has anyone ever bent a coilover under normal driving conditions ?

 

im pretty sure youd have some serious rim damage or atleast break/bend the mount before you bent the actual coilover. do you think you bent yours? if so, why?

 

no, but i did in racing condition Nothing else bended - damaged ,just a coilovers,

 

weak metal or what? where did it bend at ? just curious

 

i cant think up anything why it bended , then completely collapsed. After close inspection NO OTHER PARTS in the car was bended neither damaged, not even wheel and tires.
We changed out the suspension and we continued the race , without even a wheel alignment.
The scrutinizer's after they checked the damaged suspension parts , they come out the conclusion, the valving caused the failure form the first place and form there as a chain reaction got bigger and leaded to the complete failure of the coilover.
Sum it up: the coilover couldn't handle the continuous - street surface/tarmac/ - long period of time racing environment. The huge contrast here the coilover give up less then 30 miles, after we changed , the car back to the STOCK BASE GSR coils, the car finished the race with the last 150 -ish race miles. Same environment, same race , next day/ same weather/ .

SO it was a direct swap and the OEM coil hold it up just fine. Fact we still have them as a back up They look perfect, still. So you be a judge.

here is some pictures of the aftermath:
inspection from the scrutinizer:



the damage:


nothing hurt - damged ,besides the front bumper and the IC, even the plastic brake cooling fin is fine LOL , because we did go off after the coil failed:


Im HIGHLY disappointed about the whole thing. I didnt get anything replaced, neither bothered even answer to my problem from the company. Not to mention , this could have been ended up a lot worst... I would never recommend them to any one any more. Racing coilovers should not do this in ANY circumstances. Unless you do crash the car, period.
Rob

 

well you see the after math on the car, there is 0 damage on the other suspension components etc. As i said we did go back the race we simply just put the oem suspension back. Wasnt any wheel alignment or any other adjustment made. No other work was done on the car additionally, only the bumper fix. There is several witness for that .... 3rd party and above

I did hit the middle of the car a soft hill and with a bumper i hit a small house. But the suspension didnt get hit. Even today sometimes im using the same TIRE to ride around.
Would you think at least the tire goes first or other components then a coilover???

Also the best part it is documented on video ...

here it is , you will see middle of the turn the car straightens out, and i couldn't steer it. I used the e-break and some power at the end, avoid the full collision of the small pump house.
There was only soft ground nothing you can hit. That is why no other components was damaged. Also that is the reason why is so clear the coilover failure. Believe it or not, many witness was there also at the service park. They all know and saw what happened and we ALL was very very shocked .
Who actually saw my accident is the owner of the Team O'neil racing -rally racing school . You can hear him in the video to talking. He and his buddy made this video.
When you hit hard there is always some sound you can hear , like a loud thud or something. You can clearly hear it when actually we stop the car and goes to idle. Only the slighly hit on the pump house you can hear. Basically we opened the door on it LOL



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tI5lDhcoolk


this video at the 7th second you can see i hit the side of the soft ground side ways and we did go back to the road. You can clearly see the very soft - mud dirt. As i said there is at least 7 componenets on the car would go waaay before the coil over when you hit something hard - like stone. Example the wheels. but in this case nothing was damaged only the coilover.
sweeper car video/ thanks Tim - he is also forum member /:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2Tcb2S0M20
i dont think you can have more proof then videos - scrutinizer/ they had to and did check the entire car to make sure it SAFE to going back to the race/ - 3rd party members etc...


Rob

 

Thats really weird, it is not entirely uncommon for some coilovers to be improperly valved and cause this but, being that it is a KW coilover I would be shocked.

Sucks to hear.