It is an addiction having more HP. can't get enough. I am replacing the turbo with a turbonetics 60-1 HIFI ballbearing turbo. It should be quite beastly. We shall C? Thank You Mike for all the informative posts and information. My car handles much better with bigger sway bars. Cheers Paul
By the way, the Girodisc rotors saved almost 3 pounds of unsprung weight per rear corner compared to stock discs.
I'm responding here to PM about bedding... it DOES make a HUGE difference. When I changed out the rear rotors, the car immediately went back to having way too much front brake bias. After the bedding the brake pads again with the replaced rear rotors, it's back to the "new normal". For the newbies, "bed-in" refers to heat cycling the rotors with the brake pads to deposit a thin, even layer of the brake pad material (transfer layer) onto the rotor's rubbing surface. This makes the pads function as designed, and grab better than just against the plain metal of a new rotor, or against the surface of an old rotor that had been used with a different pad compound. The process I used was pretty much standard, which you can see at the excellent write-up at www.zeckhausen.com/bedding_in_brakes.htm
I'm having trouble with my rear shocks -- they keep getting softer and even dialed at full firmness aren't right. My fronts are fine, set at #5. I called Varishock, and they said to call to call a company in Florida. It turns out Varishock (aka ChassisWorks) is the major retailer/distributor, and Hal Lees Enterprises is the designer and creator of the shocks themselves. I just got off the phone with a guy named Hal Lees himself, who owns the company. They are aware that they got a bad batch of around 500 "plates" from a supplier that ended up inside assembled shocks and he apologized and said he would rebuild mine with all new parts at no charge, dyno them and ship them back the same day. Here's what's especially interesting. Notice that QA-1 shocks have a part number that starts with "HAL"? That's because Hal Lees is the original designer of the QA-1's! He designed the Varishocks as a next generation to follow the QA-1 line. He told me that although the Varishock performs just nominally better than the QA-1 shocks, the internals are a significant step forward and more robust and consistent. This comes from the designer of both of them! So if you're thinking about doing a similar suspension upgrade, that's something to consider.
3 of my 4 Varishocks have leaked since purchase (Jan 2005) and I've had to remove, ship to Hal Lees in Florida, have them re-built and shipped back to me to re-install. HUGE pain in the a**!! Hal told me some were built with a seal upside down. Maybe some have a bad plate, too. I'm about to pull the 3rd one off and send it for rebuild. I'm sure it's just a matter of time before the 4th goes bad. I'm covering my 1/2 of the shipping; they're covering their half. Do you guys think I should hold Varishock responsible for my my costs of R&R? This is getting ridiculous! They are rebuilding them at no cost to me (other than my 1/2 of shipping....) Greg 77 308
Looks like the fluid is coming out of the top circular plate, where the piston goes through... Fluid leaks down and soaks the entire shock.. Pretty stupid oversight...! Nice shock, otherwise.. Greg
OK, got the rear shocks off, and here's the issue... my SPRINGS have worn through the SHOCK BODY so it won't hold pressure. I don't even know how this is POSSIBLE... how can the shock compress at a different angle than the springs do? I haven't called the shock manufacturer yet about this... Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
I have one shock that is leaking also. Mostly my fault on the first one during set up. I sent it back to get rebuilt and is already leaking again. More than anything, it is such a PITA to get that thing in and out. Mike that just sucks! Baffling! Keep us posted. Bill
Like Harta320 said, Mike please keep us posted. I was getting ready to order up the Varishocks for my 308, now I'm having second thoughts.
I've been following the various suspension/brake threads for awhile in anticipation of doing something similar at some point on my car. I certainly appreciate the work, documentation and education that ya'll (Mike Charness, Chris Morse, Phil Airey, Steve Rochlin) are providing folks like me! IMO, seems to me that the manufacturer freely admits to product defects (i.e., seals, plates). Wouldn't the right thing for said manufacturer to do would be to not only repair/replace, but also to cover shipping and labor costs as well? Granted this is a very boutique, low volume product, but root cause for the additional labor, shipping, etc. is due to a defective product (versus product abuse). If you were to do this now, would you still select QA-1? Varishock? Or just stick with Koni?
