Bean Bandits Levin 'Globetrotter'

[Bean]

Instead of a new thread I thought I'll post it here. This is going to be a longer read, so please accept my apologies.
I'm currently doing research for some new suspension parts for my car while it's on his way back to me.

I've read plenty of threads on several forums but as usual it's very difficult to find good infos.

I'll start with what I currently have

APEX springs of unknown rate (I plan to measure once the car arrives)
Tokico HTS 112 (long stroke)

This setup is nice but not ideal - on smooth surface the springs feel too soft and overdamping the setup despite helping a bit is not a good solution.

On the Nuerburgring the rear bottoms out on a few places (i.e. entering the Karussel)

Backin Sudan it was too harsh as the roads are worse than in Belgium.
Now here (Israel) the roads are in a fairly good state even if not as good as Switzerland.

I acquired some swift spring with 6kg/mm and 4kg/mm rates front and rear respectively but to fit them at least on the front some major changes would be necessary to the struts to make them work and still yield minimal travel.

So what would I desire? As the car won't be my daily driver anymore I'd like to do a more fun street/track oriented setting. As far as my research has gotten yet this means front rates between 3kg/mm and 6kg/mm and rear from 2kg/mm to 5kg/mm. I've looked at my options and budget in mind and came up with several solutions and would be interested in some opinions.

Option #1: cheapest
modify my struts and live with minimal travel/stroke using the swift springs. Also moving out of the ideal range of the shocks due to being too long.

Option #2: cheapish
sell the swifts and convert to proper coilovers up front with longer springs but keeping the shocks, regaining travel/stroke but having a fairly/rally like stance.

Option #3-X: off the shelf coilover/suspension set or custom made
here lies the real trouble in my research. I looked at the following setups so far but am not interlay happy with any of the due to different reasons.

[list:6006e5de24]HSD HR kit - I like the fact that they come with new spindles and that does are separate from the rest (you can adjust height without removing or affecting the travel) but they aren't listed on the main page anymore and despite that some sources suggest that alternative spring rates could be ordered there is no proof/certainty that the valving would suit.

DW CS2 - too high spring rates and basically the same as above

BC Racing BR - same as above again - although I found a promotional dyno of the dampers I still need to figure out if it would work, think it would be too harsh of a damper in general

BC Racing ER - separate adjustment which I like can be ordered with different rates and they would revalve it too as it's made to order but still not sure on their damper characteristic

AVO universal dampers and home made struts - currently checking if I can source the lower mount and spindle from BC Racing (just the mounts) and come up with my own build for the rest.
I'm a bit intrigued by this as this would allow the maximum freedom but I'm not entirely convinced about the AVO springs (I will see if they supply me with a shock dyno)

GAZ Gold (GGA432) - they claim the rear being an OEM fit despite having a 62mm damper body (reinforcing will be necessary anyway) and I would need to send them some front spindles/struts. Also adding independent damper control doubles the price[/list:u:6006e5de24]

As can be seen above I'm very picky of the dampers suiting the spring rates.
Hence why I partial to have independent control of the damping as this would on some dampers allow a proper setup on others it's utterly useless or unnecessary if it's properly valved from the get go.
If I would aim for one single rate I could always go with Bilstein and have them suit the valving but my recent experience with their customer support is bad (wrote several emails and never in 4 months received a single answer apart from auto replies). I know they are good quality but so are others.
One issue with going custom is thatI won't do it unless the company who provides the damper also supplies me with a dyno chart for it and that's not very common apart from the super expensive ones (some simply don't have the test equipment which makes their products questionable and others refuse to hand them out, even more disturbing).

I would love to test drive many different setups but as my AE86 is once more the only one in the country it's difficult to say the least.

here some unsorted links to the different products:
HSD HR, AVO, BC Racing ER, BC Racing BR, DW CS2, GAZ Gold

I'm all ears to opinions/suggestions etc and thanks for reading

[NoHachi]

Option 3: shorten the struts, dump the swifts, buy some coilover perches add springs to taste.
If you stay between 4kg-6kg front springs they should be matched pretty decently. If you bump the rate to 6kg you might need helper springs to keep them seated. This is a very GOOD thing. 4kgs will be long enough to stay seated and have awesome stroke. Don't lower it too much. That would be my preference.

I talked Aram into a set of GAZ golds. They are decent twintubes like the HTS's with a wide range of adjustment. I expect them to work well, but haven't driven in his car yet. His rates are 5/3 or so.. priced around the 1000€ mark

Zax is converting his struts to a Escort Mk2 setup. I have VERY high expectations about his setup, but haven't heard from him yet. Some custom work to be done, no doubt he can help you out there with the small stuff. Just watch any Escort going round..decent street setup me thinks. Add linear bearing alloy strut casings for my ultimate setup. It can be done.

