im starting to look into Spohns front and rear coilover kits. Basically, i have sportlines now, and im going to have to raise the car back up a bit to help with a near future exhaust upgrade with longtubes. Im liking the coilovers because of the height adjustment. the rear kit is fine, and will help me gain a little more clearance for some wider rims, never heard any issues with the rear kit, but i do remember seeing pic on here of a car, i think it was a red bird, and the front fender were getting all wavy from the weight of the car on the shocktowers, now i dont want this to happen. would a good 3pt STB take care of this problem? The car is primarily a street car, and im shooting for superior handling, maybe auto-x one in a while. Anyone have any info, experience, or idea here? got money burning a hole in my pocket and i want to go ahead with this, but i dont want to totally f-up my car either

search for a while, could not find the thread, or anyother mention of this issue

 

TTA850, it is his car your thinking of. He had the PA coil over kit on there. If I remeber right he had 200 lb springs on it and they were bottoming out. Sending all that force into the strut towers causing stuff to move arround

I Have the spohn coil over kit on my vert up front with 325lb springs and I love it. So far no fender distortion at all and the car rides better than my GTO imo.

Yep I'd do a STB also with the coil over kit. Ya should do it anyways reguardless.

 

thanks, that good to know

 

Hey Kat, How are your Torrington bearings holding up? That is my main concern with using the coilovers for daily use because the sring has to turn on the seats every time the wheel is turned. I know those Torrington bearings are pretty HD since I use them regularly adjusting coilovers on shocks when we scale the racecars, but I have never seeen any testing with them being used on a strut for daily twinsting use.


Imput would be greatly appreciated so we have factual durability issues. I myself have been intested in this issue since Steve first came out with the setup. If I remeber correctly your car was the first test guniea pig.


Dean

 

interesting dean,

my car is only a weekend, niceday car, so the wear and tear of DD is not a concern

 

Well I screwed up two of them installing the coils a whil eback and never got arround to replacing them, so I just have one on the bottom of the spring, where the adjusting nut is.

When I swapped them off of my old iroc onto my vert, they still look new, just a bit dirty from everyday use, rain, many passes at the track and quite a few long trips. Other than that, there wasn't any noticeable wear at all to be noted. Thats prolly due to me greasing them with some Mobil1 synth grease when I installed them.

Like I said, I love the kit, with the spohn a-arms, the koni reds and the coil over's, when going over rough roads, the car sits level and the suspensiion takes the hit nicely.

86TA, if aren't a member over at www.epfba.org join, we all get together about once a month and if you want drive the vert all ya want and you can decide if ya like it or not before ya spend the cash.

 

thanks for the offer KAT, thats very nice of you. im pretty set on getting coilovers, i recently joined NJFBOA, and i will check out EPFBA.

anyone have any issues with how the rear shocks are mounted? is the re-enforcement plate that comes with the spohn kit sufficient?

 

Being that techinically I designed the reinforcement plate idea and gave the drawing to Steve Spohn (thats not to knock him in any way though- good guy) I am very partial to it being plenty strong and adequate to hold coilovers. I will be putting that on my car in the somewhat still distant future when things wear out and it is time for a new suspension facelift.

 

Has anyone here ever tried these? Or know of someone who has?

Varistrut coil-over conversion

 

Is he actually selling them now or are they under devlopment still? Honestly I haven't checked into that for quite sometime.

n/m just read the pdf.

 

They are on sale now.

 

they look nice, but dont seem to have the re-enforcement plate and fabricated strut mount that spohn has, they just bolt to the stock strut mount, back to the beginning with fatigue issues...

 

You would have to source or fabricate reinforcement plates seperately, of course. But the struts assemblies themselves seem very nice. They would certainly, at the very least, reduce unsprung weight (all billet aluminum construction).

 

The day I need new struts, those Varistruts have been bookmarked for about 3 years now and are definately going to be my replacement. I wish I knew about them before I bought the Koni's about 5 years ago. Roger Crawford (Heads Up Performance) is running them on his low 9 sec front engine VW bug (Tube chassis of course.)

 

That prolly is going to be my next purchase when the Koni's on the vert go also. Those with the Spohn steel strut mount, 12" spring = da chit.

The only thing that I dont like about the Varishock is the hat setup that they give you to use. It puts all the weight (if using a stock strut mount) on a thick peice of rubber. People like you and I already have an aftermarket strut mount don't have tha concern.

Also I'm sure if ya call Steve up he'll sell you just the plates that you need to support the strut mount.

 

I am talking just use the VariStrruts (Double adjustable), and not he entire coilover front setup. I do not want to go coilovers on the front struts. I actually have an entirely new idea I will do to this car someday, but I am not sharing those gaurded secrets. I have some very upscale suspension ideas I plan on manufacturing in the future if and when the day comes I get proficiant on learning that damn Mastercam CNC program and purchase a CNC mill of my own. I have a goal to someday go into the performance race parts business for the upscale decerning buyer. Not alot of mass produced parts, very few very high quality setups.
Build 10- sell them, build 10 more, etc. I of course if ever do get this going will put my own parts through radical testing before it ever sees any buyer.

Time only tells- THis will not be withing the next 5 yeears though. I am looking to fad into a few different small income retirement jobs and get out of the stone business withing 10 years is my goal. BUT I am not giving up any more secret ideas I have for 3rd gens. I have several major ones and have let go go a few minor ideas here and there.

 

Honestly the 'reinforcement' that Spohn sells wont do a thing to prevent the strut towers from bending wherever they decide to. All those will do is spread the loading location placed directly at the strut mount bolts to a larger area, but it doesnt change the amount of load on the tower itself. So if you're having a problem with bending the sheetmetal at the bolt holes, you'll need the reinforcement. If your fenders start doing weird things, the reinforcement is totally useless. You'd need to connect the strut towers to the frame to do any kind of reinforcing of the tower itself. There's a bunch of pictures of various cars floating around with cages and tube frames with tubes of various sizes running over the top of the strut tower along the fender and down in the front by the battery tray/s, sometimes connected at the back to the frame and some to or through the firewall and to the cage from there. Some have the strut mount connected to them, that is what you'd need to do if you're concerned about it or it becomes a problem on your car. Honestly if its a permanent modification to your car, and the car is something more than a dragstrip car, I'd seriously consider something more substantial than the current strut towers, they're marginal as it is without the load from the spring being placed there too. Just look around at people running a 3-point STB and how many people have bent the firewall. Thats how much they move in a STOCK configuration, let alone springs too. And for sure you'd want to ditch the stock upper strut mounts because the rubber isnt designed for all that load either.

Something along the lines of this (Guido's car)

 

i have been hounding them for struts forever.
i just spoke with chris alstons chassisworks last week and searay?? returned a messaged to me that the engineers at varishock were worried about the rubber in the strut tower, so they discontinued them after a few sets.
after i told him spohn had mounts to semi fix this problem, he called back to varishock, then got back with me and said they may look into it march-april of a reproduction.
!!