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Old 09-22-2008, 02:50 PM   #16
mohaughn
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The front of the e36 suspension is the same for all cars. So if he is selling E36 sedan kits, not sure how he is going to change the front struts..

There should be two little "C" grooves where you can push in the grommets for the brake lines, and there should be a little stud sticking out about 1/4 inch that is threaded for one of the lines.

Look at any E36 strut and you will see what I'm talking about...
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Old 09-22-2008, 05:54 PM   #17
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Jim's response:

Quote:
Originally Posted by jsp98m3 View Post
They are correct. We aren't including them because they wouldn't work. Notice on ours that the entire body of the strut is threaded. This allows for extreme adjustment as well as the addition of custom sway bar mounting tabs and the custom adjustment of them. Ever wish you had infinitely adjustable sway bars? Well, with these, you do. Today you have to choose which hole to put the end link into or you can add more adjustability by splitting holes on the left and right side of the car.

With our design, this adjustment is infinite AND YOU CAN USE IT ON YOUR STOCK BARS. That's one reason we include our own endlinks. This gives you quite a bit of flexibility and might make it unnecessary for all but the most aggressive driver's to need to replace their swaybars.

All of the lines can be attached with the special non-abrasive strap we will include. Or, you can use a tiewrap although I personally wouldn't, unless you ran the tiewraps around the rubber grommets, which is not hard, just not intuitive.

Jim
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Old 09-23-2008, 12:52 AM   #18
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"special non-abrasive strap"

Translation= rubber band
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Old 09-23-2008, 12:55 AM   #19
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mohaughn View Post
"special non-abrasive strap"

Translation= rubber band
Hahaha, I thought almost the exact same thing.
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Old 09-23-2008, 07:00 PM   #20
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Angel any more input on the coils? Any comments now that you have been driving on them for a while? Are they easy to adjust?

I am starting to seriously consider a set of these after reading through the entire thread on BF.c. Seems like DDM is really taking the time to make these as good as possible, plus the value is amazing.
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Old 09-23-2008, 07:58 PM   #21
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Have they posted dynamometer results for these shocks? It is impossible to follow their threads because you get 1 informative post with 500 posts asking for status.

You can find k-sport, koni, and bilstein results online for comparison.

In looking for shock dyno results, I came across this thread.. I think these guys say it better than I could.


http://www.supraforums.com/forum/sho...d.php?t=473721 post #12.

It would be really interesting to see shock dynos from three or four of the same shock to see if they look like the k-sport shocks. I think there has already been some talk that these are made by the same manufacturer that k-sport uses.
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Old 09-23-2008, 08:53 PM   #22
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jsp98m3 View Post
Dyno plotting will be released shortly. I have them. But, the data needs to be translated and none of us can read Flemish/French or whatever it is.

Warranty for life on leaks, of course.

Jim
(Post #94)

That was posted on September 12th, haven't seen any plots yet. I do agree with that link you posted though, I personally have no idea how a correct suspension set up should feel. So getting plots to show if they are damping correctly would be helpful. Thanks for that link to the supra forums.



Quote:
Originally Posted by jsp98m3 View Post
The pissing off came after the fact. Just a week or 10 days ago. It didn't make us get into this business. What it did, is make me decide that our relatively minor foray into suspensions would become much more serious.

In all likelihood I will spin this off as a separate business unit within a year and hire a hot-shot team to build it and give them the finances to get it done.

I gave some other competitors, like Bitterman, 3 chances to leave me the heck alone. They passed them up. I am more than willing to bet they regret that. Now we are down to giving people one chance to ignore me. I have other things to do. But if you want to yank my chain, I'll play.

Anyway. The struts were originally based on an idea I saw in a Japanese strut that I thought was intriguing. It was on a motorcycle of all things.

Anyway, I couldn't find this feature on auto struts. But I ran into some people in Belgium that make suspensions and mentioned it to them. They knew about it and said the Japanese unit design wouldn't function correctly on a car for several reasons. I asked them if it could be done and they said yes but it wasn't patentable, so they never pursued it either. I don't know the details of the patent issue clearly. But apparently its an old idea.

Anyway, to make it work required that the valving be flipped upside down and some other stuff. Since nobody made it, I asked if they could. They said they had a small shop assembly division that might, if I supplied the components. Sort of like how you can get Bilstein to assemble units for you in Poway, not Germany.

