jimmyv65

iTrader: (8)

Anyone have thoughts on how to acquire the MR Bilstein's at a decent price? Bilstein will not sell them direct/thru dealer network since they are an OEM part. Mistu parts wants about 1300 for them new.

I know to watch the used boards.

I just didn't know if anyone had any other ideas. I've bought Bilsteins for several vehicles that I have owned. A set of 4 Bilstein's usually runs 400--600. It just feels like prison rape to pay double/triple what I am used to paying for a Bilstein.

Thoughts???

jimmyv65

iTrader: (8)

Bump, anyone have ideas on my last post...

Scottybob

iTrader: (3)

European or UK vendors?

I did a quick search on Yahoo UK. I didn't come up with anything.

Wicked05

iTrader: (1)

MR Bilsteins are gonna run you at least average $800-$900..used...with 2500+ miles on them....that seemed to be the going rate in Southern Cali.....I'd say $400-$500 if the seller was REALLY desperate.....


I looked everywhere for mine...and they are not easy to come by...especially ones that are including the stock spring set. I've had a couple sellers but alot of them had already been lowered and bumpstops sliced up....I wanted stock ride height....

Brand new is about $1550 thru Gruppe-S...that's just the shocks only (springs are the same except the rears?...a little bit higher....but not sure)....since you're in Wisconsin..no tax....and maybe even free shipping.....so if you can get it through Mitsu for $1300 brand new...that's not a bad price...from what I hear from a couple of people who have them...they are worth the $$....if ur looking for a smoother ride...

good luck...

WhosEVO

iTrader: (10)

just wait and pray for Bilstein to sell their BTS system for EVO


http://www.bilstein.com/html/applications/bts/index.htm

SuperHatch

iTrader: (23)

DG,

Can you make a Bilstein setup for the Evo 8 using the cobra front struts and Evo rear struts that would be valved and perched properly for standard Evo lowering springs and come in at a cost lower than the OEM struts? Basically, a shock/strut solution for us Evo owners that have lowering springs on stock KYBs that are in need of replacing... If so, I'd venture to say you'd sell a ton of them.

- Steve

Michael Adair

I am on the hunt. I will find a way. Stay tuned.....

SuperHatch

iTrader: (23)

bump

FarNorthRacing

Well, you've got a couple of different, conflicting design goals in there.

Firstly, I **hate** "lowering springs". I'm talking weeping and gnashing of teeth here.

- They never tell you what the rate is
- The amount of drop is always either "too much" or "not enough"
- They never play well with the OEM valved shocks that they fit on
- The quality is all over the place
- Once you buy them, you have no subsequent tunability. No ride height adjustment, no corner weighting, no rate adjustement

*BLEAH!*

On the other hand, a coilover:

- uses industry standard spring formats, meaning large economies of scale
- which means very high quality standards at suprisingly affordable prices
- you get adjustability, meaning ride heights and corner weights can be set.
- the affordable springs mean you can play with rate and get the handling you want and the stance you want

The problem with coilovers is getting them to fit, and that's primarily dealing with the OEM spring fitment. I don't know why the OEMs just don't use 2.5" ID flat-ground springs; it would make everybodies' lives so much easier.....

Anyway, in the rear, most of the coilover setup is easy. Bilstein uses a standardized spring perch location method; some sort of shelf slides down over the shock tube and sits on a snap ring fitted to the outside of the shock body. Because the OD of the shock tube is Standard Bilstein, the Nextel Cup coilover sleeve slides right on. You have to move the snapring on the shock body to accomodate the different position that the coilover sleeve needs it to be in, but that groove is easy and cheap to cut (about $20 per shock)

The Cup coilover package also comes with an upper spring hat, so that gets you all the parts you need in one shot. Groove the shock, slide the sleeve in place, and there's the lower half of the coilover package. Works on the Cobra strut too, because Bistein makes the OD of the "foot" portion of the inverted strut the same as the OD of their regular shocks. Neat, huh?

It's the top end where things get tricky.

The top of the shock is located by a rubber bushing in the upper mount plate. The OEM spring perch is connected to this plate as well. But the top of the coilover spring doesn't fit the same profile as the OEM spring.

Well, *that* means tossing the OEM upper spring mount in favour of the upper hat that comes in the coilover kit. *That* means making a replacement mount plate, that contains a spherical bearing instead of a rubber bushing. And because the shock rod is profiled to fit the rubber bushing, not a bearing, *that* means making an adaptor that locates the shock rod in the bearing bore (and if you're clever, it also properly locates the upper spring hat too)

In practical terms, that means machining a bearing housing out of 6061 (CNC mill) and a pair of 41x0 bearing spacers (lathe). There's nothing drastic there, but the bearing housing needs to be held to about a thou for the press fit to work, and the fits on the spacers are +/- about .002. Material and machine time runs about $100 for the mount plate, and about $50 for the spacers.

Then, because these will see street use and are not going to be disassebled and cleaned every week, they have to be anodized and plated for corrosion resistance. That adds more cost, although these are batch processes and get cheaper per unit as the number of units in a batch go up.

Then you have to do hardware. Most of the hardware is pretty reasonable, even if you do stainless like I like to do, but that bearing is $40-ish per unit. There are cheaper bearings, but the expensive ones are much stonger, have better corrosion resistance, and are made to tighter tolerences (which makes the custom machined bits easier to make, because you have tighter control on the fit of the part they have to mate to)

And then you have to pay for labour costs to design and assemble the thing, and make a little money on top of that. When you start doing all the math, it gets hard to make them for much less than about $250 each, retail. The only way to drive the cost down is to compromise quality, and that always prooves to be self-defeating in the long run.

