gr.2 Rally Civic Project

John, there is a huge difference in price... Ya gotta buy hot bits, then something else to replace them...so long run cheap cost more....

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I be sorry as a muthafucka I did, still sorry I did n' hustled ta peep what tha fuck I holla'd a lil' bit better, or at least try to.

The only problem I have had with my HotBits is when I hit a tree and bent the shock rod in half, body was 100% completely fine after I put in a new rod... Of course John is going to trash them on this forum when he's selling his own stuff.

I would guess a lot of HotBits failures are just bad installastion. If you get external reservoirs you need to be real careful about the alignment on the front shock forks. Too far out and you clip the wheel at full lock, too close and it will rub on the body on the inside under compression. When I install mine, I measure it with tight finger gap to the body at full droop and have had no problems.

I also have bigger reservoirs on mine and they were rubbing a little bit on the fuel filler guard. I zip tied that shit out of the way and no problems.

I've been real happy with mine and the adjustability. I can get all the damping I need for my snow, gravel AND tarmac springs with one shock. That way, I don't need to go out and buy three different shocks. I'm still considering getting new shocks for my dedicated track setup which has twice the spring rate of my tarmac rally setup. But that's pretty much going to be the suspension I toss on my Track Integra too.

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BillyElliot
The only problem I have had with my HotBits is when I hit a tree and bent the shock rod in half, body was 100% completely fine after I put in a new rod... Of course John is going to trash them on this forum when he's selling his own stuff.

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No Billy I'm simply reporting what dozen have said, and what I have seen... You can guess all you want, but when alleged gravel suspension is delivered with 160mm travel to a car low street car that came with 160mm travel, and the owner says "I kill one or two per event", I choose to belive them, and I'll say that ain't "installation error"

Maybe just maybe the people reporting are unhappy to have paid--at the time---within $200 of really good stuff for stuff that fails regularly.....

And your expected cynical take on things is very typical of how you see things, always trying to find fault, and find the worst possible motivation..

Billy, I'm not selling this guy anything... Got that Billy?

I suggested why he should think hard about Bilsteins, no that he should buy them from me...

The why, which you maybe glazed over, or ignored cause you "know the real reason" is because there are numbers for what the valving is and those numbers let's people have an idea of what their dampers are...

If the Hotbitch stuff cost $65-75 a corner then it would be one thing...
But unlike you, as far as i know, I actually make things. I know what steel costs for the 4130 CrMo I make my tubes from and the aluminum and the machining and the plating and anodizing, I know what this all costs in short runs in USA, which we can be assured is a lot more than in Malaysia or Bangkok or where ever the stuff is made..
If it had travel appropriate to gravel and valving that we had some idea in advance before paying a lot of money, that would be another thing..

But they don't cost $65-75 a corner, the material they made of is unknown, the valving is unknown, the travel is or has been insufficient and there's no idea who is advising who on what crap should be....


I wonder sometimes how people become so ready to assume malice in others., what horrible environment made them so ready to spew hate that doesn't even make sense..

So Billy, I'm not selling the guy anything.
Got it?

I'm trying to help him out cuase it make me sick to see people waste money on junk, break it repeatedly and get bummed out..
It's called empathy, Billy.
look it up.

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John Vanlandingham
Sleezattle, WA, USA

Vive le Prole-le-ralliat

www.rallyrace.net/jvab
CALL +1 206 431-9696
Remember! Pacific Standard Time
is 3 hours behind Eastern Standard Time.

Reminds me of something said about dampers, though it was in relation to roadrace stuff - something along the lines of "if the guy you're getting your dampers from won't tell you the paying customer what the valving is doing, beware, because it's probably either that the valving is doing something weird and wrong, or because they flat out don't know themselves".

Granted that following that advice does narrow the field on damper choices a lot, and also there's a difference between "telling you the paying customer" and "telling random tire-kickers on the internet". How far would you trust an engine builder that would take your money but still wouldn't tell what the power curve looks like, or even what the compression ratio or cam timing looks like?

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mekilljoydammit
Reminds me of something said about dampers, though it was in relation to roadrace stuff - something along the lines of "if the guy you're getting your dampers from won't tell you the paying customer what the valving is doing, beware, because it's probably either that the valving is doing something weird and wrong, or because they flat out don't know themselves".

Hmmm. I wonder who said that.

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Jason McDaniel

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mekilljoydammit
Reminds me of something said about dampers, though it was in relation to roadrace stuff - something along the lines of "if the guy you're getting your dampers from won't tell you the paying customer what the valving is doing, beware, because it's probably either that the valving is doing something weird and wrong, or because they flat out don't know themselves".