GAZ do escort mk2 monotube inserts now and will do a conversion for 200e over the Gaz Gold Pro price. They also have adjustables (!!) and can do custom rates. Trawl escort and rally forums for experiences, they are still quite new. I am very tempted to go this way with my hachi if it ever gets done. You will however have to send them a conversion roadmap. Maybe Zax's pics will help. Adjustables are bottom adjustable and will require custom creativity if they are to work with AE86 knuckles (if possible at all).

AST will do a custom conversion to my specs. But the custom work typically starts with the aluminium bodied 2 way adjustable stuff. Count on it being around 2000€ with best in business valving. Not cheap, but baller...better suited for competition I think. Intrax or Reiger will be similar. I have these on my MX5, if I can get a decent advantage over my Bilstein setup I will throw some on the AE86. At the moment, this is not the case (but its early days yet and have yet to dial in the AST's).

Price for spindles from BC racing?

[Bean]

NoHachi Wrote:Option 3: shorten the struts, dump the swifts, buy some coilover perches add springs to taste.
If you stay between 4kg-6kg front springs they should be matched pretty decently. If you bump the rate to 6kg you might need helper springs to keep them seated. This is a very GOOD thing. 4kgs will be long enough to stay seated and have awesome stroke. Don't lower it too much. That would be my preference.

I talked Aram into a set of GAZ golds. They are decent twintubes like the HTS's with a wide range of adjustment. I expect them to work well, but haven't driven in his car yet. His rates are 5/3 or so.. priced around the 1000€ mark

Zax is converting his struts to a Escort Mk2 setup. I have VERY high expectations about his setup, but haven't heard from him yet. Some custom work to be done, no doubt he can help you out there with the small stuff. Just watch any Escort going round..decent street setup me thinks. Add linear bearing alloy strut casings for my ultimate setup. It can be done.

GAZ do escort mk2 monotube inserts now and will do a conversion for 200e over the Gaz Gold Pro price. They also have adjustables (!!) and can do custom rates. Trawl escort and rally forums for experiences, they are still quite new. I am very tempted to go this way with my hachi if it ever gets done. You will however have to send them a conversion roadmap. Maybe Zax's pics will help. Adjustables are bottom adjustable and will require custom creativity if they are to work with AE86 knuckles (if possible at all).

AST will do a custom conversion to my specs. But the custom work typically starts with the aluminium bodied 2 way adjustable stuff. Count on it being around 2000€ with best in business valving. Not cheap, but baller...better suited for competition I think. Intrax or Reiger will be similar. I have these on my MX5, if I can get a decent advantage over my Bilstein setup I will throw some on the AE86. At the moment, this is not the case (but its early days yet and have yet to dial in the AST's).

Price for spindles from BC racing?

thanks for your inputs, very much appreciated. another albeit also expensive option seems to be the Koni Race line... I cam across the page yesterday but was too tired to post. they'll be 2k+ too and quite some custom work but we'll see. I think I'll draw out a couple of options and see once the car is here which way I'll go as I need to have the car to make measurements and mockups etc.

I haven't decide how low I want to go but I guess a bit lower then now. As I still need to make some new fenders I'll have to figure it all out at once when I come up with the design so it'll look nice.

On another note - do you have any numbers on travel for different setups. As this I need also to figure out when designing the fenders so there won't be any rubbing.

Last but not least I'm currently inclined to have 2 different spring sets if I go custom dampers. Something like a 6/4 and 3/2 or close to that. This would allow me to experiment and adjust to the intended use. Also if I would go for coil overs in the rear I might be able to run the same size springs all around which would give me even more mix and match options (i.e. I would buy springs from 2 to 6kg/mm in steps of 1kg/mm).

I'm still waiting for the reply from BC so far they only got through with a price for the complete fronts (ER-Type and no rears) for US$1140+shipping.
Hope to receive an answer after the weekend. Another thing I'll have to find out is the size and thread pitch they use on the spindles.
Some of my options rely on the BC spindles as I don't really fancy to knock out my own.

I'll also try to see if AVO can supply me with some damper dyno for their universal setup.

[NoHachi]

Damper dyno's tell half the story.. there is also response time, time to cavitation, hysteris etc. Alot of that is quality of internal construction.

Then after that comes the curve, but even those are not clear and cut. Bilsteins are old scool linear pistons, so underdamped in body motion and overdamped in high speed bumps..yet they seem to do fine..to the point of beating modern WRC cars round some stages.

No numbers for stroke etc. There is some info in my thread somewhere I think, with shock lengths etc. You cannot go to low in an AE86 and retain reasonable bump travel with operational springs. Even short stroke setups will have very little bump travel left. That means you need good bumpstops and high rate springs to come up with a decent working setup at low rideheight. Imho best avoid the whole stance teenager look for the street and focus on a rally look badboy. More difficult to pull of by a long margin though.