Long story, not so short, I got some of the components from the Japanese shock people, some I had made here and I arranged to buy some Bilstein valving pieces through a third party. All of it ends up in Belgium to be assembled. Oh, the plating is done in Taiwan. A world effort for some odd logistical reasons that save me a lot of money.

The hardest part is working the engineering. Belgium recommends and makes drawings. I have to have these made in Japan and here. The Japanese sometimes disagree. Ok, they always disagree. But the Belgians usually win, they know more about cars.

And that's about all I want to say now. My goal is to get the business going enough to move a lot of this to San Diego within the next 24-36 months. We'll see.

Jim
(Post #116)

That is pretty much all Jim mentions about the design and sourcing of parts. I am not sure where the K-Sports are manufactured and I haven't even heard of K-sport until just now when you mentioned them.

There is a lot to read in that thread, but it seems like Jim is trying to be as honest and open as possible. I guess only time will tell.
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Old 09-23-2008, 09:00 PM   #23
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spider,
I remembered him mentioning something about the dyno plots a while back, as well, so I posted in the current thread for the suspensions asking about the plots. I'll repost any info in this thread when he responds.
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Old 09-23-2008, 09:24 PM   #24
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Hey variance, do you know who is testing the ti version?
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Old 09-23-2008, 09:55 PM   #25
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No, I don't; they are still in the engineering phase, so I don't believe testers have been selected yet. I've contemplated volunteering, but I wouldn't doubt that there's a long list of names already.
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Old 09-23-2008, 09:57 PM   #26
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Yeah, I don't really want to test them myself, rather find someone who is close and go for a ride.
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Old 09-24-2008, 05:05 AM   #27
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Weird that a plot would have to be translated. There are only two or three kinds of plots that are commonly used...

I can't say that I totally understand the dyno plots, but I do understand what that thread is discussing in terms of build quality. If your left shock has a totally different rate than your right shock, that could be a problem.

Try to find out if the manufacturing plants have any ISO certifications. Like ISO14001 or ISO9001:2000. Your major manufacturers like Koni and Billstein are audited and have to constantly prove that they are following certain build requirements and quality requirements to keep those certifications.

If I had to bet, I would say these will probably be fine for a street car as long as the actual build quality of the outer pieces is good and nothing snaps in half. Are these going to be as competetive as TcKline, Billie, Koni, or the new AST stuff in terms of auto-cross or track stuff, no telling.

These are definitely aimed at the street crowd though. For performance driving you don't need that amount of threading on the shock collar. For the regular street driver, as long as the build quality is good, these will get people that slammed look, and be easy on the pocket book.
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Old 09-24-2008, 05:39 AM   #28
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mohaughn View Post
Weird that a plot would have to be translated. There are only two or three kinds of plots that are commonly used...
I found myself wondering the same thing when I originally read that post, but I figured I'd just wait and see. I mean, numbers are numbers, but so long as the data is actually released, there shouldn't be any problems.

Quote:
I can't say that I totally understand the dyno plots, but I do understand what that thread is discussing in terms of build quality. If your left shock has a totally different rate than your right shock, that could be a problem.
If my understanding is correct, you can somewhat gauge the quality of a shock/strut, or at the very least make a comparison to others, based on how flat the plots are. The flatter the horizontal portions of the plot are, the more consistent the shock's resistance is throughout its range of travel.

Quote:
If I had to bet, I would say these will probably be fine for a street car as long as the actual build quality of the outer pieces is good and nothing snaps in half. Are these going to be as competetive as TcKline, Billie, Koni, or the new AST stuff in terms of auto-cross or track stuff, no telling.

These are definitely aimed at the street crowd though. For performance driving you don't need that amount of threading on the shock collar. For the regular street driver, as long as the build quality is good, these will get people that slammed look, and be easy on the pocket book.
I couldn't agree more. I would consider these to be in the same category as Bilstein PSS's, Tein Basics, FK Streetlines, and the like. Although they have adjustable dampening unlike the aforementioned setups, they appear to be targeted towards street users who want just a little bit more out of their suspension than the typical spring+shock combo can provide.
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Old 09-30-2008, 10:49 PM   #29
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Anyone have any updates on this?
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Old 09-30-2008, 10:57 PM   #30
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yes they are very easy to adjust. especially the dampening. what else should I say besides get them. I love mine you will enjoy yours too. Now, remember I have the kit for the 325i not the 318ti.
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