Granted that following that advice does narrow the field on damper choices a lot, and also there's a difference between "telling you the paying customer" and "telling random tire-kickers on the internet". How far would you trust an engine builder that would take your money but still wouldn't tell what the power curve looks like, or even what the compression ratio or cam timing looks like?

Yep. And since I started working on changing valving way way back in winter 1975-76, I kinda like having some idea of what is going on.....

That is my major complaint about Koni, and is part of why I thought Jamie Drummond, the Ozzie megalomaniac whose modded Bilstein 40s and 50s grew to be DMS was a putz: zero info on springs and cursory info on spring rates---ie the springs are taper ground wire true progressives, saying "225" won't cut it on a long true progressive..the other was the price 15 years ago..which was already north of 2000 buck then..

Again, for 65 bucks we try it out and if its OK, OK, or if its meh, OK..
For $1850, I want to know if the steel is CrMo, what the valving is, what the travel is--who came up with the valving...

It really bothered me Billy's accusation that I "of course he's going to trash them BECAUSE he's selling his own stuff here"

I thought why it seriously bothers me and I think any of you guys who know me know I really am trying to figure out ways to make available to ordinary schmucks like all of us, stuff that works pretty damn good, at as an affordable price as I can...(bigger runs is the key there, machining costs really do go down with bigger runs) (but that ties up LOTS of money in parts just sitting on the shelf--my money tied up to save you guys dough), and this guy here, a guy who I really have no idea about except that he seems like 20s way to cocky guy---comes and says that..

Billy-- I make the suspension I make BECAUSE of either obscenely overpriced really GOOD stuff, or because of obscenely overpriced junk stuff.
You have it backwards..
I don't "Trash" Hotbitch because I'm making and selling good stuff.

I MAKE good stuff because Hotbitch is trash.

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John Vanlandingham
Sleezattle, WA, USA

Vive le Prole-le-ralliat

www.rallyrace.net/jvab
CALL +1 206 431-9696
Remember! Pacific Standard Time
is 3 hours behind Eastern Standard Time.

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john vanlandingham
I don't "Trash" Hotbitch because I'm making and selling good stuff.

I MAKE good stuff because Hotbitch is trash.

Best turn of a phrase I've read on RA.

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Jason McDaniel

I just find from my own personal experience, on the same platform this guy is building his car on, contradicting to what "others" say. I've had no issues, sure I don't have WRC travel but it sure is a good amount because I am not limited by shock travel at all. I have run Sno*Drift 2011, 100AW 2011, Rally TN 2011, LSPR 2011, Sno*Drift 2012, STPR 2012, Sno*Drift 2013, 100AW 2013 and a couple track days on my current dampers. Only had to rebuild one from the bent rod I mentioned hitting a tree in Tennessee. I hit a big fucking tree stump at 2011 LSPR AND ran the same tire into a tree at Sno*Drift and nothing happened to the dampers from those. I've bent wheels and control arms and pretty much gave zero fucks or worried my shit was going to pop. Every other time I just take the dampers off the car, clean them up and make sure they're not leaking (OMG they aren't!) and put the appropriate spring for the event type (snow/grave/tarmac) adjust my damping to my suspension notes and I'm good to go.

I'm also not running some crazy car. It's basically a Civic, apparently some shitty dampers, a stock motor with close ratio gears and a clutch diff. The wheel travel limiting factors are the suspension geometry or the weaker outer CVs in the front with more droop. So unless I want to go through and waste the millions of dollars Honda spent to design for my own benefit, I don't see any reason why anything is so bad.

The suspension is an inboard shock, it's not a strut. It doesn't need to be built like a tank or some fancy inverted stuff (although lots of the earlier HotBits impreza stuff was all non-inverted which could be why it was all shit). You just need good travel. you get that from an external reservoir which the shocks themselves, I admit, have a short OEM travel if you run an off the shelf Bilstein HD because of the gas chamber. Moving the gas chamber into the reservoir gives you the full length of the shock for the piston to move around.

If I had to do it again with my knowledge? I'd probably do what I planned as my "top of the line" set which was taking a Bilstein HD shock, weld/tap a bung on the bottom for a Penske external high/low speed compression adjustable reservoir. Run an adjustable rebound rod and then have a fully 3 way adjustable suspension for under $4000. But for someone who likely doesn't have the first hand experience with suspension setups or willing to tackle it, I suggest getting an off the shelf kit from HotBits with tweaks to spring lengths like I mention, because that is the one thing I did not like about them. Larry Parker is the HotBits authorized rebuider and he is right in the Detroit area. Same costs for rebuilds as Bilsteins (reason why I didn't choose something like Proflex when I was first looking) instead of having to send stuff all the way to the opposite coast to the guys at Bilstein USA.

