Bean Bandits Levin 'Globetrotter'

[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.