Help with Spring Rates & Shock Rates?

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mekilljoydammit
Oooh. That gives me a thought for my own purposes... what's the diameter of the narrow bit at the bottom, eg-proximately?

Bear in mind those things are supposedly out of production, NLA.
And I think the bottom is about 45mm...no less than 44mm.

What are you thinking about? (don't be shy, you can tell us. We won't tell anybody....we're not like the others. We're your friends)

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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.

Ah, just noodling on roadrace crap for my dad - car's a 1st gen RX-7, so the asinine strut-tube-welded-to-the-spindle-casting dealie and not allowed to change, which means, lacking kilobucks to have a decent solution made, using a crappy hot street style insert. Been musing about a Bilstein solution in my copious free time for a while, and that jobbie looked a bit more self-contained than a lot of the 36mm inserts I've seen was all - grease seals incorporated in the bit they sell, not relying on screwing into another damn tube like the 300ZX one I picked up to measure and play with. But NLA is NLA.

Quote
mekilljoydammit
Ah, just noodling on roadrace crap for my dad - car's a 1st gen RX-7, so the asinine strut-tube-welded-to-the-spindle-casting dealie and not allowed to change, which means, lacking kilobucks to have a decent solution made, using a crappy hot street style insert. Been musing about a Bilstein solution in my copious free time for a while, and that jobbie looked a bit more self-contained than a lot of the 36mm inserts I've seen was all - grease seals incorporated in the bit they sell, not relying on screwing into another damn tube like the 300ZX one I picked up to measure and play with. But NLA is NLA.

Shirley one tube is pretty much like any other. Nissan welded theirs in.
So what. Un-weld, chuck up and thread it, cram some busings in and stick it back in and re-weld..Then its just like it was..

Or just to make it easier, chuck up and un-weld---just so you can work on it---and weld in a pre-made tube. Like one of these:


If threading the OD is not allowed they can be supplied without threads but bushed and ready to re-weld into the knuckle...I even have some inserts that we ordered for some swhish road car--shorter inserts..

It's just money....but I'm telling you, its cheaper to get shit that works good and then just concentrate on driving than hodge-podgin around with junk we have no idea what it is inside, and still needs hacking and modding..

What's allowed for top mounts? (another area OEM stuff is weak in)

---

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.

I don't have the Nissan tube, and I haven't tracked down a steady rest for the lathe yet, so haven't tried to tackle inside threading to be able to fit that top gland nut with the wiper seals thingy. Lame excuse, I know. In my defense, I seem to have less time to go to my folk's to use the machine shop since getting married, maybe that'll change once the wife gets sick of having me around all the time.

Hokay, so. Yeah, pre-made tube would work great - that's sorta what I was hoping the Honduh one would be, because I'm juuuuuust a bit too lazy to do that part too. Or inexperienced at the thread cutting parts of lathe-ery and haven't gotten around to figuring out all the little seals and workybits to do my own, whatever, blah blah insert whatever reassurances to my own ego sound credible here, heh heh. All that said, I do have real measurements that I can take off of stuff that's proven, and I thiiiiiink the spindle castings can deal with being bored out to 45mm or so without any issue, but it's been a while since I did that to a junk one. Top mounts are Ground Control dealies with spherical bearings of some size I forget offhand, and built-in threads are fine with the rules guys. Spring rates I'd *like* to be running are 450-500lb/in or so, or I guess in rally terms, "a bazillion", and though this is probably completely no help, some NLA Bilstein part that Mazda used to sell through the comp program claimed a damping of 300/120 but it's probably not actually right for the spring rates.

I'll see what the actual guy paying for this stuff thinks about it - race this weekend and he keeps making noises about giving up on the racing hobby whenever crap breaks. So don't spend too much time thinking about it on my account.

Quote
mekilljoydammit
I don't have the Nissan tube, and I haven't tracked down a steady rest for the lathe yet, so haven't tried to tackle inside threading to be able to fit that top gland nut with the wiper seals thingy. Lame excuse, I know. In my defense, I seem to have less time to go to my folk's to use the machine shop since getting married, maybe that'll change once the wife gets sick of having me around all the time.

Hokay, so. Yeah, pre-made tube would work great - that's sorta what I was hoping the Honduh one would be, because I'm juuuuuust a bit too lazy to do that part too. Or inexperienced at the thread cutting parts of lathe-ery and haven't gotten around to figuring out all the little seals and workybits to do my own, whatever, blah blah insert whatever reassurances to my own ego sound credible here, heh heh. All that said, I do have real measurements that I can take off of stuff that's proven, and I thiiiiiink the spindle castings can deal with being bored out to 45mm or so without any issue, but it's been a while since I did that to a junk one. Top mounts are Ground Control dealies with spherical bearings of some size I forget offhand, and built-in threads are fine with the rules guys. Spring rates I'd *like* to be running are 450-500lb/in or so, or I guess in rally terms, "a bazillion", and though this is probably completely no help, some NLA Bilstein part that Mazda used to sell through the comp program claimed a damping of 300/120 but it's probably not actually right for the spring rates.

I'll see what the actual guy paying for this stuff thinks about it - race this weekend and he keeps making noises about giving up on the racing hobby whenever crap breaks. So don't spend too much time thinking about it on my account.

Good stuff, good, but I gotta go make a bunch chips for Matt from Calgary who is driving down TOMORROW to fill his in-laws car with goodies. I'll be back round midnight, and go thru the above--yeah we're derailing poor Chris' thread but it's "sorta related"...sorta...

So built in thread on the tube makes everything easy.
The OD of the OEM thing right at the knuckle is probably very nearly 2" aka 50,8mm to us metric guys...Check it soon as you can.
Ground Control doubtless are cheesy undersized poo...BUT!!!!!!
Find a piccie so i can see if there's an easy way out of that mess..
BIG FAT PINS, like 20mm are better-er-er than skinny ass 12 or 14mm threaded pins. There ARE big loads resolved at the pin and skinny pins bend even on tarmac cars...more grip= more bend loads to resolve.

We can make this thing work far better than people imagine.

---

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.

Quote
john vanlandingham
yeah we're derailing poor Chris' thread but it's "sorta related"

No worries, I have patience, and appreciate the help whenever it arrives