Shockworks Coilovers & BBK

[Manaz]

Right track indeed. The coilovers will be tuned for mid level street tyres such as Potenza S001.

With grippier street legal semis and R compound tyres, you can fine tune with thicker, harder sway bar setups.

Perfect, the S001 or RE002 will likely be my next tyre.

[Kekotic]

Right track indeed. The coilovers will be tuned for mid level street tyres such as Potenza S001.

With grippier street legal semis and R compound tyres, you can fine tune with thicker, harder sway bar setups.

Perfect, the S001 or RE002 will likely be my next tyre.

S001 Master Race

[SubMeister]

Subcribed.

Liking the direction this is taking, Owen. I agree with the design philosophy, e.g. minimal drop, longer spring travel, focus on the damping, testing on stock setup.

A couple of questions:

As mentioned, the first phase of test&tuning will be done on the roads of Monbulk, where there are craters in the road, crests, corner entry potholes, mid corner bumps, dips where you'd bottom out if going fast enough etc.

In addition to the above high speed testing on bumpy roads, will you be doing low speed testing on rough roads? Am thinking Victoria Pde in the CBD, at 30 to 60 kmh one feels all the ripples, ruts, badly patched sections, etc even on stock Billies.

We charge $80 per damper to rebuild and after running them full time in the daily R34 for 3 years using the same oil and top package I can say that rebuild will not be all too frequent.

For those who don't want to go all the way with these premium coilovers, will you at some point offer a rebuild service for stock Billies/springs? And in so doing are there some very basic improvements that one could do to the stock setup, e.g. better low speed damping?

[agan]

Owen, I'm keen depending on when this eventuates (thinking tax refunds LOL).

Currently running Billies + kings, along with cusco F&R sways.

The rear left is making a clunking noise on ANY bump big or small

Had a suspension shop have a look and mechanics....and the suspicion is that its bottoming out..which doesn't make sense as the noise seems to be coming only from rear left.

So coils it is. Was considering BCs ..but if this is going to be better than BCs in ride comfort I will consider.

Prefer no more drop than the current setup as my lip seems to be taking on shopping centre bumps as it is..or even some driveways with uneven drops etc.

Only worry for me as with any coils is the harshness and the extra noise I've experienced in some cars but I think you have answered most of the questions so...I'll be watching this space

[owen]

Subcribed.

Liking the direction this is taking, Owen. I agree with the design philosophy, e.g. minimal drop, longer spring travel, focus on the damping, testing on stock setup.

A couple of questions:

As mentioned, the first phase of test&tuning will be done on the roads of Monbulk, where there are craters in the road, crests, corner entry potholes, mid corner bumps, dips where you'd bottom out if going fast enough etc.

In addition to the above high speed testing on bumpy roads, will you be doing low speed testing on rough roads? Am thinking Victoria Pde in the CBD, at 30 to 60 kmh one feels all the ripples, ruts, badly patched sections, etc even on stock Billies.

We charge $80 per damper to rebuild and after running them full time in the daily R34 for 3 years using the same oil and top package I can say that rebuild will not be all too frequent.

For those who don't want to go all the way with these premium coilovers, will you at some point offer a rebuild service for stock Billies/springs? And in so doing are there some very basic improvements that one could do to the stock setup, e.g. better low speed damping?

Sorry for the late reply.

We do rough road testing at all speeds, we wouldn't be taking it into the city but there are corrugated roads in the area we do test on.

We unfortunately can't offer any help on the bilsteins, not having the factory gassing gear for these units means we won't be able to put them back together.

[Sean82]

Owen, the BBK

There should only need to be changes to the rears from the BRZ, right? (smaller handbrake shoe in the BP/BL and something to do with mounting point offset; I'm not sure what exactly as the bolt spacing is identical to the BRZ/SH Foz/08+ WRX & STi...)

Got specifics on the the size of the rotors, pads, etc?

And BC coils for the Lib, what are they like? For the Forester they're bloody awful!

[owen]

Owen, the BBK

There should only need to be changes to the rears from the BRZ, right? (smaller handbrake shoe in the BP/BL and something to do with mounting point offset; I'm not sure what exactly as the bolt spacing is identical to the BRZ/SH Foz/08+ WRX & STi...)

Got specifics on the the size of the rotors, pads, etc?

And BC coils for the Lib, what are they like? For the Forester they're bloody awful!

Yes they will bolt straight onto the lib with a rear adapter. I'll get exact specs this evening.

BCs are just bloody awful in general. Good to use if u only want low and stiff and don't care about grip and ride comfort.

[brainy]

It's a shame they won't be tested on ripple roads like commercial rd etc.

How exactly are these tested though?

Are they electronically logged and analysed? Or is it "my bum says they feel good so they must be" kind of testing?

