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Alright, so coilovers got delivered and it seems like the distro I ordered from seems to have forgotten to forward the custom spring rate to Fortune auto. Hopefully they'll have it sorted out soon as I'm itching to put them on. Will most likely have to send them back for a full revalve though.
On the other hand, picked up some AMG Brembos for silly cheap. Same casting as the GS-F and RS6 brakes as well as some other cars. Just not quite happy with the performance the stock calipers are getting me. Did some research and will be designing a bracket around these and the 380mm GS-F rotors which should fit neatly behind the wheel with room to spare. Will most likely be moving the front calipers back and doing another bracket around the rear GS-F rotors, but firstly need to crunch some numbers to figure out brake bias or figure out how to bypass the ABS block and install a bias adjuster. Reduced brake fade, more bite, and tons more pad options at the cost of weight.
So I assumed the end links were m12 for some reason and didn't even bother to double check so had to reorder. Rather than pick up the eibach end links which were 75 bucks a pair for no-name heim joints, I pieced together my own kit from some nicer bits. Chose some FK metric ends which seem to have a smaller eye-to-eye than many and seem to be some of the best available. From my understanding, you want the location of the sway bar end link point to be level with where it mounts to the chassis/subframe. The stock end link is already short as hell for the stock ride height, so lowering the car should, in theory, require something that almost has an overlapping eye-to-eye, but that doesn't exist. These measure up to 66.5mm eye to eye at their shortest setting. Shorter than the nagisa ones that have an offset turnbuckle.
Parts list is as follows.
FK metric heim joints. JMX10MF (2 qty) JFX10MF (2qty)
Eibach high misalignment end link spacers (2 sets 10mm, 2 sets 5mm)
m10x1.25 jam nut (5mm tall) to fix the length of the two joints (91938A115)
m10 flanged bolt, 50mm (95735A651) if using the UR anti roll, 45mm (95735A645) for the stock or sport anti roll.
m10 flanged nut. (95108A103)
It seems from pictures around the internet that class 8.8 hardware should be enough. Ended up going with a 10.9 bolt since I haven't done anything like this before and would rather take to the safe side. Ordered hardware from mcmaster and have extras if anyone is putting a kit together.
Been a hot minute since I've been here. Picked up an EG hatch for canyon carving duties so I don't have to thrash this thing as hard. Needed a lot of work so been really focused on that thing for the past few weeks. Taking that thing apart with all the rust makes me grateful for this thing being as clean as it is.
Good news though, my fortune auto coilovers came in today with the correct spring rate. Excited to throw them on. Will probably have them mounted up sometime this month then schedule an alignment with the local garage.
Also contact all4swap about the reprogrammed ECU and they linked me to a place called quantum auto which is basically serving the stateside customer base now. Same map and all, without the shipping to/from russia. Going to grab an ECU from them this week and toss it in. Hearing too many good things about it to pass up. https://quantum-auto.com/
Started on the coilover conversion on Thursday. Interior and rear LCAs were the most time consuming and were maybe 5 of the 7 hours of work put in on Thursday and Friday. Finished the fronts today and installed some new ARP studs while everything was off.
Shorter and shorter days means working with lights
ARP studs for peace of mind.
Had to take a pic of the orange arms before they get coated in dirt and grime.
Pulled the calipers off for easier access to the strut and saw that the brake pads were pretty damn worn. Maybe got 20-30% life left. Installed them no more than 5000 miles ago. Granted, nearly 80% of those miles were from driving up and down twisty mountain roads as I wasn't commuting due to covid. These things also eat at rotors like there's no tomorrow. Next set of pads might be Endless SS-Y or MX72 if I can find them cheap or Stop tech street performance.
I'm probably driving this car harder than I ought to be...
Alright, after some poking around, I've narrowed down brake pad options to Endless SSM, Project Mu HC-CS, and another set of EBC yellow.
The brake pad tech drawing on the project mu website shows that the GS190 and the UCF30 brake pads share the same shape, and looking at some pictures of actual pads, they seem almost identical. The only difference is in the sensor cutout.
Images for the centric posi-quiet pads. The UCF30 pads have a smaller slot that's stepped
On the other hand, the S190 pads have a larger opening and also have a noise wear tab thing. They also have a slightly larger chamfer to them.
Otherwise, the backing pad is the same.
Leaning towards the pmu HC-CS as they have an operating temperature that caps off at 800c and are reasonably priced at 300 USD for both axles. The EBC yellows that are going out are rated to 900c, though, from using them over the past couple of months, wear much faster when hot.
How's the ride with FA coilovers? I'm looking to replace my air suspension(01' UL) in the near future
The ride is perfect in the front and quite stiff in the rear with 14k front and 12k rear. I think going down to a 10k rear should be perfect. I'm still working out some issues with the rear camber control arm and sway bar. Talked to the guys at figs and was told that the sway might be binding against the chassis with the lowered ride height. That itself might be the cause of the harsh rear ride though, especially since I'm running the 19mm UR rear sway.
