You don't need to weld any plates or sleeves when installing a coilover onto a strut/shock body unless you're referring to a perch of sorts for the sleeve to rest against.

 

Oh. It was just an example, eh? That's cool. And when it turns out that other shocks have their perches installed in a completely different manner, such that your "example" of KYBs was worse-than-useless because it was misleading....

 

I am not measuring my KYB to mock up the perches just getting an idea of what kind of job it would be to grind one down for reference. And yes both are the same length considering they can both use the same springs.

 

That's why he will have a coilover sleeve because it has an adjustable perch... novel.

 

Yep. Nobody has ever removed the perches from a strut to install a coilover sleeve before. Definitely novel. /snark

My point, again, was that how the perch is welded to the body of a KYB is not useful information if he isn't -- thank goodness -- going to base his coilover system on a KYB. While the distance from the lower mounting point will be the same across struts meant for the same car, the method of attachment will vary considerable. As the person who designed what is known as the DG set-up for 2G DSMs -- even if 2Gs don't have struts -- I'm quite aware of the issues.

 

The sleeves seem like alot of work. If you have never done it before, the likely hood of screwing up is high...may even result in a failure at high speed or during cornering.

If you account for your time in money, just buy good coilovers and live life happy.

 

Agreed, I think I might have misread you before.... Oh well. I'm saying though, that even if he's off by an inch, it won't matter THAT much.

I never did it before I did this.... it's not hard. Seriously. It's like baking a cake; ever baked a cake? I'll give you the recipe, you follow it.
Some cutting, maybe some welding, piece together a few items, done. Ya, it's more work than, say, calling vorschlag and giving them your credit card number, sure, but in the end, you're gaining tons experience and knowledge, at least I did when researching everything.
Please tell me though, how on earth will failure at high speed or cornering happen? When I hear/see things like that it boggles my mind... have you ever seen a bilstein PSS9 kit? How about any other kit that GC makes as an OTS complete coilover system? This is exactly like that except instead of paying someone to do everything, you're doing it yourself and assembling yourself. Do you pay someone to install your radio? Install coilovers? Rotate your tires? Change your oil? I hope not. This is exactly like that; you're not paying someone to do all that shyt. Will it be as good as ast 5200's? No because they're adjustable and bilsteins B6's are not. Will it be as good as ast 4100's? I believe it's better; it won't look as awesome, but it will be essentially the same thing except you have your own spring rates, your own valving all while saving you hundreds of dollars. Moreover, I love the building process; stripping something down and rebuilding it is awesome and fun. Fabbing is also another hobby of mine. If I wanted to pay five american dollars and have my car running on some cheap crap just so it would run and be a shortcut, I never would have gone this route. And I don't mean to offend you here, but if you feel like you're wasting time by building this, then I'm guessing you've never built anything before. The time you put into it, outside of research, is very very little. It took me maybe 20 minutes including all the step-by-step pics I took. Pretty damn good considering I'd never done it before.

 

Sleeves are not really that much work and there's plenty to read on the interwebs to walk you through it. Most of all, assuming that decent shocks (which might be called "inserts" when it's a strut on the car) are available, you might be able to build your own system that outperforms coilovers costing several times as much. As an example, Koni Sports with a GC sleeve, HyperCo springs, RRE pillowballs, and RRE hats cost about half what coilovers for a 2G DSM run. And no crappy, what-color-do-you-want-your-Taiwanese-shocks? coilover system comes anywhere near the performance.

In other words, I'm not in any way against the idea of putting sleeves on a shock for an Evo and running straight race springs instead of OE-style springs. What I'm against is using KYBs for anything besides home defense or basing any critical decisions on measurements of a shock that isn't the one you plan on using (since there are important differences between different shocks mean for the exact same car).

 

I know several people who have don the Koni rout. Complications: uneven shock lengths, failures at the mounting points...and you have the issue of right springs for the valving.

Was an acceptable solution 15yrs ago before coilovers had advanced to the point they are now.

Even roadrace engineering who used to do them for the DSMs recomend just doing coilovers now.

 

I hadn't heard of RRE's change-of-heart (and have to wonder if it has anything to do with trying to sell other stuff), but I had none of the issues that you listed. And the matching to springrate isn't much of a problem. I think I paid $55 per shock for the revalve for the 850/425 springs, plus another $25 per to have the fronts shortened by an inch. And it still came out to be about half what other people paid for their setups.

