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Ke70 Suspension, Brakes, Braces, Seats, Everything Questions


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Mine have nifty little turn knobs on the tops of each shock so it's just a simple case of popping the boot/bonnet and fondling with the car's tits.

 

Set it to a setting, drive up the road and give it a swerve, pull over, adjust, repeat process. That's what I do anyway.

 

I had a long talk with the guy who rebuilds shock absorbers in Brisbane a few months back. Most jap shocks with adjusters in the top of the chrome shaft will lose their adjustment once they get rebuilt. Konis are made to be rebuilt and retain adjustment, and I think TRDs etc where you have the clicker on the back of the lower body are able to rebuilt and retain adjustment also. I have seen rebuilt tokico illumias before and they had the adjuster removed as part of the rebuild process.

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Rotor machining cost about $30 a side at the most, and there are some people who can travel around and do it mobile also. You must have asked someone to do it who doesnt have the machinery in house as for $150 then you have to assume they are taking it somewhere and paying to have it done and mark it up. It should usually be about $20 a rotor if you take them to the place to be done.

 

I guess youre learning about buying and selling parts too. There are a few gripes I have with this as well. People when selling seem to try and standardise prices as if they are new parts, when secondhand bits should be priced purely on condition. For example, struts are worthless if the stub axles are worn or corroded, as there can never be any bearings that will work or last properly fitted to them. Most people buy them sight unseen over the net and hope for the best. In my experience the kids that sell bits to you on car forums almost always lie to you, or they lie by omission. EG "you didn't tell em they were bent" answer "you didn't ask". That type of shit. People will knowingly sell you shit you don't need if they want to sell it. Even good mates will try it on if they think you have more cash than them and they want it. I had someone bring something round, tell me that he thought it would fit my car (even though it was completely unnecessary) and insist for over an hour that I pay him for it. Needless to say this person isn't a friend any more.

 

You can beat this racket by only dealing with certain people who are honest, looking at things before you buy them, and negotiating down the price of poor quality parts. If they would prefer to sell it for a million bucks aven if its rooted, then just put it down as youve learned something about them and move on.

 

If I were you Id sell the ae86 gear and try to recoup what you paid for them, then Id buy xt130 gear for $50 from a wrecker, and spend the extra $200 towards the otomoto coilover kit to complete the work. Then its about $200 more and you have coilovers. You can use the xt brakes initially as even the single pot ones are a big upgrade from ae86, bigger diameter and pad area.

 

amen

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I guess we'll have to wait and see until I get the funds to stick the front coilovers in.

 

These will honestly do the trick just fine for me. Lloyd Smith uses the exact same series of coilovers in his 1UZ-FE AE71 and it works for him, so I see no real need to touch the suspension after it's in. Stock AE86 calipers & slotted discs will do the 4K just fine for the time being.

 

I'm also trying to chase down a borgy to replace my diff. It's been getting noticably worse and worse and I'm scared it'll just blow at any given point. There's an XX KE70 at the wreckers with a diff in it but it's an auto and I've heard that they aren't a direct fit to a manual. Is this true or are the two identical? I'll snatch it up this weekend if they're the same because from the looks of it the car belonged to a granny. Such a shame seeing it on the heap... :no2:

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identical mechanically. only difference will be it'll have a higher ratio, which means your car will accelerate marginally quicker, but rev higher on the freeway

 

Ahh, yeah that's what it was. That'll be fine for me anyway, because I tend to rev it a little high anyway and I usually stray away from 100km/h zones.

 

Cool, looks like I've found a new diff.

 

Cheers mate.

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  • 7 months later...

So I read all this to learn something since I am wanting shorter rear shocks/struts for my Ke70 and what I learned is no coil overs in the rear. LOL Also am sad to not see anymore progress on the OP's ride.

 

So if someone does know of a easy replacement for what I am wanting here that would be helpful. I want to get away from stock shocks obviously cause they don't last and so I just ride compressed until I decide to replace them again. I have a guy who can find me a 19 inch (2 inches shorter than stock) but they are post to post which would require some minor modification. Is there a shorter shock I can buy that I wouldn't have to mod for mounting for this ride?

 

This is my daily so quicker in and out is better than moving into the shop. :)

 

Thanks.

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So I read all this to learn something since I am wanting shorter rear shocks/struts for my Ke70 and what I learned is no coil overs in the rear. LOL Also am sad to not see anymore progress on the OP's ride.

