Fair

We finally got the spherical rear shock mounts in from AST for the EVO X and installed the 4200 rear shocks yesterday (the fronts went on a while back with our alloy steel Vorshlag spherical camber/caster plates). Both Hanchey and I have driven the car around extensively now (test loop, street driving) with the 4200s on front and back, and its awesome. We'll tweak a few things then put these into production - and we already have a brand new shock design (upcoming 5100/5200 series ASTs) planned for testing on this car very soon.

We are scrambling to line up a track day to test 4200 shock settings, spring rates, alignment tweaks, etc. Brian wants to change the base rebound valving on the fronts before we hit the track, then we're ready.

Full gallery of AST / EVO X installation pics: http://vorshlag.smugmug.com/gallery/6894033_ZP2NB




These are the ride heights were are happiest with. No droop travel was lost at these heights.

Of course we rated the OEM rear springs (some goofy tapered/progressive Eibach spring). It was variable rate 160-215 #/in, and we used a 550 #/in rate for initial testing. The car rides better than stock with the compression valving turned down. The OEM shocks it came with are garbage - one of them is already leaking, at 6000 miles, and they have zero compression damping and too much rebound. Its not hard to improve handling over this stuff, even with nearly 3X the stock spring rate.

Better picture of the Vorshlag camber-caster plates (pre-production) add positive caster and negative camber adjustment


Our front spring package allows the lower spring perch to sit above the tire (lots more room inboard)


Setting rear ride height (left) then locking down the lower perch (right)


Left: Stock rear shock assembly = 12.6 lbs. Right: AST 4200 rear was 9.1 lbs


Rear rebound knobs are accessible with the forward plastic trunk bulkhead removed, but we'll add remote cable adjusters for easier access instead


Like up front, the rear shock's Compression adjuster knob is at the bottom. Its easy to reach if you lean down and reach behind the tire - enabling fast/pit stop valving adjustments

We'll post up with more data once we get this car on track with the DL-1 onboard.

Cheers,

Fair

Lightweight Race Exhaust, Ver 2.0

After hearing how quiet our first "race" exhaust ended up at, and with the main muffler gobbling up a bit more weight than we liked, I went back and re-made the lightweight after cat exhaust on the EVO X. This is just a one-off exhaust we made for our shop car and not something we're going to mass produce or market, so its not exactly pretty but it is functional. The system is pieced together with thin wall 3" carbon steel exhaust tubing and mandrel bent bends from SPD Exhaust. We picked up a few V-band clamp assemblies from them for this version as well.



The first step was cutting off the rear section in front of the main (rearmost) muffler we added, with an eye for the added clearance room around the to the rear subframe (1/4" is enough). I tacked the clamp to the now "mid-pipe" section (shown above) and mocked up the exhaust with the muffler on the car and tacked that end in place.


The rear muffler section weighs 12.9 pounds and is now removable.

We then added a hanger to the back of the mid-pipe (bolting to one of the many chassis bracing points) and then made a new rear section to take the place of the muffler, and added an additional V-band stub and mount to that end. Everything fit great and it sounded a LOT better. The entire race exhaust (sans muffler) is now 16 pounds after the cat.


The "Race" version was mocked up. This rear section weighs just 4.5 pounds and is a bit louder.

Brian drove the car around for a day with the race setup, loved it, and now its removed for coating. Building another setup like this for a 2008 STI this week (Paul's STU car) and we'll get that one coated as well.



An extra 45° bend and a short length of 3" straight pipe + a V-band and a little bit of work, so wasn't much more money, and now we have a dual purpose, reconfigurable lightweight race/street exhaust. Thanks to Paul for helping with the version 2 work.

smgevo

iTrader: (1)

Great work! Sell me some of these things already!!

Is there any coil binding of the springs in the front or rear with these spring lengths on this car? Would it be beneficial to run a longer spring in the rear rather than the pictured tender? I assume the tender in the rear saves some weight. If no coil bind, then no reason for for a longer spring. what are the lengths again? Interesting to hear of our impressions of the suspensions compliancy on the road. This could be just the ticket. What are the differences with the 5000 series shocks?

hancheyb

We'll end up running a longer spring in the rear. The current Hypercoil is too short. Haven't seen any coil bind yet and the OBD Hypercoils can safely coil bind. Not that we want to set the car up that way, but as we get more road miles, check the "tattle tails" on the struts/shocks, we'll know how much displacement we're getting in the shocks/struts in the real world vs. calculated. Then we'll make a determination from there on recommendations for spring lengths.

Hypercoil makes (IMO) the best springs on the market. They test things no one else dreams of, they have more travel, they are lighter, and hold their advertised rate longer than anything out there. I know that there's a lot of marketing dollars thrown at other brands, but when I see the test results personally AND professional Grand Am teams (among other professionals) use them, I know they are good.

As a side note. I swapped cars with a customer the other day, for his E92 M3. What a fantastic car, but the Evo has WAY more torque, better steering, and now handles better. We'll have to test that last claim. Firm EDC ride setting was the same as our Evo with triple the spring rate. Don't get me wrong, I love both cars and the V8 revving from 6-8k rpm is intoxicating, the Evo is pretty amazing for something to daily drive and take to the track and save some money while you do it.

(I'm out of the country at the moment so Fair will probably fill in)

nils

iTrader: (56)

a lil birdie told me im gonna be testing AST triple adjustables soon!!


mmmmmm...... perfect color combo for me

Silencer

iTrader: (4)

Terry,

Is that Fog-light removal and Transmission cooler fan mod legal in STU?


