Tein Super Street Coilover Settings, Optimum Height & Camber For R32Gtr

[Marko R1]

Hi guys,

Not sure if u can help but I have an r32GTR fitted with tein super street coilovers. I did search the net in hope that I'd find settings depending on application, (i.e. street and track) but no luck. In the tein user manual it states that damper setting should be 12 clicks out from hardest setting and height should be 350mm front and rear from centre of hub to lower edge of guard.

What is optimum for these settings and what is a good height?

I also have adjustable front and rear upper arms and want to ascertain what camber I should run front and rear? I like tinkering with suspension settings on race motorbikes and wonder if I can do the same with my car? Is there a large protractor available where I can measure the camber?

Maybe if the above is not possible, I can leave it to the experts such as Heasmans here in Sydney? Someone please shed some light

[GTSBoy]

Several threads just recently covering exactly this stuff.

[Marko R1]

I did a search and couldn't find what I wanted...they call it a 'man look' hehe

[MrStabby]

Heres a few of the threads GTSBoy is talking about;

http://www.skylinesaustralia.com/forums/topic/439378-r32-gtr-hsd-coilovers-what-height/

http://www.skylinesaustralia.com/forums/topic/439337-r34-gtr-ride-height-help/

Interesing Tein say same height front and rear. When my car is back together ill have to measure the chassis rail to floor heights front and back to see if my intended 350fr/340rr makes the rails parallel to the ground (which I assume is what is best).

Camber depends on what tyres you are running. With R specs its usually around the 3 degrees negative at the front. With S specs (Fed RSRs) i think i was running 2 neg front and 1.25 neg rear. Heasmans have done plenty of work on my GTR. Castor needs to be near factory setting (3 deg 40 IIRC) or you'll load up the upper arm bushes and flog them out. I run zero toe front (and I think zero toe back)

[YoLoBaCh]

i was running about 18/20 clicks on the front and 12-14 clicks on the rear when taking it onto the track

[GTSBoy]

I don't think the recommended height have anything to do with whether the chassis as a whole is parallel to the deck or raked in any way. I'd suggest it has a lot more to do with the angle that the lower arms (at each end of the car) are at when lowered to that height. Ideally they shouldn't go past the horizontal (and end up angled upwards out to the wheel end) and even more ideally they should still be angled down in that direction. Actually measuring said angles is not what you'd call an easy task though, being as they are supposed to be taken from the centre of the inner pivot and the centre of the lower ball joint (or somesuch point) and they don't lie on the same line and there's a heap of other crap in there also to get in the way.

[Marko R1]

Thx for the info guys

Sounds like I need to leave it to the experts in terms of adjusting camber, castor, toe and obviously wheel alignment.

Should I setup the height myself or let the specialist do this as well?

[Marko R1]

Also, the car pulls to the left slightly which is also exaggerated by the camber on the road...can this be adjusted out with a wheel alignment or is there another adjustment which can be responsible for this?

My dad used to say that cars in Aust were purposely setup do drive slightly to the left to avoid collisions...makes sense but not sure if it's true hmmmm

[MrStabby]

Thx for the info guys

Sounds like I need to leave it to the experts in terms of adjusting camber, castor, toe and obviously wheel alignment.

Should I setup the height myself or let the specialist do this as well?

Might as well set the height yourself - you just need a c spanner for that. If you're going to track it (or if you're a perfectionist ) get Heasmans to corner weight it after you've settled on height.

[GTSBoy]

You can set the height yourself. Keep in mind that the ~350mm front and ~340mm rear measurements are for cars with unmodified guards. If yours have been rolled or pulled out at all then the measurements will move a bit.

Also keep in mind that after lowering or raising the ride height, you should get it a decent wheel alignment before you drive too far just to make sure you're not going to wreck a tyre or two.

In terms of damper settings.......they need to be set to where they work for the roads you drive on and the usage you put them too. Setting them too soft will have your car wallowy - hit a bump and the dampers won't be strong enough to stop the spring oscillating up and down, so it will carry on for a couple of cycles after the bump is over. This is no good. Set them too hard and they will resist the wheel motion too strongly, absorbing a lot of energy and dissipating a lot of heat, and wearing out a bit faster. And making the ride unpleasant. Dampers can be set up underdamped, critically damped or over damped. At critically damped the amount of damping is juuuuust right to keep the springs from oscillating. It turns out that critically damped is not the best setting for actual use, that they need to be set up with more damping than that required to achieve criticality, but not too far.

As a result, setting up the damping is a matter of feel, and ideally actual timed track testing so you can see if the car works better or not at any given setting. it IS a job for an expert (if you don't think you know what you're looking for) but good luck finding a real expert anywhere. Perhaps follow the recommendations above for a good suspension shop. I don't know where I'd go here in Adelaide to pay someone to do it, and I know a few people who should be able to. Just don't know if I'd trust them!