But we're on a bit of a digression, aren't we? After all, Koni doesn't make shocks for the Evo X. (If they did, I'd have them by now.) My point before the digression was that creating a coilover from scratch is not very hard and nothing you said changes that. Whether you could put together something decent with the parts that are available for the car in question here is another story. I'll concede that point, but not the general point.

 

wow, I'm really at a loss for words here.

What mounting point? Bolting to the spindle or strut tower? Or are you saying the sleeve perch is a mounting point too? It doesn't matter; all three of the above are 10000000% safe at the mounting points. I'm not even sure where that argument came from; are you just reaching out of thin air? I'm thinking strong conspiracy theory..... Spindle is oem, so its fine; strut tower, also oem, so it's fine. The sleeve perch is probably stronger than the oem spindle mounting points due to the heavy welds lain down. So, all that is pretty much void.

Moving on, valving.... I'm guessing you haven't read a single thing I've posted in here, have you? My first, I think 5 or so posts in here specifically stated you get it custom valved to your liking if you don't know how to do it yourself.

Okay, now the whole 15 yrs ago thing makes no sense. Uneven shock lengths? what are you talking about here? You know it's 2011, right? The struts are even amongst each other and the shocks are also even. As far as travel length, you can also request bilstein to shorten your struts or shocks when you send it in to get revalved, if you so desire, but I'm willing to bet everything I own that most coilover companies run oem lengths; at least of the horse**** that was previously mentioned in here I know do for sure.


Just because I don't have 1000 "ya bro that's awesome" posts on this forum doesn't mean I don't know wtf I'm talking about...

 

I liked my way of saying he was full of it better. More subtle.

 

You really aren't paying attention and keep focusing on mocking up KYB's. I never said I was going to measure anything on the KYB struts. I looked at the KYB to get an idea what it would be like to grind down a shock to install a sleeve on it and for that basis alone. Get off that subject of what you feel KYB's are good for and what I plan on doing with them because you are really starting to get annoying.

 

The people I know that messed with these were on the older Eclipses/Talons. I have one myself and looked into when I started modding that car.

The front struts used to require the Koni inserts. A few that I know that tried to do it themselves had the issues listed. The uneven lengths had to do with aligning the inserts into the stock strut body which sometimes had issues with driving the instert into the strut or with getting the OEM strut cut correctly. All would likely be because the person was inexperienced but that is the point I was making concerning just buying a quality product from people who knew what they were doing. The failures with rusting around where the bottom bolt is drilled or it loosening.

When I started modding my eclipse, I contacted RRE about making me a set. They said it had litterally been years since they had even made a set and basically said what I wrote that "it does not make sense to do so now that so many coilovers or adjustable after market OEM stut replacements (KYB) were availble which are dependable and easier to install". If fact, I think they took down the page for ordering those after I called (at least I don't see it anymore) as they really did not sound interested in even doing (although the instruction page is still up).

Here are the instructions listed on thier site: http://www.roadraceengineering.com/3...3gkoniinfo.htm

Let everyone else reading this look at what is required and judge for themselves if they would want to mess with this vs just buying a good set of coilovers...some of which have been tested on track to be faster than stock and carry life time warrenties. For almost every car out there you can buy a quality coilover system.

You two sound like you are in love with this approach...well have to it. Looks like alot of work with potential for me to F up the struts in the process. Maybe your expertise is beyond mine and you can do better than professional european techs with professional tools that work for KW, Ohlins, AST etc and are able to put together a better strut.

In my case with the car in question that I discussed with RRE, KW makes coilovers for the car so I bought those instead. 2 hours to install and I did not have to hack apart the stock struts in the process. I also know they are bullet proof in winter. Cost more but it would have been a several weekend project so if I account for my time the difference is not that much and likely worth it.

I bet most here will agree.

 

How is the koni insert gonna be different lengths? Unless ordering different part numbers, they're not gonna be different lengths. AND when modding an evo bilstein, it's not even an insert, you will just have to cut the spring perch. You can't eff up cutting the oem strut; you cut off the top, remove the shyt inside, wash it with some pentane or toluene or brakleen, put in insert; if the body is too long with respect to the insert, cut down more, repeat. Getting the insert into the strut housing is the most important thing; it doesn't matter if you cut it too short, cut it crooked, etc, it wont eff up the strut going into the housing.
There's hardly any work involved, but I love it that some of you are just afraid of something because you actually have to do work and you make up BS reasons for it to not work.
You really come across as you don't know wtf you're talking about, so you should stop right now before you get some noob to believe your stories.