looking down the road... suspension

Just started my new job at MotorWeb.com this week (I'm back on the net during the day - wo0t) and I found out that I can pick up a set of these K Sport Gravel Spec coilovers w/ pillow mounts for under a grand out the door. It's going to be a while before I've got the budget to call Mr. Vanlandingham to build me something proper, so I'm thinking these might be a good compromise for me while I'm daily driving, rallyxing, and working events in the area.

I'm curious what you guys might have to say about these. Mono- vs. Dual-tube design comes to mind. Is monotube a bad idea or is the description correct?

Thanks, gentlemen.

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Brian Driggs | KG7KCA | PHX, AZ | 89 Pajero
alterius non sit qui suus esse potest

Uh... is it just me or are those struts like $1400? At that price, you might as well call John. From my understanding, his stuff isn't that much more expensive than that and is probably a lot beefier. Plus you've got somebody who can give you advice and talk you through stuff and who knows hows how to fix it for you if you decide to impale your car on something harder than it is.

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"Time to unpimp ze auuto."





sleightc (A.T.) Yahoo {DOT} com

Phlyan Pan Wrote:
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> Uh... is it just me or are those struts like
> $1400? At that price, you might as well call
> John. From my understanding, his stuff isn't that
> much more expensive than that and is probably a
> lot beefier. Plus you've got somebody who can
> give you advice and talk you through stuff and who
> knows hows how to fix it for you if you decide to
> impale your car on something harder than it is.

Well it's a bit more but the design of upside down or inverted struts makes the not 10 or 20 times stronger, but really WAY WAY stronger.

The weakeness of all the conventional strut designs is centered on the very small single guide bushing for the shaft.
I pulled apart some strut i had here and the length of the single bush was about 15mm, maybe 17.
If you compare that the inverted design, in which you have 2 bushes each 1.5"/38mm long with a space between them of about 1.5"/38mm you can see that the inverted type are overlapping, and guided for a total of about 4.5" or about 114mm, or about 8 times as much as the conventional grocery getter designs.
Looked at another way that single narrow "guide bush' could be seen as a fulcrum:
If you somehow or another introduced some serious side loads some how, Hmmmmmmmmmmm
let see..... say...cornering and hitting walloy type bumps on gravel or even just hard corner and maybe throw in dome braking, the cornering bend loads and braking loads will concentrate right there at the guide bush.

Now if the suspension is going to actually stroke, ya know go "plongé-plongé"
the only way it can is if the parts can telescope, and that's made harder cause we all drive cars with LOTS of compliance in the bushes so the poor control arms are doubtless out of position, so the forces acting on the stuff are outward, rearward and that makes for a big bend load.
And bend the stuff does.
I just had a call from a certain madman Ned Zedder who was driving some Sub-a-rat thing in the last event is SoCal and he had some only "Lukewarm things" which are really street things, and he said "well they lasted about a little under a mile and a half, both rears blew".

Then there the simpler question of material strength. How much stronger is a 40mm tube of CrMo like I make over a bar of 18 or 20 or 22mm.
Well we know we can take a bar of steel and bend it by whacking it on a solid object with our bare hands, right?

But we use 35, or 38 or 40mm TUBE, mild steel tube even, to build the cages in our cars.

Both you guys, the 40mm inverted things are good enough for gravel and they of course will work just fine, and I assure you, you'll be surprised, on street/highway and playdays at conesquishing, trackdays, Rally EX, and they'll last longer than the cars you're driving.
And good balanced proper damped Gravel stuff is pretty firm, but not too stupid harsh so daily driving won't be compromised tooo much.

As for not having all the dough, so far everybody splits the payments to spread the pain, no reason you both can't.


And I wouldn't spend more than $65 for a conventional design strut.
So even 800 or a thousand bucks is way more than I'd pay.



>
> "Time to unpimp ze auuto."
>
>
>
>
>
> sleightc (A.T.) Yahoo {DOT} com

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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.

What John said.

'Cept that I've never heard of Ned Zedder, and I thought I knew everyone who rallied down here.

Also, who is K-Sport? I've never heard of them, and certainly have never seen anyone rallying on their shocks. The company looks like it's only got time-attack and drift experience - pretty sketchy. I'm reminded of a certain team that competed at Rim two years ago who were sponsored by a shock company with no real rally experience. They'd given them two sets of their shocks that were purported to be beefed up for rallying. The first set lasted through two thirds of one stage before bending horribly. The second set lasted halfway through one superspecial.

Anyone can slap a "rally" label on a shock, but that doesn't make it so.


Anyway, if'n you wanna throw a grand at a set of shocks for daily driving and rallycrossing, be my guest - it's your money - , but I wouldn't rally on those things.

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Self-righteous douche canoe

He's talking about Leon.

And after seeing the way Leon hits those waterbars, I would doubt anything would have held up to that. He was using hotbits.

K-Sport is some Japanese company that's just starting to sell stuff in the US. I bought their hydraulic handbrake because it was $160 with cylinder and can be conventional parallel to tunnel or flipped to WRC coolness upright handbrake. And has a flip switch thing for parking brake.

As to suspension, I'd not trust it.

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Grant Hughes

WOW! that is a great price for a real rally suspension. Let us know how it works out on those rough western "roads". I have heard that the water bars out there can eat entire cars. If K-Sport stuff can survive out there, It should be overbuilt for running in the East.

It looks like Foust and Pinker are running Tein suspension. They seem to go pretty well. Maybe that is another reasonably priced Asian suspension that is worth looking at for gravel rallying.

I have been paying 3 to 5 times what the K-sport stuff costs for DMS and Bilstein stuff that is always in need of TLC. And I drive very slowly around the big rocks on eastern roads that are known to be much smoother.

Those hydraulic handbrake units look kewl, too.

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Ted Mendham
www.rensport.net

> He's talking about Leon.
>

Uh, no, I wasn't talking about Leon.

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Self-righteous douche canoe

Not you, JVL.

Thanks for the input. I was just shocked to learn I can get some neat things at cost as a benefit to working at this new job. Tough part is, there's practically nothing rally-related I can pick up, and even less than that for the GVR4. It's a bummer.

I can pick that set up for well under a grand, but I was curious. I think I'll continue to wait until that fine day when I can call up JVL and order the real deal.

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Brian Driggs | KG7KCA | PHX, AZ | 89 Pajero
alterius non sit qui suus esse potest