Suspension of AE86 "86"

[ZaX]

I run Koni's all around with ae92 short stroke conversion, 8kg/6kg
drive it every day, also i'm go to the track with it and drift.
tyres are toyo t1s 15".
My rear koni's are wind up to the max, and front are 2/3 of stiffnes.

finally happy with setup.

[20vWill]

rikard Wrote:Short strokes are the way to go if you are running lowerd springs!

No doubt, totally true.

Even with the lower ride height, the ride quality improves as the shocks are at the correct position in their stroke. If you want to go low, you will get far better results with shortened stroke shocks, for both handling and comfort.

[Ivan141]

I wouldnt want to go any lower than -4cm in the netherlands, which is about the max amount of lowering a stock stroke shock can handle (well..performance type aftermarket shocks). Way to many speedbumps and other f*ing obstacles on the roads these days. Secondly, I dont really see the point in lowering the car that much any more, other than for looks.
Suspension theory shows that lowering the car by that much has more negative effects than positive anyway.
As far as springrates are concerned, go take a look on club4ag. Most people say 6 front 4 rear is about the maximum you would want to have on a street car, many have even lower springrates. I know setting your car up like a real track car seems like fun, but it just doesnt seem to work like you want it to on the street.

[NoHachi]

Ok lets expand the options..
For the MX5 the following springrates are used. The mass distribution is similar to that of the AE86.
5F-3R: Good street setup, decent ride quality though setting shocks to soft can get close to stock comfort (without the stock roll). Front to rear ratio close enough to make it lively at sane speeds. Future upgrade to 5R-7F possible, just need to buy 2 springs, no new dampers neccesary.
6F-4R: About as hard as you want to go on the street. Good dual purpose setup if you take it to the track often (don't kid yourself, often means at least one time per month), but geared mainly towards street driving.
6F-3R: Same as above but a more track orientated. Higher spread in springrates ensures the car is a balanced at high speeds but understeers at speeds below 100km/h).
Anything above 6kg/mm should be used in combination with semi-slick tires. Anything around 8kg is best reserved for full slicks.

Swaybars can be used to slightly tune the springrate combination. Swaybars are just extra springrates that only engage during cornering and not during pitching and diving. The thickest swaybars can add up to 0.5kg/mm to a spring, the stock bars are good for about 0.2kg.
Through this the 6F-3R setup could be brought up to a 5.8-3.5 setup for more fun at normal speeds (remove stock front bar, add sport sway to back). Similarly the 6-4 setup could be tuned to 6.5-3.8 for better balance on the track.

[ZaX]

NoHachi Wrote:Ok lets expand the options..
For the MX5 the following springrates are used. The mass distribution is similar to that of the AE86.
5F-3R: Good street setup, decent ride quality though setting shocks to soft can get close to stock comfort (without the stock roll). Front to rear ratio close enough to make it lively at sane speeds. Future upgrade to 5R-7F possible, just need to buy 2 springs, no new dampers neccesary.
6F-4R: About as hard as you want to go on the street. Good dual purpose setup if you take it to the track often (don't kid yourself, often means at least one time per month), but geared mainly towards street driving.
6F-3R: Same as above but a more track orientated. Higher spread in springrates ensures the car is a balanced at high speeds but understeers at speeds below 100km/h).
Anything above 6kg/mm should be used in combination with semi-slick tires. Anything around 8kg is best reserved for full slicks.

Swaybars can be used to slightly tune the springrate combination. Swaybars are just extra springrates that only engage during cornering and not during pitching and diving. The thickest swaybars can add up to 0.5kg/mm to a spring, the stock bars are good for about 0.2kg.
Through this the 6F-3R setup could be brought up to a 5.8-3.5 setup for more fun at normal speeds (remove stock front bar, add sport sway to back). Similarly the 6-4 setup could be tuned to 6.5-3.8 for better balance on the track.

Intresting write up. :wink:
I would just add that you shoud upgrade your suspension as you skill goes up.
Stock is very good for learning. Learing the car with very hard suspensio is much more difficult.

[NoHachi]

Stock suspension can be tricky. The damping on my brothers hachi is useless, making the car very tricky in transitions. It also has a strong tendency to enter into a second slip very quickly. I would suggest upgrading the dampers to new-stock or better level first. A set of koni dampers seem to have a wide enough range of adjustment to work in the most diverse setups, from stock to 8kg/mm.

[KristianAE86]

Lets see what i can add to this thread.

Up front i use Tokico Blues (shortstroke) with Ford Sierra -90 springs

rear i use Tokico Blues (shortstroke) with BMW E30 325-89 springs.

both set´s of springs fit to 99% - so there´s no real problem fitting them.

Soon i´ll have twin swaybars in the rear thanks to Zax.

A long video is in the making about my car & the set up & drifting.

/
....Kristian

[Ivan141]

Kristian, I have Tokico blues waiting for installation as well, if you ordered the ae86 ones, they are most definately NOT shortstrokes. They are full length shocks, which only allow for about 4cm of lowering, more than that and you're out of the effective damping range, and the shocks will wear out much sooner. Also the tokico blues wont work well with high springrates (6kg/mm and up I think), but in your case the springs youre using wont have such rates.

[NoHachi]

If they are tokico blue's and they're not shortstrokes, then the car rests permanently on the bumpstops. The spring have almost no effect and the car will effectively have 12+ kg/mm springrates. The dampers will have no chance in hell to controll the suspension, but overall feel will be like a cart. The car should be crap on anything but perfect surfaces.
Kristian, please take a look under the car and measure the distance from the shock end to the beginning of the bumpstop. If there is indeed little or no travel left there would be a lot we could do to make the car even better suited for drift competitions (So we can see more photo's of you in such strange poses )

[KristianAE86]

sorry... my misstake... they are NOT shortstrokes :-)