I have/had the coilover rears and spring mix and match capabilities. Combined with the collection of springs I have now collected for the MX5 it ends up being very awesome to be able to adjust easily as you deem fit. Much recommended. Think hard and long about the forces going through a shock and spring and you'll see that the coilover setup is not going to punch through your strut towers.

Other options:
Shocktec in Oz do custom Bor Chan based dampers, with the added benefit of some actual development of the curves. Hefty price premium though.

Ennepetal in Japan do Bilstein revalves and changes the pistons and rods to something nifty and adjustable (öhlins?). Probably expensive, but used on all front runner N2 cars so must be good.

[Rascal21]

I am not sure how relevant or helpful I can be here, I`ll toss some sentences out anyway:

I have the Bilstein front coilovers of the type that sits inverted, with completely modified spindles:

Pic from slightly different angle, I didnt take my time in thinking about how to take these photo`s, so I`m sorry that not too much is visible:



And some different strut top mounts than stock:


Last time I drove the car, it felt firm, responsive and no jumpiness in the front (Roads here are really bad too), which might be attributed to the progressive spring setup in the front, but the rear, which is running escort coilovers (With custom strut inserts in the rear wheel houses, and custom brackets on the axle) was jumping just a bit, which might be attributed to the stiff springs and worn 4-link uniballs.

Again sorry for bad pics, been a while since I took them.
Not much info from me really but some might be better than nothing

[NoHachi]

That is a complete Escort GP4 bilstein conversion..but one of the weirdest ways to do the fronts. Hard to say from the blurry pics.

If the uniballs in the rear end are a standard type without boots then they are long gone. Go check them for 2mm+ axial and radial play funtime. They typically fail very fast after the tiniest bit of rust starts on the balls. They start clicking soon after failure.

For a streetcar I would recommend against normal uniballs in any component of the suspension that can see salt, water and road grime. At the very least you have to add some rubber protection boots.

[rene]

this is a gr A front suspension with correct AP capilers and it should work very well

if not they can be rebuild

[totta Crolla]

I have a set of coilovers (standard diameter springs) that use the Escort Bilstein inserts and they are rated at 300 /70 so are the "tarmac" spec. insert, I used them for a while with some 190lb springs and at the time thought it was a decent set up.
Using the same springs with TRD blues on setting 3 of 4 transformed the handling of the car and I have not touched it since.
The rear springs are rated at 160lb and are possibly just a tiny bit too stiff.
Front and rear springs are standard diameter, the car is lowered approximately 15mm from stock.
The roads the car is used on in the U.K are similar to some of the rougher bits of Belgian roads.

[totta Crolla]

double post

[Rascal21]

I know that what I have is far from ideal, as I said on my project thread it`s hopeless!
Pretty sure the guys who built this thing back then didnt have the time we have to dink around and find the best long-term solutions for someone who needed the car ready for competition asap zulu, we have forums, youface and toyo bible, back in the 80`s they had sh*t, lol!
But for a gravel setup it`s not THAT bad, solid performers for their use, back then it was respectable, today it`s old and antique.

Not wanting to write a poem here, but if I dont write what I`ve got on my mind I feel like I`ll explode:

As it`s entirely set up for gravel, a proper coilover setup up front to get the ride-height down and still retain some adjustability has been on my mind for a long time, the Bilstein`s are getting tired and as Totta says, blue TRD`s are among the best you can get for their intended use.

Now trying to find out about Toyota struts with the same shell casing diameter where I can take the shell casing off the struts of something like an AE82 and rebuild my AE86 spindles and strut shell remnants into OEM strut shell lenght again, THEN make them suitable lenght for Tokico HTS102 w/Cusco sleeves and Cusco camber plates.

HTS102, I`m told is same as the TRD adjustable`s and I have it on as good authority as I could hope for (the cars last professional owner who drove it on the circuit rather than gravel, with some achievements under his belts and currently owns a similar car platform which he also uses on the circuit and thus has a fairly good idea about how things work for my intended use) that these are among the best a mortal can get for the cheap enough price and are solid performers for their intended use.

I know I say "intended use" a lot, but with what little one can buy today, compromises are forced to be made, same as when the car was built; For it`s intended use.

If I cant get my struts restored and re-modified I will be forced to do nothing other than use what the car has despite what people might say is better or worse.
I bought the car to drive it instead of spending untold k`s and many months looking for parts, she`s been through some rough times before and not currently having the best dorikin dg6000ultra 60 way adjustable`s in the world is not the first time she`s been in trouble against modern cars with better.. well.. better everything (Sort of true of us all really)
But if this old fighters obvious compromises shows that the 80`s Gr.A wasnt all perfect hardcore speed demons (Unlike what some people make them out to be), and helps some good blokes on a forum decide for better and more modern setups in their cars then the purpose has been served