 

So if someone does know of a easy replacement for what I am wanting here that would be helpful. I want to get away from stock shocks obviously cause they don't last and so I just ride compressed until I decide to replace them again. I have a guy who can find me a 19 inch (2 inches shorter than stock) but they are post to post which would require some minor modification. Is there a shorter shock I can buy that I wouldn't have to mod for mounting for this ride?

 

This is my daily so quicker in and out is better than moving into the shop. :)

 

Thanks.

 

Yeah sorry I completely forgot about updating this.

 

I went for the easiest option which is as mentioned the AE86 route. I can't speak for any other struts but my setup completely transformed the ride. '86 compatable rears would be the go, mine have adjustable length spring seats & strut tubes. I wound them both down to their lowest and it was pretty damn low. They can also be adjusted to about half an inch shy of standard height.

 

As with the front, it was a little bit more involved. I was very lucky to find a set of struts with all auxillaries still attached, because I ended up using all of them. What you'll need, if you decide to get aftermarket AE86 gear, is the steering arms (bolted to the bottom of the strut), caliper brackets (they also have a shroud which covers the inside of the rotor), rotors (if you get Aussie gear the rotors will be solid, if they're Japanese they'll be vented. Vented's better because they disperse heat better so you can do a lot more hard braking without overheating and losing efficiency), calipers, and of course brake pads. Some people will tell you to get longer tie rod ends (threaded rod on the end of the steering arm) because of the differences in length of the arms, but really you'll only need longer rods if you get longer lower control arms (armature connecting the chassis to the bottom of the steering arm). People usually go for longer LCA's to either make the track wider for drifting or because they want stupidly negative camber.

 

There's two main ways you can adjust camber for macpherson struts: longer LCA's, or adjustable camber tops. LCA's push the bottoms of the struts out, camber tops pull the tops in. One of the drawbacks with longer arms is that because your wheels will be closer to the guards it's harder to fit bigger wheels under them.

 

I'd say a front strut brace would make a marginal difference to handling, but they're not really neccessary for something powered by a 4K.' Rear strut bars are a waste of time and money.

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So I read all this to learn something since I am wanting shorter rear shocks/struts for my Ke70 and what I learned is no coil overs in the rear. LOL Also am sad to not see anymore progress on the OP's ride.

 

So if someone does know of a easy replacement for what I am wanting here that would be helpful. I want to get away from stock shocks obviously cause they don't last and so I just ride compressed until I decide to replace them again. I have a guy who can find me a 19 inch (2 inches shorter than stock) but they are post to post which would require some minor modification. Is there a shorter shock I can buy that I wouldn't have to mod for mounting for this ride?

 

This is my daily so quicker in and out is better than moving into the shop. :)

 

Thanks.

 

What you want is KYB 343113 shocks

They kept my springs captive at this height.

2012-11-14_15-20-46_883.jpg

and stock vs kyb

2012-08-03_16-21-28_85.jpg

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  • 2 weeks later...

Well all though I can find those shocks fairly easy my biggest problem is finding someone who can ship to the US. And the price of shipping is about the same price as the shocks. LOL Well if it was easy, it would be boring so more research is needing to be done. I'll update if anyone is interested.

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  • 1 year later...

ncomeasyouare: That all depends on what sort of brembo brakes you're looking at. Wilwood's "big brake kit" for the AE86 has a 278mm brembo rotor and they say with a caliper attached it will fit most 15" wheels. They also do a 265mm rotor which fits under a 14".

 

ToyKalibur: Scour a wrecker with a standard strut in one hand for another car with shorter stroke than what you're holding. You're lucky with the rear end as the strut is standalone so you don't have to worry about hubs bolting up or weird caster changes as you might with IRS. I hear some model of suzuki sierra has rear struts the same dimension as KE70 only shorter.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Sorry to be a complete noob here but i just bought an immaculate ke70 and i don't want to molester it too much. Basic plans are to hopefully simply buy lower springs whack them in and put some wider nicer shoes on it.

Is there any thing you guys can recommend doing or not doing to achieve what I'm after? Cheers, Steve.

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Sorry to be a complete noob here but i just bought an immaculate ke70 and i don't want to molester it too much. Basic plans are to hopefully simply buy lower springs whack them in and put some wider nicer shoes on it.

Is there any thing you guys can recommend doing or not doing to achieve what I'm after? Cheers, Steve.

 

Get king springs and don't get wheels larger that 15x7 +10 ish.

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