wanted to see you come up with the same answer that I did before I showed proof. With my old setup I used to race with the adjusters all the way down, so the spring overlapped the threaded adjuster by 4". When the bending of the spring happened, it wore the threads on the sleeves. When I reassembled this time I flipped the adjusters over, and you can clearly see the wear. I'm thinking about just leaving it this way, because I don't think it's going to be a good idea to run the car all the way down on the new suspension, as it would just be too dang low. This is by far the worst one FWIW and this is after 8 seasons of autox with the front spring perch located all the way down at the base of the sleeve. The rears barely got touched, as you can see EDIT-just to clarify, I swapped front and rear sleeves because I tended to run the front lower and I figured if I did need to get it down there I'd have better threads: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BlackBeaut Posted April 24, 2006 Share Posted April 24, 2006 Eeep! Are they 2.1/2" I/D springs Jon? I'm going to be using 2.1/4" (just more common over here) which would in theory produce worse results quicker than 2.1/2". Granted for the time being I'll be running them with the stock rubber mounts so the top perch should move in relation to the bottom perch. Hmmm, food for thought! Cheers, Rob Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JMortensen Posted April 24, 2006 Share Posted April 24, 2006 Yep, 2.5 ID springs. Again, I think this happened because I ran them so low when I raced. If the spring doesn't ovelap the threaded sleeve that much, I don't think this is really a problem. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dragonfly Posted April 24, 2006 Share Posted April 24, 2006 so if the amount of pivot is so insignificant then the spherical bearing is not needed? it just seems pointless to allow for the shaft to povot is the spring hat is keeping the strut from pivoting? are all of them designed this way? the spacer allowing the hat to pivot seems the logical solution but the load on the bearing does scareme as it's held in with only a thin lip of aluminum, I know I am making mountains of molehills as it seems everyone just runs them the way they are are doesn't worry about such trivial things, i'm just trying to figure out if there is a way to safely improve them or if I'm better off leaving well enough alone A number of years ago (before I knew about HybridZ) I made a set of very simple camber plates that had no monoball in them and only used the rubber piece from the factory to handle any play... well after breaking two struts off I decided to pay the money and get proper camber plates. IMO if you do not have the monoball you will break the threaded portion off the top of your struts. Dragonfly Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nope Posted May 8, 2006 Share Posted May 8, 2006 hey evildky, any progress on the install? i think im about to buy these too, so yea show us whats up! john Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
evildky Posted May 10, 2006 Author Share Posted May 10, 2006 havn't touched them, been busy installing new clutch and converting to T-5 and having the head worked oever as it was seeping a bit, I doubt I'll install mine before next year as I want to buy the double adjustable struts and runa wider wheel but that all adds up $$$ so I'll collect parts for now and when I get it all I'll do that part Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.