[owen]

It's a shame they won't be tested on ripple roads like commercial rd etc.

How exactly are these tested though?

Are they electronically logged and analysed? Or is it "my bum says they feel good so they must be" kind of testing?

Come on Brian, I almost take offence to this. Did you not read/watch/look at anything I wrote on the first page? This is a company who is directly supporting or tier 1 supplying OE manufacturers, race teams, stunt driving companies etc. I also posted a photo of their shock dyno, and a graph comparing our dampers vs DMS dampers.

So to answer your question, yes they are electronically logged and analysed. Also, BBB and I will have them in our car for about one month prior to production to give us sufficient time to drive them everywhere. BBB lives in Richmond where the roads are appalling. Low speed damping is quite easily tested with the shock dyno. We are actually able to produce a close to perfect product with the dyno tuning alone. The high speed testing is done to maximize performance.

[brainy]

It's a shame they won't be tested on ripple roads like commercial rd etc.

How exactly are these tested though?

Are they electronically logged and analysed? Or is it "my bum says they feel good so they must be" kind of testing?

Come on Brian, I almost take offence to this. Did you not read/watch/look at anything I wrote on the first page? This is a company who is directly supporting or tier 1 supplying OE manufacturers, race teams, stunt driving companies etc. I also posted a photo of their shock dyno, and a graph comparing our dampers vs DMS dampers.

So to answer your question, yes they are electronically logged and analysed. Also, BBB and I will have them in our car for about one month prior to production to give us sufficient time to drive them everywhere. BBB lives in Richmond where the roads are appalling. Low speed damping is quite easily tested with the shock dyno. We are actually able to produce a close to perfect product with the dyno tuning alone. The high speed testing is done to maximize performance.

Of course i read the first post and subsequent links for any reference to this product. I'm sure you understand what i'm trying to say here. I'm trying to gauge an understanding of exactly what sort of influence testing between you and BBB have on the final product. I've been in the car with you and have felt your setup and the way you drive, but as for BBB, well...

Factory cars as used in examples, don't have their suspension thrown on for a month to test a few hours of driving. This sort of stuff is done for months on end i would presume. There would be lots of on road, simulated and some real chassis strain testing environments.

I'm not here to throw stones, i'm trying to get a better understanding of what to expect as i am interested in the product and seeing what it achieves.

If you prefer, we can take this to the pm's so you can answer my silly questions there.

[owen]

No I can answer your questions here as the answers will also help others make a decision.

There will only be my influence on how the car should ride. BBB's involvement includes his generous offer to lend me his Ohlins DFVs for measuring and his car for tuning for extra wagon weight. (Actually it's not really the extra weight that matters, it's how the weight overhangs the rear axle)

Because the dampers were measured off an existing damper made for our cars, there isn't a need to make them from scratch. It's not like we are developing a brand new design for a car that hasn't been released yet, which makes tuning a lot more simple. The only variances are the damper/spring setup. The materials used inside the dampers are all top quality with the latest technologies and features. So after the design has been drawn up it's up to Brett (who has spent 15 years as the damper tuning specialist at Delphi and assisted companies like Prodrive with chassis development) to load in a generic valve code and start his tuning from there. They've just finished the MR2 base using my uncle's car which required 16 damper revisions until they were happy with it. The original sample was measured up using KWs

I don't want to go too much deeper into the production process because it's just beginning. There will be daily updates when my set arrives and tuning begins. After Brett & Chris are happy with the setup, I will take over the harsher testing (jumping ripple strips, power slide transitions, tank slapping and pretty much giving them as hard of a time as I possibly can) to see if there's any adjustments I would like made.

This is not the first set of coilovers they've made. I've got Shockworks in my AE86, which according to Natsoft is the fastest to ever go around Winton on street legal tyres which made a 4 second improvement over my TRD coilovers.
Peter Foudoulis's GT86 on Shockworks coilovers and BBK is the fastest GT86 to go around Winton, full stop. Street legal tyres and no other modifications.
Check out Skylines Australia, Nissan Silvia, Ford and Holden forums. EVERYBODY is raving about them, there is zero negative feedback and that's why I jumped on board as early as I could.

Hope this answers your questions.

[brainy]

Thanks for the clarification.

[<GB>]

Will these work good with upgraded sway bars anyway? I don't fancy changing back to stock and buying them as I don't have stock?

[owen]

Will these work good with upgraded sway bars anyway? I don't fancy changing back to stock and buying them as I don't have stock?

In your case yes, because you roll on semi slicks and have more grip than standard street cars.

[bigBADbenny]

http://www.vikingspeedshop.com/the-trut ... sway-bars/

I've been hitting the books again on the topic of handling and in particular sway bars
From that article, Owens strategy seems sound.
Start off with softer spring rates and sways and fine tune the damping and components with real world testing.