If you really and honestly want to get some sound advice on Honda suspensions. Don't talk to most guys here, go hunt down the Irish tarmac/forest rally forums because those guys love the fuck out of their Hondas. Although I can pretty much say most of them are all running Proflex, but they also don't have to import parts on special order for them etc.

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modernbeat

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mekilljoydammit
Reminds me of something said about dampers, though it was in relation to roadrace stuff - something along the lines of "if the guy you're getting your dampers from won't tell you the paying customer what the valving is doing, beware, because it's probably either that the valving is doing something weird and wrong, or because they flat out don't know themselves".

Hmmm. I wonder who said that.

Well, I came across the general thought process on Dennis Grant's page but it's made sense to me.

As for the whole hotbits thing... I mean really what just bothers me is the "who knows?" factor. Billy's Civic with them seems to work to be sure, but is it because the way the Civic's suspension is setup hides their flaws more than a strut car would or because they're better than people think? Does the valving make sense or is it just kinda a good-enough-er solution? Who knows?

*quick edit* This is just me from over here in the peanut gallery though...



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/10/2013 03:21PM by mekilljoydammit.

If I had access to a shock dyno I'd put mine up on one to give numbers with adjustments. I had one front and rear done but I only did extreme clicks for comp/rebound doing stiff/stiff, stiff/soft, soft/stiff, soft/soft just to see the max/min values. Considering I was getting this done by my buddy for free, I took what I could get.

What prevents someone from slapping whatever dampers on a dyno and see what's it doing? No need to theorize about all the phases of the moon and the high and low tides of suspension travel or proper valving and shimming. Shit being anal like that about all of those things but then not corner weigh the car, or even know where your roll center and roll couple is like, and having different weight distributions kinda seems like oxymoronic.

Get whatever dampers you want/can afford/can get easily, then get with me and I'll give you some decent dyno curves for what works for these civics. You can send them to any racing suspension shop to get them dyno valved to the similar curves. REsuspension did my stuff (they're down the road from me) and they've been doing the rally Ohlins for a while, they also can make a simple Bilstein with Ohlins guts. My DMS ended up getting Ohlins piston and shim stack because it was on their shelf, same with my spare set of HD billies they got valves and shimmed to the same dynos.

If Billy says his hotbits have been working fine then we cant blame him for liking them. Its not like there's a lot of off the shelf dampers for rally civics. DMS and Proflex are in the 6k range, Reigers are 8k. Hotbits is the other other off the shelf option at 1/3 of the price. There's nothing else out there ready to go.

Here's a fun spreadsheet for zee civic https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AsFOf_7B1MwPdEtpdHNoVnBTN1J3RS1iLVZ1X2VhWGc&hl=en#gid=2

Wow! leave for a weekend and come back to soooo much info! All this spirited discussion is exactly why I love this site! (when it stays on topic haha)

Lots to think about thats for sure.

John, what would be the process to buying coilovers from you? From just an online supplier? When you say start with an educated guess at the dampening, then adjust from there, how would that work and not be a headache for shipping back and forth? Also do you have any references of previously sold setups on this platform, with double wishbone attached with a damper fork? What advantage do I have over going with off the shelf HD's and then re-valving? How long till I have them at my doorstep?

General Question: I'm not sure if I have the experience to even know if I have the proper dampening rate, what are some things to look for while driving? what should I be feeling?

I think I understand the pro's and con's to a setup like hotbits. To be honest, it makes me feel more comfortable to go with a product like that, with some adjustablility, then I can learn from making adjustments as I go. Billy's referral to using them is also holds some regard because its the same platform and he has had a good experience with them.

I'm trying to make a well informed decision here, open to a lot of different Ideas. Its good to have this dialog back and forth with everyone!

Paulino, you make great points, and you've got a mean ass car! Playing around with that spreadsheet is interesting

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Cosworth
Here's a fun spreadsheet for zee civic https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AsFOf_7B1MwPdEtpdHNoVnBTN1J3RS1iLVZ1X2VhWGc&hl=en#gid=2

But what does it mean???

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Grant Hughes

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PeteNaz


General Question: I'm not sure if I have the experience to even know if I have the proper dampening rate, what are some things to look for while driving? what should I be feeling?

Does your car feel like you are bouncing on a diving board, or aim itself for the trees? If not, you are all good.