Thread: Bilstein Struts and Ground Control coilovers

Turbosincebirth, definitely give us a review on those S1s. I am anxious to hear how the street ride quality is.

I'm very curious too since on other platforms people said the ride quality was better than KW V3s but a little worse on the track due to the softer spring ratings. There's one stretch of highway by my house that has continuous bumps in the road. With the K-Sports I felt like I was riding a bucking bronco going through it at 65 mph. I could hear tools and everything jumping around in the back due to the really stiff rear springs and high rebound rates. They came with the car and I'm glad to get rid of them. I was willing to spend the money on KW V3s for a quality street ride I can do some spirited driving in only as good as my tires will hold since I've pushed past that many times sliding through turns so it'll be interesting to see how these perform. Our roads last year were the worst I've ever seen before having been here 24 years. Because of budget cuts the city ended up using a cold asphalt patch/rock base and come the first time it snowed most everything came up. You could not go more than 30 feet without seeing some sort of pothole. Thankfully they've fixed quite a bit right this time but the roads still aren't the best around here.

I won't have any reviews on launching the car with these coilovers though. I refuse to do so with the 6-speed because it isn't braced and will break the bell housing at any time if I do I'm sure. I have three 5-speeds, two SS transfercases, two CFDS, multiple rear subframes, rear ends, shifter cables, etc to do the conversion and I know it'll handle the power then. I need to strip down one of the rear subframes, powdercoat it, source bushings and any other worn parts, get the material for undercoating, maybe have a rear diff rebuilt, as well as anything else I need before I do the conversion. I don't have the time or space for it right now plus I was hoping to get a SCE center diff before I installed the Quaife diff. It was either coilovers or the SCE center diff and I decided on coilovers since they were needed worse. Once I sell the K-Sports and Teins I'll be putting another order in to Philip.

Originally Posted by TurboSinceBirth

I won't have any reviews on launching the car with these coilovers though. I refuse to do so with the 6-speed because it isn't braced and will break the bell housing at any time if I do I'm sure.

I'm not too concerned with that part of the review anyway. My 6-speed is braced but I’m sort of leaning the setup of the car toward road course/spirited back road twisty driving.

If you have a 6-speed CFDS you want to get rid of LMK.

saving some info for future use

s14 shocks

Originally Posted by ryanizer

I have been wanting some Bilstein HD's for my S14 for some time. They are super beefy, cheaply rebuilt/revalved and monotube. I ran the PSS9's on my Miata and as very happy with their performance.

Bilstein makes struts for the S14 but they do not import them to the US. So I have been randomly searching around for the past couple of months trying to find struts from other cars that might work. From my research, the S14 is an odd sort. The fronts are REALLY short and the rears are REALLY long. At first I thought I was goning have to go with the A2 VW Golf/Jetta front struts. They are the smaller 30mm shafts.

I was browsing ebay and stumbled upon a set of EVO 8/9 struts and they looked like they might work. I emailed the owner and he measured them for me. As I was awaiting his response I was further searching for pictures of EVO struts and found some pictures of 3000GT/Stealth shocks.

3000GT front shock

Originally Posted by ryanizer

Just eyeballing them they looked like they would work. So I called Bilstein in Mooresville, NC and Keith is the man. Within 3 minutes he told me all I wanted to know.

R36-5022-H0 insert

OD 45.8mm (1.8")
Extended Length 480mm (18.89")
Collapsed Length 380mm (14.96")
Body Length 266mm (10.47")

On paper they looked like they would work. So, I bit the bullet and bought a set, here is what they look like compared to my Koni Yellows

bilstein
S14 – R36-5034

5022

Extended Length 482.5
Collapsed Length (bstop contact) 380mm
Body Length (Yellow tube) 271mm

5023

Extended Length 474.5
Collapsed Length (bstop contact) 396mm
Body Length (Yellow Tube) 309mm

( valved for #450/#300 springs iirc)

Originally Posted by ryanizer

Ok, more measurements. I inserted the struts into the my Techno Toy Tuning camber plates, the strut rod sticks up .3" beyond the threaded portion (you can see a mark from a sharpie in some of the pics).

