looking around the internet and talking to different people, found some cool info for making your own quality coil-overs, performance wise. the info is from a DSM autox, but should relate to all cars.
http://farnorthracing.com/autocross/konis.html
Ground-control sell the top mounts (or ebay for the price checkers)and can find the sleeves from them, summit, jegs, or your neighborhood circle track supplier. Same for the springs, lots of suppliers and price variety.
All in all a good week end project
e30 325i, the mighty 4 door granma mobile....Gone
e39 528i, 4 door sports tank
Kony 2012
LOL.
Koni.
Yes I have a few friends who've DIY'd CO's. ITs a good option mainly for cars where you can't buy what you want.
2003 M3CicM6 TiAg
2002 540iT Sport Vortech S/C 6MT LSD TiAg
2008 Audi A3 2.0T DSG (the daily beater)
2014 BMW X1 xDrive28i (wifemobile)
Former:
1985 MB Euro graymarket 300SL
1995.5 Audi S6 Avant (utility/winter billetturbobattlewagen)
Yeah, don't know why it auto corrected that way. I thought it would work for the rear of the e39, since most coil overs out there can't handle or are not designed for the weight.
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e30 325i, the mighty 4 door granma mobile....Gone
e39 528i, 4 door sports tank
All coilovers out there are designed for the weight. That’s why they make them. I can’t think of why someone would want to do this.
e30 325i, the mighty 4 door granma mobile....Gone
e39 528i, 4 door sports tank
Well. There are cases where the rear setup is not a strut, and the shock doesn't ride inside the spring, and has a separate mounting location.
Examples in my driveway would be:
E46 - springs and shocks not concentric
E39T - shocks in a kooky 'laydown' location to make for more cargo room
In those cases, forcing a true C/O in the rear may be an engineering mistake, because the shock mount locations are not engineered to carry the full weight of the car, all the time, but are only intended to carry the load of the shock dampening oscillations. Which might be momentarily high but can also be negigible for long periods. Furthermore, the angle of the shock, when fitted with a spring, may do weird things to the expected spring rate and compression, whereas for the shocks they are engineered to match the wheel-travel-to-shock-travel parameters of the location.
I suspect that's why the Fortune rear E39 touring C/O's were not a 100% success and why some did not think they were that great and why Fortune pulled them. Basically I wouldn't rush in to force a C/O into a place that isn't meant to take all that load.
To try that with an E46 shock location for instance - total idiocy, you're begging to ram the C/O up through the shell in no time unless you welded up a new custom shock tower or at least reinforcement plates that are far beefier than the usual "heavy duty shock mounts'. Even the bottom shock mount to the rear wheel carrier point is questionable whether it should carry all that load. I know there are E46 fanboiz who do this but I think they are stupid - there's no engineering benefit from forcing it into a C/O strut configuration, although probably many of them like the bling factor of peering in and seeing a C/O type sexytime setup instead of just a shock + a spring.
IF however you are self-fabbing a C/O to replace an existing strut-type suspension, and doing so because it'll get you something you can't get otherwise easily, then its a fine idea.
2003 M3CicM6 TiAg
2002 540iT Sport Vortech S/C 6MT LSD TiAg
2008 Audi A3 2.0T DSG (the daily beater)
2014 BMW X1 xDrive28i (wifemobile)
Former:
1985 MB Euro graymarket 300SL
1995.5 Audi S6 Avant (utility/winter billetturbobattlewagen)
Yeah I’m not talking about trying to bolt a strut to the back of an e46. Nobody does that. Or at least I’d imagine nobody would.
I mean why would you need to make your own like this when almost every company makes a kit for these cars. If you’re having problems with damping just have them revalved properly or buy a better set up. Upping the spring rates isn’t going to solve bad dampers.
They do. Not many but a few poser boys who think if its not a CO-strut-design its not racecar.
I tend to agree that there's not much sense in making your own Koni based C/O's, unless you think you have some secret sauce for requesting custom damping rates from them and pairing with some custom spring rate. A load of the 'brands' that you find will be secretly using Koni dampers inside anyway. A tiny fraction of the "COILOVER BRANDS" actually make dampers, they buy that crap from the big shock makers and stuff it inside uprights they have fabricated (and pair with springs they don't make either, but buy from Hyperco or Swift or Eibach or whoever...).
As said before, for most part you're right, for street driving guys self-fab is silly, but yes, there are people who could have legit reasons for wanting to custom build.
2003 M3CicM6 TiAg
2002 540iT Sport Vortech S/C 6MT LSD TiAg
2008 Audi A3 2.0T DSG (the daily beater)
2014 BMW X1 xDrive28i (wifemobile)
Former:
1985 MB Euro graymarket 300SL
1995.5 Audi S6 Avant (utility/winter billetturbobattlewagen)
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