Dave

ReSin

iTrader: (1)

Can't wait to read the review. I didn't realize they made them for the VIII and IX either.

Dennis

Fair

Yep, as far as you know. Seriously, the foglight thing is little more than a weenie protest. STU allows the entire front bodywork to be changed, bodykits and wings, etc, but not the factory foglights? That's ridiculous. I did foglight removal on our STU M3 in 2007 and was all worried - didn't even get a mention. There are so many other, much more substantial illegalities in the class that are visually obvious when walking the paddock at Nats. We saw things like "the wrong turbo", aftermarket/lightweight control arms coupled with adjustable plates (its illegal to do both), missing trunk interiors and all sorts of other obvious things. Fog light removal doesn't even rate in the top 10.

We'll take the 5" cooling fan off for Nats if people get their panties in a bunch. Its a reliability/consistency mod, not a performance enhancement upgrade. With multiple drivers at track events we think its necessary. We ran two drivers in the EVO X at an autocross last weekend back to back to back, with the fan never turned on, and it worked fine. Removal won't take minutes.



We took two STU cars to a recent concrete site event, our first for the year. Saturday was a test-n-tune where we setup these and some other Vorshlag/AST test cars. We even changed springs and revalved shocks before the event Sunday on a few. The EVO X now has AST 4200s and Dunlops + the 2008 STI with AST 4200s and Dunlops, and both COBB tuned and with Vorshlag custom after-cat exhausts (lightweight and loud).

Results from this event: http://www.tamscc.org/forum/showthread.php?t=9461

Our own Brian Hanchey and Amy Fair both co-drove the EVO X while Paul M drove the STI, all against other Texas STU talent including GD Subarus, E46 M3s, and even a Mustang GT (he was in another class for this event but he's looking to move to STU). We had a great "constant" in Andy Hollis' STS Honda to compare to as well.

Long story short: The EVO X won STU. Brian was playing around with settings and techniques things on his last 2 runs, as his 2nd run had everyone in the class covered. For its first autocross with non-stock suspension we were very pleased, and we're about to add COBB bars and more front spring rate, plus a brand new inverted front strut setup. The 08 STI did very well on its maiden event also, trailing the EVO and just nipping at the heels of another 07 STI, fully STU prepped with Ohlins. The data logging we did on the EVO and STI showed them to be very close in lateral grip and braking (1.10 to 1.15g in both) but the speed variations of this tight course kept the SST transmission dancing between 1st and 3rd gears, which was probably what made the difference and the win. In "S-Sport mode" the MR is never outside of the peak powerband, EVER. Its just so damn EASY to drive these cars at 10/10ths.



We also had AST equipped cars win STX (me driving a BMW E36 328is) and STS2 (Miata), so it was a great season opener weekend. We will be doing more events at this site (Texas A&M Riverside Annex), as its WWII era concrete is probably as close to Lincoln, Nebraska as we'll get this close to Dallas.


The black high temp coating on the custom EVO X exhaust came out looking grea

The engine tuning done by COBB is paying off, as recent "side by side acceleration tests" against a similarly prepped 08 STI and an E46 M3 were total blowouts in the EVO X.

RaNGVR-4

iTrader: (4)

Man, I cant wait for mine to get here. That new STi looks sweet on those TR wheels.

BlackTrack

iTrader: (25)

Looking great! I love the updates guys...so thorough.

smgevo

iTrader: (1)

When are you going to test the bars? I am assuming you will use both front and rear. Will be interesting to see how you like them with the coilover set up. Have you thought of a rear bar upgrade only to start?

Fair

After looking at all of the many options available, Hanchey just contacted Cobb about anti sway bars and we'll likely go pick them up this week (along with their high flow catalyst). We're going to put them on the front for sure and probably both ends soon.


Left: Rear bar looks easy to change. Right: Front bar = notsomuch

The front bar doesn't look like fun to remove/replace on the EVO X but even with 450F/550R #/in spring rates it still needs help with roll control. We are going to up the front spring rate as well before doing one final test, then taking the entire suspension off and sending it to a magazine for one of their test cars. We have a new setup (5000 series Inverted ASTs) coming for our EVO to test with very soon. We're already testing 5100, 5200 and 5300 inverted shocks on a number of cars and the testing is going VERY well. We should have 5100s on the shelf for the EVO 8/9 and EVO X soon.

Robevo RS

iTrader: (16)

do you guys selling the camber plates yet? Front and rear?
Nice looking car and job !

ReSin

iTrader: (1)

I definitely want/ need some two ways...or maybe three way depending on the price. Do you have a guess-ament on price for the 5200 and 5300 series for a VIII? TIA.

Dennis

Fair

We have protoype parts on the EVO X and production plates in stock for the 8/9. We have another batch of 8/9 and the first production batch of EVO X plates coming later this week...


Left: EVO 8/9 front plates. Right: EVO X plates on our MR


AST makes spherical rear top mounts for EVO 5 thru EVO X

5200s should be around $3600 with remote reservoirs, 45mm inverted shafts, etc. The 5300s are a hair over $5000. The nice thing about the 5000 series is you can upgrade from singles to doubles to triples at a later date for only a little more than the price difference between them when new.

We should have final prices and specs on EVO 5100/5200/5300s soon. We just got some EVO 5 AST 5200s in this week - I should go take some pictures of them.