Originally Posted by ryanizer

That will be perfect! However they are cheaply re-valved to whatever spring you may want to run. These front inserts ran me less than $200 TOTAL from Tire Rack.

Well the T^3 camber plates do not allow the shock shaft to articulate but rather bend the shock shaft. I took a steel 7/8" OD, 5/8" ID sleeve bushing about 7mm long and put it on top spring hat. It spaces the tophat down to allows the spherical to do its thing.

To finish things off in the front I needed some coilovers. I purchased a set of Ground Controls when I first got the car 8 months ago but really wanted to get rid of them. I scored a "grab bag" of circle track coil over tubes and collars on ebay for $40

Originally Posted by ryanizer

Excellent, I actually got MORE than what is pictured there. I cobbled together the fronts to look like this

Originally Posted by ryanizer

The "tubes" need to be around 5" long to sit like I have these sitting.

On the car:

Originally Posted by ryanizer

Now all I need is a HD strut for the rear. The rear 3000GT's MAY work with the stock S14 uprights but I have not had a chance to call Bilstein about them. The G35 front struts MAY work with the Z32 uprights but they are kinda pricey at $200/ea.

As crazy as it sounds, Monroe shocks have been a GREAT resource for comparing various shocks/struts. They are one of the few companies to give out dimensions.

Rear 240sx Dimensions according to Monroe Shocks
Body 18.625"
Compressed Length 19.25"
Extended Length 26.625"
Travel 7.375"

Thanks to another assist from NRR member WishIhHadaSilvia the measurements for the 3000GT rear shocks are

F4-B46-1743-H0 rear struts

Extended - 23.48"
Collapsed - 15.63"
Shock Body (from where the piston goes in to the end of the eye ring) - 16.32"

Much like everything else I do in life, I jumped in head first and bought a set of rear 3000gt Bilsteins for my S14.

The first issue to tackle was the lower mounting eye. The hole in the eye is 40mm long and is 23mm in diameter for 37mm and then flares out to 25mm for the last 3mm. The lower mounting hole is approximately 2.2mm bigger than the mount on the 240. I see no reason for it not to work by just adding a metal bushing to take up the extra space.

First things first, get a simple 7/8" OD x 5/8" ID steel bushing from Lowes racing supply and drill it out to 25/32". 25/32"? yeah, not the most oft used drill bit size but my local Napa sold me one for $25

Originally Posted by ryanizer

Drill the bushing ID to 25/32" and everything slides on like a glove. I pressed the steel bushing in with my 20 ton press but could have easily been hammered in carefully. The fit is nice and tight so there shouldn't be ANY play.

The upper end of the rear shock shaft is the same OD as the Koni/OEM, so no modifications necessary except I decided that I didn't want to risk having too SHORT of shocks on the rear. The total length and body length are roughly 3" shorter than the Koni's. I am hoping this isnt TOO short but I think it will be ok. To help things ourI took all of the extra rod out at the top by using steel bushings from Lowes Racing Supply to space the shaft down an extra inch.

I still had parts left over from my front coilover project, so I just continued the theme on the rear.

Originally Posted by ryanizer

That's about it as best I can tell. I'll try to get some more pics of the rear when I put my new rear tophats on next week.

So as a recap parts needed:

(2) F4-R36-5022-H0 front inserts
(2) F4-B46-1743-H0 rear struts
Coilover tubes, collars
Camber Plates
Rear Upper hat with spherical bearing
(2) 7/8" x 5/8" Steel spacers (Lowes Racing Supply)
(4) 3/8" x 5/8" Steel spacers (Lowes Racing Supply)
JB Weld
25/32" Drill Bit ($25 @ Napa)
Something larger than a 3/8" drill bit for the smaller steel spacers.