Up front, things are complicated somewhat by the fact that the upper mount plate needs to have a camber and caster adjustment provision. That adds a little bit more cost, as now you have extra parts and a little more hardware. It's further complicated by the fact that the lower spring perch up front is WELDED on (which means cutting it off and turning the weld beads down on a lathe - ick!) and by the fact that up top, the stud diameter is too small to convert the strut to a take-apart by gundrilling the stud.

On the Cobra strut, we're lucky because the Mustang doesn't coaxially mount the spring, which means no spring perch to deal with (the coilover kit mounts direct) But the tabs on the feet are the wrong size and spacing, so now we have to make new tabs, cut the old ones off, and weld the new ones on. Which is more expensive? *shrug* I dunno yet.

And yeah, the Bilstein struts for the MR are STUPID expensive from Mitsu and don't seem to be in the normal Bistein channels yet, which makes them hard to use as raw materials.

As it sits right now, I could probably do a coilover kit at the rear of an MR pretty simply. All the design is done. Cost is on the order of $250 for the upper hat, $60 for the coilover sleeve, $60 for the spring, $20 for the helper spring, $10 for the Torrington Bearing, $20 to groove the shock... so that's what, $450-ish per shock? And if you want it converted to a take-apart, add another $200-ish.

Yeah, that's pretty pricy. I wish it were otherwise - hey, I'm a DSMer at heart, and DSMers are nothing if not "economical".

But once you've made that investment, all the other futzing around becomes dirt cheap. Want to change spring rates? $60 a spring, and used Hypercoils hold value really well and are easily sold on Ebay. Wanna revalve the shocks? A new valvestack from Bistein is $10, and you can do it yourself. If we do it, it's more like $80 and you get a dyno plot with the rebuild. Wanna change ride height? Free.

Bisteins, done right, are a "pay now, save later" deal

The fronts, as I've explained, are a little more complicated, and I still have to work out the best way to handle it. I suspect that modding the Mustang struts are the way to go, if for no other reason that they are SO much cheaper as raw materials than the Mitsu struts.

Hey, where's Daddio? Mark, you *need* these!

DG

http://www.atimotorsports.com

SuperHatch

iTrader: (23)

I did not ask that question to argue whether fully adjustable coilovers were better than fixed ride height lowering springs and non-adjustable struts. I just wanted to know if you could make Bilsteins for the Evo for cheaper than Mitsu does, which from the sound of it, you can't. Which is completely fine, it was just a question....

I am very excited to see someone on this board with real knowledge of suspension design and who has a willingness to make suspension setups for our cars that do exactly what we want them to do and more. Buying off the shelf coilover setups like JIC, Tein, or and of the other big name common coilovers for our cars works, but you're buying a product sourced from overseas which makes product support somewhat of an issue. I would much sooner buy a suspension setup built/tested/supported here even if it costs me a few bucks more, just for the ease of service as you've already clearly mentioned.

My last question is, as far as anodization/passivation/surface treatments and corrosion resistant treatments that you do on your suspension parts. I'm an engineer who works for the DOD designing shipboard aircraft support equipment, and a carrier is the harshest corrosive environment you can imagine then multiply it by 10 and your close. I know how expensive and complex these treatments can get. Was this included in your original estimate at ~$700 a corner for a custom coilover setup? I ask this because personally, I would not be buying your suspension setup as a "track only" setup that I would rebuild every week. I would be buying it as a suspension solution for a street car that sees occasional track use (once a month at best) and I would not want to service it (complete teardown and rebuild) more than once a year.

FarNorthRacing

Nothing drives me crazier than dropping a bunch of money on some shiny new race part, only to see it get all rusty the first time it gets wet. So I'm really big on corrosion resistance.

Basically, aluminum gets hard anodized, and steel gets electroless nickel plated - and yes, that's included in the cost. Fasteners are stainless when possible, and yellow cad plated (the factory finish; we don't replate hardware ourselves) when not.

I don't know if this would be certified for a carrier environment... in fact, I rather suspect not. But it should be proof against water and reasonable amounts of road salt.

The big problem with doing shocks is getting decent technology into an OEM fitment. All real race cars use shocks with a 1/2" eye to 1/2" eye fitment - so all the good shocks come in that fitment and little else. The OEMS however, use all these bizarro fitments that we have to adapt to, and it is in the adaptors that all the money goes; at least initially.

DG

Michael Adair

All aftermarket springs suck. Yes even the much heralded Eibachs. How people can say "after the springs were put in the ride was softer and better than stock with more performance". Nope doesn't happen. I tried the Eibachs and as Farnorth states you just can't match the KYB compression rates with a spring that wasn't matched to it. My car bounced,skipped and hopped over every bump in Minnesota. I am anxiously awaiting developement of this topic.......I am back to the stock set-up for now. Good thread...

xme

iTrader: (9)

guys, i may have another set of the MR full suspension un-tampered stock set up for sale .. please PM if me you're interested .. its off of another buddy's MR with low miles ( less than 1000 miles )

also, i may be selling my MR setup as well ( less than 1500 miles ) ..

Michael Adair

Tom, you have PM.

xme

iTrader: (9)

PMed you back ..