Ca18 Front Struts Into Ke

[capt. crunch]

read recently that the ca18 front struts is a good upgrade for the KE70s, just wondering what your experiences with that were and whether or not it was a good/bad move?

found a few little write ups but nothing solid yet..

[SLW42]

you would then have to upgrade to the s13 front brakes, hubs and lca's too get them to work well, which adds extra track, and you will also need a bigger booster

 

I personally can deal with the extra track, knowing that i have bigger brakes and later down the track if i want i can upgrade to 5 stud and a bigger brake again alot easier than on a ke strut

 

i'm in the process of finding a ball joint that uses the same diameter as the ke lca and will slide into the silvia hub so you can use the brakes and coilovers on a ke lca

[LittleRedSpirit]

you would then have to upgrade to the s13 front brakes, hubs and lca's too get them to work well, which adds extra track, and you will also need a bigger booster

 

I personally can deal with the extra track, knowing that i have bigger brakes and later down the track if i want i can upgrade to 5 stud and a bigger brake again alot easier than on a ke strut

 

i'm in the process of finding a ball joint that uses the same diameter as the ke lca and will slide into the silvia hub so you can use the brakes and coilovers on a ke lca

 

 

KE70 dave will tell you all about it, and why its not worth changing.

[MRMOPARMAN]

from what ive read, going the silvia strut/brake conversion buggers up the geometry of the front end bad enough to be not worth the hassle. thats why people have swayed away from this conversion in recent times.

 

I'm about to start looking into a datsun 180b front strut conversion. ill keep everyone posted if something worthwhile comes of it

[capt. crunch]

yeah i realised that there is more than just the struts that need to be replaced. i did find a list of parts needed, just chasing experience and opinions as i saw people commented about the geometry getting thrown out but then others said its fixable etc.

 

let me know how that dato swap goes, I'm in no rush to do anything yet just sorting my options so i can get my list of 'to do's' fixed up

[ke70dave]

KE70 dave will tell you all about it, and why its not worth changing.

 

haha damn i knew my name would be dropped here!

 

first off all those claiming "it throws off the geometry" generally have next to no proof appart from what they have "heard"

 

ALL mcpherson strut setups WILL experience bump steer, its inherant in the design. its just a case of ensureing that the worst of the bump steer effect is kept out of normal suspension travel.

 

have a read here:

 

http://www.ae86drivingclub.com.au/forums/s...o-86-*e7*/page4

 

on my little analysis of the s13 geometry.

 

and ill copy my "summing up" post over.

 

so i thought i would explain my experiences with the s13 gear and my new ae86 gear.

 

old setup (had it for 4yrs), ca18 brakes, base adjustable and adjustable damping coilovers, standard mastercylinder.

 

pros: cheapish, in a ke70 at least. epic lock out of the box.

 

cons: weird steering compared to the 86 gear,steering tends to tighten up the more lock you wind on (i didnt notice it untill i drove with proper 86 stuff). s13 coilovers that are suitable for grip in light cars are VERY difficult to find. went through ~3 sets trying to find different ones, bought a few different spring rates along the way. i ended up with an ok setup, but it was still a little stiff.

 

new setup: brand new everything, jap 86 calipers (rebuilt), vented discs, 40mm rca, kyb excel g inserts, 6kg springs (welded sleeve for coilovers) new brake lines, standard non-powersteering arms,

 

conss: bloody expensive. (though that could be because i bought everything brand new)

 

pros: steering is much more "normal" compared to s13 stuff, the effort required to turn from lock to lock is the same. a normal amount of track (though R31 arms have been sucessful in reducing track in s13 gear). its a much better setup compared to my s13 gear (though read on)

 

so i have used both a "complete" ae86 setup (RCAs, jap brakes, coilovers yada yada) as well as a proper s13 setup, in the same car, and have used them back to back, so i belive i can make some pretty reasonable comparisons between them both.

 

my oppinion is that both setups could be made to work well, its fairly obvios that the ae86 stuff works well straight out of the box since its based on standard equipment. but i still belive that the s13 gear could be made to work, but i did not like the "twitchyness" of the s13 gear. maybe if you bought some funky custom nuckels that reduced the steering speed of the s13 gear it might work well. though somepeople might like the REALLY quick steering. since driving around with standard 86 steering arms, although you do have to steer more, i find it easier to control, though i have not taken it through the twisty roads where the fast steering really was quite good. I'm a little hesitant to get the powersteering arms, anyone want to take me for a spin in a ke70/ae86 with power steering arms?

 

to me the main draw back of the s13 gear was the difficulty in finding decent coilovers suited to grip (soft dampers that suit soft springs). its easy to find damper/spring combos that suit drifting but i was after more grip and unless i either bought brand new coilovers or had a pair revalved to suit it was difficult to find a good setup. and of course you can get new coilovers or get them revalved, but its not cheap, and the main calling card to s13 gear is its apparent cheapness.

 

so to all the guys out there who plain out say "s13 gear is crap" i can say that is in fact not crap, it just needs a bit of work and planning to work well.

[capt. crunch]

Thanks KE70dave

:P

 

like most rookies on the forum i just want to set up my car as a nice drift car but still keep it as a daily so the s13 gear sounds quite appealing.

what kind of spring rates did you find worked well with that set up?

 

quick rookie question but how does the different steering arms actually affect the turning abilities? i would imagine they would all be same length when installed in order to keep alignment right so how does changing arms differ the turning abilities of the car?

[ke70dave]

like most rookies on the forum i just want to set up my car as a nice drift car but still keep it as a daily so the s13 gear sounds quite appealing.

what kind of spring rates did you find worked well with that set up?

it wasnt so much that the spring rate was the problem, it was the "suspension frequenecy" as they call it that was the problem, ie a combination of the springs and shocks. i ended up with 6kg springs, and my last set of coilovers were 4 way adj bridgestone ones, and on the lowest setting the shocks were still to stiff, though i was going for a grip setup.

 

so if you can get a pair of coilovers that have adj damping that you can adjust alllllll the way down (or get soft non adj dampers, but thats VERY rare in s13 coilovers)

quick rookie question but how does the different steering arms actually affect the turning abilities? i would imagine they would all be same length when installed in order to keep alignment right so how does changing arms differ the turning abilities of the car?

good question!

 

the main difference in the steering arms is the length of the arm between the tie rod connection, and point at which the strut rotates around.

 

if you shorten this distance (in the case of the s13 arms, and the 86 powersteering arms) for the same amount of movement of the steering rack (ie steering wheel), you will get more rotation of the strut (ie wheel/tyre turning)

 

if you have a look at this picture, you can see where the tie rod joins on on the left, and the hole that is aproximatly in the middle of the other two holes (to the right) is about where the pivot point will be. so the top one is the powersteering 86 arm and you can see its shorter than the standard arm. the s13 gear is shorter again, so you get even faster steering. and the s13 setup is able to steer further so you tend to get the crazy lock as well.

 

[capt. crunch]

out of curiosity what did you run in the rear end to work well with that S13 set up?

 

and I assume you are running the 86 gear in the rear now with your 86 front?