Heh, I think I did a pretty decent job of installing those control arms. Counted the number of turns on the turnbuckles and the car drove pretty straight.
For those following this thread, I installed the newer style IS bushings with added caster which gave me 6.8 degrees total. They're made in +/- 0.3 degrees though I wonder if the GSF/RCF adds more caster or if they're just a stiffer compound
With these specs, I'm still experiencing tons tons of wear on the outside blocks of the rear two tires. Below is a pic of the p-zeros I went through before slapping on a brand new set of PS4S'. You can see the edge that's created on the very front outside edges of the blocks. Going to give the camber arm a full turn or two and see if the feathering/scalloping of the outside blocks goes away. Don't want to go through these as quickly as I did the previous tires.
The sway and camber arm issue still isn't quite resolved though. Going to need to send another email to figs to see if I can get a set of their dogbone style sway end links.
Ride height and suspension adjustments are almost there. Going to swap the 12k spring out for a 10k and give it a little bit more camber. Shooting for 2.5 degrees or so to reduce wear. The coilovers are at +8 and +5 turns from full open, and for spirited driving on smooth roads, it feels fantastic.
The front at 14k feels perfectly comfortable. The 12k rear rate doesn't seem to give enough droop though, so the car feels like **** over sudden dips like bridge buckles that go from a high to low surface. For those thinking about it, 12k is on the verge of not being dailyable. Another thing that was pointed out to me was that the rear suspension design doesn't like being lowered much due to the sway bar design binding against the chassis. I assume with the stock sway that's about as rigid as a wet noodle, you probably wouldn't notice much, but with the UR 19mm sway, it's pretty harsh when you run out of suspension travel. Shorter endlinks should help with this, so going to try and sort that out.
Visually, I want to throw a 10mm spacer in the rear and drop it 5-10mm. It's almost perfect.
Did a quick brake job when I went to swap the winter wheels over. EBC yellows went in at 90,500 in July and I'm at 95,700. I think they have a bit of life left in them, but would rather not go down to the backing pad. ~5k miles for a performance pad with hard driving sounds about right. Threw the OE ones that I had lying around in for now, but am waiting on a set of Project Mu HC-CS pads.
No more sumitomo pads. They're advics now packaged in the toyota box.
The EBC yellows are also not super rotor friendly. Brand new centric rotors down to the min thickness in 5000 miles. Note the lip left on the outer edge of the rotor.
Also replaced the rear air purifier filters since they haven't been touched since I purchased the car. Looks like the front air filter does most of the job. Even with the driving I did through wildfire season, they're relatively clean. Maybe a yellowish tint, but that's about it.
These also come as a whole unit. Plastic tray and all. No wonder they're 50 bucks each. That plastic mold for the tray must be gigantic.
Most of the heavy lifting done by the front filter. The wildfires weren't too kind this year. Fires happening in three directions meant that I couldn't catch a break no matter which way the wind blew.
Never been a fan of anything that EBC offers, but am looking forward to your feedback on the Project Mu's.
I quite liked the pedal feel of the yellows. The initial bite is good and as they warm up, they're even better. The fade really does start to set in after maybe 4 or 5 rounds of 60-30 slows going downhill chained together. It's a heavy car with rotors that are certainly on the small side so it does make sense. The one thing was that the pads are extremely dusty for a street pad. Really annoying. The PMU pads are supposedly a proper hybrid street/track pad, leaning towards the track end of the spectrum. I have high expectations as they're kinda pricy.
We've got a road that does 2500 feet in about 3 miles or so and by the time I'm at the bottom, the pedal is plenty spongy and the pads don't grab quite as well. I flushed the system with RBF600 just to get a feel since i'd gotten a couple free bottles and it does improve the pedal feel issue a small bit. Not worth it for how often the stuff needs to be replaced though. Bled it this round when the pads were replaced with regular 5.1.
When I have time to start work on the AMG BBK I'm sure it'll help quite a bit. Should be able to pair them with the GSF rotors which are 380mm / 34mm thick (I think)
So, forgot to update the sway bar endlink situation and only remember when someone PM'd me saying they were also putting a kit like this together.
For the OEM camber arms and UR sway combo, (probably also applies to stock and sport OE sway) There is too great of a difference in angle and horizontal distance between the sway bar and the mounting points on the camber arm. The angles achieved by the heim joints isn't quite enough so you need to reduce the horizontal distance between the sway bar eyelet and the eyelet on the control arm. You basically have to purchase spacers to reduce that distance. I believe the correct combo should reduce something in the neighborhood of 30mm total between the top and bottom eyelets. In the config picture above, (Figs camber arm, UR sway) they bolt right up but the heim joints are at their maximum range of motion so I decided to add a spacer, seen between the top misalignment spacer and the sway bar eyelet. Its a 15mm unthreaded spacer which can also be found from McMaster. Remember that with the spacer, you will also need longer bolts.
08-22-20, 10:18 PM
