LS1 Powered S14 by SicBastard

8 minute(s) of a 390 minute read

Ohlins showed up today. Here's some pics of the parts and part numbers.

Looks pretty fancy http://www.carrozzeriajapan.co.jp/ohlins/4w/pcv.html

I can't make sense of these Germen sourced Eibach/Federn spring codes that came with the camber plates and helper springs.

I'm pretty sure the rears are 2.5"/65mm ID x 10" tall 6kg, and the fronts are 60mm ID x 8" tall 8kg.

And just when I thought my ohlins were expensive:

http://performanceshock.com/index.ph...roducts_id=807

and

http://performanceshock.com/index.ph...roducts_id=561

no more complainig.

3/6/09

The same thing happened when I priced out aurora bearings for my sway bar end links. Not even using the high-mis-alignment stuff the price came to about $37 per corner.

AW6 3/8_24 female steel rod end $15 x2

Steel jack screw at midwest control products $1.62

Aluminum spacers and grade 8 bolts $5

It turns out mazdaspeed sell the same thing for $39.

I ended up just ordering the mazdaspeed ones from goodwin racing to save myself the time of sourcing the spacers, nuts and bolts. I also ordered some extra boot protectors from seals-it that I'm going to fill with some synthetic brake caliper grease just for corrosion protection.

Seals-It

Even though the US economy has seen better days, it seams that most the rest of the world is doing a little bit worse. We are doing pretty damn well against both the yen and pound, which makes these a pretty damn good deal:

Driftworks Lower Arm Front And Rear S13 S14 S15 R32 R33 R34

With current exchange rates these come out to about $615 before shipping for all four corners! I'm pretty sure these are what Bill from DSG is running in the front, and these guys have an excellent reputation in Europe. Plus, then you don't have to actually do any work, or make any delrin bearings.

3/11/09

I got the mazdaspeed ball-end, sway-bar, endlinks and am a little dissapointed. Originally I priced out low offset aurora ptfe lined female ball ends with male jackscrews that came out to about $35 bucks. But I didn't want to bother figuring out what size spacers I would need, and tracking down the hardware. I've never read a bad review of the mazdaspeed miata endlinks and at $39/corner thought they were a good deal. 

These are some cheap ass endlinks

Both the front and rear parts use the same spacers, ball-ends, jam nuts, and bolts. But the rears use a slightly shorter steel turnbuckle vs the fronts loosely threaded aluminum hexlink. Both for the fit and finish and for the couple extra mm shorter adjustment range I'd order 4 rears and use them on the front too.

The ball-ends are really loose, unlike quality ptfe lined ball-ends, and there is probably a thousandsth or so of play in them. 

I used Seal-it rubber boots to protect them and filled 'em with a little synthetic brake grease. The Seal-it boots are a quality product. But seem a bit pricey at $5 apiece. It's a bit of a puzzle to get them on the first time, but the rubber is super tuff stuff. Just grab some plyers and go to work. I'm just going to keep my fingers crossed, and hope that they last a while. Hopefully the boots will buy me some time.

3/14/09

from post 170

MAX backspace Front~ 150-159mm

MAX backspace Rear~ 172-179mm

When I made these determinations

I was taking advertized wheel widths, deviding by 2, and adding the advertized offset to calculate backspace. As cnichols recently pointed out to me, that only gets you the backspace to the inside of the inner lip! True backspace is to the outside of the wheel, not the inside of the lip that holds the tire.

This picture should help explain:

This is a pic of my rear wheels 17x10.5 +27.

Using my previous calculations would yield a back space of

(10.5x25.4)/2 + 27 = 160.35 mm

which is 13.65mm off from the actual measured backspace of 174mm

So how well does a 174mm backspace 17" wheel fit the rear of an s14?

My new Ohlins shock body is 49.7mm in diameter and sits exactly 13mm from the above wheel.

And 22.8mm from the front edge of the lower control arm

and no clearance issues to the rear

With the coilovers up high no problem

With them low... uh...

sill clears, but...

So if you're about to order a new set of custom CCW wheels what backspace to you ask for? Less than 174+13= 187 (7.362")

Max Frontspace with stock fenders: (calculated using my old method)

S13 Front 95-105 (thatguy looks great at 99)

S13 Rear 80-95

S14 Front 109-116 

S14 Rear 97-117 (107 really is perfect with a good r+p)

So far I've only done the roll and pull on my drivers side rear fender.

I took this measurement directly below the back edge of the rear window.

Looks like my R+P gave me an extra 38mm over stock. Presuming both sides have the same depth of well. And It damn near looks stock too!

Stock Passenger Side

My current front space, from hub face to outer tire edge is

(25.4x10.5)/2 - 27 = 106.35mm

I probably could use a 10mm spacer and still be fine with my fender clearance, but I doubt that I could pull the fender much more without it looking weird.

So lets call it a max frontspace of 115mm and a max backspace (only to the outertire edge) of 170mm would yield a wheel 285mm (11.22"). If you go any bigger you're going to have to do something drastic to your fenders. Also, to pull this off, your coils will probably have to sit higher than the tire.

I would really like to own the redline time-attack street class some day. The current rules only allow tires upto 285s, and forbid inboard/cantilevered dampers. I think that a 11.22" wheel would be perfect for 285/30/18 tires. Personally I'd order up four of them all with the same <7.362" backspace and just use whatever spacer and fenders are necessary in the front.

I've also been hunting for an inexpensive cast wheel that that would come as close as possible to this. I was looking at the rpf1, but it only comes in +15 (wasting a lot of space). The knock off ford wheels come in 18x10 +27 but I've heard that they weigh 31lbs! The closest thing that I've found so far are the 18x10.5 +30 Enkei nto3+m; they weigh less than 22lbs and cost around $350 a piece.