kcaalarcon

i was looking at either racecraft or spohn strut towers, i want to do a coil over set up and the car is for road race or autocross. just wondering if anyone has any thought or experiance wth the racecraft? and would they hold up to road raceing or are they mostly for drag?

InfernalVortex

iTrader: (4)

Some disagree but I personally am of the opinion that the strut towers on our cars are not well-suited to actually supporting the weight of the car. It can be okay for drag racing, but for cornering with wide tires and race tires.... the factory strut towers just arent designed for that. They're barely strong enough to hold together with just the stresses of having the strut on them. Even racecraft went on a tirade in a thread about their spindles failing about how all their parts are drag racing parts only.

If you just want the adjustability of ride height, ground control makes a weight jack setup that functions identically to a coil over ride height adjustment system but fits our cars.

The stock front suspension is very good with the right struts, I dont think there's much benefit there for performance by switching the design. These cars were designed in the late 70s specifically to handle well because they knew they would be pretty slow. The rear suspension, on the other hand, is effective, but there's a lot of gains to be had if you have the skill and ability to put an independent rear suspension setup back there.

Even new 911's use Mcpherson strut setups. Our cars differ because they removed the spring from the strut, and put it farther inboard in the car, and Im pretty sure the reason they did that was so they could have the sturdy, strong k-member supporting the weight of the car, rather than the strut towers. But in practice as far as handling and performance the two designs are the same, but we will get a slightly rougher ride with the same effective spring rate at the ground. I think if GM could have gotten away with it they would have preferred a nicer ride for the same performance, but they intentionally change it around because presumably making the strut tower strong enough for that purpose was cost prohibitive.

//<86TA>\\

iTrader: (14)

Stick with the stock setup in the front, coilovers on the front of these cars are not the best thing going for this application

kcaalarcon

i was looking for adjustability and weight loss so thats mostly why i wanted to do them. i still want to upgrade my strut towers cus mine are a pos, so any thoughts as to brands that are decent?

TEDSgrad

iTrader: (4)

I went with Spohn, and added the additional support plate in the pic that comes with their coil-over kit (did not use coil-overs) - helps distribute that weight a little better.

kcaalarcon

thanks

Pablo

iTrader: (1)

I have the spohn units. I can't speak for other brands but I can say that the spohns are far from perfect. The spohns need to be modified for rr/autox use. The driver's side will need to be clearanced so that it does not hit the brake master cylinder when running a decent amount of negative camber.

The second problem with them is that as you use them you'll start to notice a really terrible knocking sound from the front end. The spohn units locate the spherical bearing using a snap ring from the top. All of the force from your compressive shock dampening is transmitted through this snap ring. It doesn't take long for the bearing to beat itself loose and then the knocking begins. I fixed this (holding up so far) with some shims I purchased from mcmaster-carr.

I also see no benefit to going to coil-overs in and of themselves. Seems to me the only benefit is an easy weight jack setup. This is not without drawbacks. You lose tire clearance and now need to reinforce the strut tower. The only way I would consider it is if it was done to utilize a dual ball joint setup and worked out the tire clearance issue.

Just some things to consider.

kcaalarcon

thank u, again