[MrStabby]

Also, the car pulls to the left slightly which is also exaggerated by the camber on the road...can this be adjusted out with a wheel alignment or is there another adjustment which can be responsible for this?

My dad used to say that cars in Aust were purposely setup do drive slightly to the left to avoid collisions...makes sense but not sure if it's true hmmmm

I think they usually fiddle the castor to fix that - anyway just leave that for heasmans to sort out. If there's not enough (any?) standard castor adjustment go for superpro adjustable radius rod bushes.

[GTSBoy]

Also, the car pulls to the left slightly which is also exaggerated by the camber on the road...can this be adjusted out with a wheel alignment or is there another adjustment which can be responsible for this?

My dad used to say that cars in Aust were purposely setup do drive slightly to the left to avoid collisions...makes sense but not sure if it's true hmmmm

No, cars are usually set up with ever so slightly different camber and caster between left and right to tend to make the car drive to the right. The reason? Because two lane roads are cambered off to the left, and the alignment bias makes it want to pull against the road camber and so it drives more straight. If you set the car up neutrally, it will drift off to the left on cambered roads. If you drive on a divided road where each carriageway is it's own bit of bitumen, then the fast lane tends to be cambered to the right and coupled with typical biased wheel alignment the car will want to go to the right a bit more strongly than usual.

[Marko R1]

Great info guys, thanks

Any recommendations for suspension tuning in Sydney and what should I expect to pay?

[Marko R1]

Why is it that divided roads tend to lean to the right? Great observation btw

[djr81]

If you are going to set the heights of the car yourself make sure you take measurements off the shock body and adjust the springs on either side of each axle line by the same amount. That way your corner weights may be close to ok. The other thing you need is a FLAT section of concrete to do it on. Which can be harder to find than what you may think.

[GTSBoy]

Why is it that divided roads tend to lean to the right? Great observation btw

It's because if you are making a 4 lane road that consists of two separate sections of 2 lane, then you just make each of the separate sections as if they were their own piece of road, and camber both sides off away from the centreline of that strip of bitumen. Makes the water run off both sides instead of having to run all the way from one side to the other. It's also somewhat easier to make a road that is crowned in the middle than it is to make one that has consistent slop from one side to the next.

Having said that, you will see many such divided roads where the road is more heavily cambered to the left in the slow lane than it is to the right in the fast lane. This is generally because a lot of them have the median strip section higher than either bit of bitumen - ie the whole roadway is cambered more or less as if it one wide road.

[Marko R1]

Hi guys,

So I played with the suspension height last night and was surprised / shocked to see the settings I had...I took the measurement on the coilover from the base of the thread to the base of the locknut as this should be set to 25mm for front and rear as per Tein user manual:

FL 0mm, FR 35mm

RL 22mm, RR 0mm

What would it have been set this way? Something to do with the car corner weighted possibly? I even have detailed suspension settings which were done to the car from a specialist from the previous owner when the car lived in the ACT.

I have re-adjusted to show 30mm front and 25mm rear and will found out today how it drives. I get the feeling the above would have been a catalyst for the car pulling to the left. I also rotated the tyres from right / left and vice versa.

[GTSBoy]

Um....strange.

With respect to rotating tyres....I make it a golden rule to NEVER rotate tyres in such a way that they run in the opposite direction after they have bedded in. So that means rotating from front to rear is OK, but never from side to side.

It is possibly OK to do so these days, what with tyres being so well designed and strong and all that, but quite a few years ago a friend of mine who was an engineer with Bridgestone told me that tyre carcasses take a "set" once they have been run in a certain direction. And if you turn them around and run them the other way, the carcasse has to unwind and reset the other way, which loosens the belts and reduces tyre stiffness. All of which is generally undesirable both from the point of view of performance and longevity. On that basis, if you want/need to rotate side to side, they have to come off the rims and be flipped 180deg so they can go on the other side of the car without changing direction.

This may be old man bah humbug advice, but it makes perfect sense to me, so I stick with it.

[MrStabby]

Hi guys,

So I played with the suspension height last night and was surprised / shocked to see the settings I had...I took the measurement on the coilover from the base of the thread to the base of the locknut as this should be set to 25mm for front and rear as per Tein user manual:

FL 0mm, FR 35mm

RL 22mm, RR 0mm

What would it have been set this way? Something to do with the car corner weighted possibly? I even have detailed suspension settings which were done to the car from a specialist from the previous owner when the car lived in the ACT.

Somethings wrong there - thats a massive difference. I'm guessing springs could be maybe up to 5mm different due to sag/manufacturing tolerance, but 35mm!

Will be interesting to see how it drives and what they say when you get the fine setup done.

[R.3.2.G.T.R]

marko, could you chuck up a scan/pic of the tein manual's settings?