Bill, The part numbers I sent you may not have this problem. Mike uses Varishocks not QA-1. Mike, What are the free length of your shocks and static length of your springs? In other words, under full droop do your springs rattle free in their respective perches when the car is jacked up. Just a guess, but I think I recall from your thread that the free length of your shocks was a few inches longer than what Steve and I used on the QA-1's. What may be happening is your springs are either coming un-seated during rebound of the shock and allowing them to rub the shock body or possibly they are not perched and seated fully when you let the car off the jack. Also, what rates are you running? Springs can arch as they compress. The more they compress from soft rates, the more opportunity they will have to arch. They also twist as they compress and needle bearing plates on the lower perch is never a bad idea. Have been used by Indy teams and others for years. My free length on shocks are 14" front and 17" rear with 10" front springs and 12" rear springs. They do not sit loose in the spring perches in full droop. In fact, I had to compress the front springs to assemble them. They also have lots of clearance between the shock body and the I.D. of the spring. Just a guess, albiet a somewhat educated one. I sure hope (for my sake) that it is something isolated to the Varishock version. I'm looking forward to driving my car. I've done enough wrenching on it this year. Good luck Mike. I hope the solution is a simple one and doesn't keep you off the road too long. Let me know if there is anything that I can do to help. John
The Varishock part numbers we used are 11122-515 fronts, and 11122-615 rears, as recommended and sold by the Excelsior Motorsports guy. The QA1 springs are 10.300# fronts and 12.250# rears. The springs are the same length as the QA-1 guys. It was the FRONT shocks that had more length (an extra 1") at full droop. The rear shocks are 18.1" extended length with 6.1" travel... and according the Varishock specs (http://www.varishock.com/DataSheets/VAS_111XX_DS_WEB.pdf) they're indeed designed for 12" length springs. Don't know about that... These 250# 12" springs should not be a problem according to the shock specs. I'll have to ask about that at full droop. I'm wondering if the 308s shouldn't be set up with the -515's on the rear and -425's on the front, rather than what I have. Image Unavailable, Please Login
Mike, Just some food for thought above. For the record, I'm running 250# in the rear as well and 350# in the front. I did some calculating and thought 350 would work better up front. I have not driven mine since install so I can't give any feedback as of yet. I should have mine back together this weekend. The suspension and brakes have been done for 2 months, but I went ape **** on a triple throwdown repaint that I am wetsanding tonight. I hope to have it all buffed and re-assembled this weekend so I can finish scaling and aligning next week. My car has been off the road since early April and the driving season is ticking away. I miss it. If I had half a brain, I would have started all this in January. Again, good luck, John
"I'll have to ask about that at full droop. I'm wondering if the 308s shouldn't be set up with the -515's on the rear and -425's on the front, rather than what I have." Knowing what I now know on the topic, that would have been my choice. John
Here's what it looks like the problem is. It's the QA1 SPRINGS I used with the Varishocks. The ends don't appear to be ground properly true so they don't sit perfectly parallel to the shocks, which means it's not the shocks that caused the problem. The QA1 spring wires are also thicker than Varishock or Eibach springs, which makes the problem worse since there's less clearance. So... I've ordered Varishock springs (similar to Eibach) for the rear (12.250) and they'll rebuild my shocks with new bodies.
Update -- NO rubbing problem on the fronts. It does seem to have been due to a bad pair of rear QA1 coilsprings.
That's good news for the fronts. Mike, I have no plans to track my car, I just want to lower it a bit so I was going to go with the Varishocks that you used. Do you think I would be better off with using a different spring than the QA1's? Spang308, what do you think I would be best running? Thanks
Mike, When you get the springs off, measure the I.D. of the coil. Should be 2 1/2". I'm curious if your spring is part of a bad batch or the design sucks period. If possible, measure the O.D. of the shock body just below where it rubbed through. I'm wondering if the Varishock bodies are larger in diameter than the QA-1's. We already know the mounting points are, so possibly the bodies may be larger in diameter as well. WaltP, I'm going to hold back on any recommendations at this point. I should have mine scaled, aligned, and on the road this week. I will let you know what I discover at that point. I will measure everything and make sure there is no clearance issues. I'm pretty experienced with suspension mods and set up, so I don't anticipate any problems, but Mike's situation has me a little concerned. John
