I might be buying some that are 26 way adjustable with 10k and 12k springs. Just wanted to findout how good these are, especially from those who have ran them.

 

bump

 

PM 'todd reid' i believe he has a set on his hatchpile

 

Well this is good timing. 2 representatives from Ohlins (sorry cant spell it correctly, dont have the umlaut) came to speak to our FSAE team on Tues. They are one of our sponsors for our car, and besides hooking us up with some phatty remote reservoir shocks, go out of their way to help out a good cause (for free!) They gave a 2 hour presentation on the differences between different kinds of shocks, basics to dyno tuning (nose, knee, and slope) as well as a bunch of other very useful and interesting shock info. One of the guys that came out has been working for Ohlins for 4 years, but came from BAR Honda. He is from Switzerland and is one of the smartest guys I have ever talked to personally in regards to suspension setups. He writes the programming himself for a 7 post shaker rig as well as extensive writing in Matlab. They definitely have people working for them that are VERY well versed.
ANYWAYS... Ohlins makes a quality shock. Any upper level shock will require a lot more maintenance than a stand Koni Yellow or the like so keep that in mind. If you are very serious about racing than there is no way around buying a shock that will require lots of maintenance. Another thing the Ohlins engineer warned us about was a cheap shock with lots of adjustment. He said that the best shock (read: lightest) is one that has NO external adjustments and needs to be taken apart and adjusted with the use of different shims. In order to adjust the rebound or compression of a shock, precisely machined needles are used in order to control the flow of oil.
Sorry for rambling on, I blame the



Modified by siisgood00 at 9:03 PM 11/21/2003

 

We were using Ohlins on our GrandAm Cup BMW, they worked very very well. Even helped us (a low budget private team) to often beat the factory team cars like Lexus and the like. Don't buy them unless you know what you are doing with regards to proper shock adjustment. It is very easy to really screw up the handling with an improper shim adjustment or even improperly charging the resevoirs with too high or too low nitrogen pressure. But when you get it exactly right, man they work well.

 

mighty mouse said it right;

i have a set of used Ohlins on my H1 car; they are very adjustable (24 clicks, maybe?). the ones i have are not threaded for height adjustment, but instead have about 12 different grooves for the snap ring perch assy.

the current spring setup i have on my car is a little too stiff (came off a 3000 lb Prelude), but i strongly believe that with the right spring setup; a good cornerweighting, and the right settings on the dampers they would be tough to beat... Ohlins makes a high quality product....

good luck

 

These ones I'm looking at don't have the remote resevoir. It is a 26 way adjusttable dampening, and height adjustable(through adjustable threaded perches). How high maintenance would you consider these?

 

what are you using them for?

 

DD and the occasional HPDE's.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by jonnybravo &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">DD and the occasional HPDE's.</TD></TR></TABLE>

a wee bit of overkill if you ask me, but hey, whatever floats your boat.

 

The spring rates are going to be a bit rough for a primarily daily driven car. The only reason I run high rates is to be competitive at autocrossing. If it wasn't for that I would be using something like stock ITR springs.

If you ask me, it all comes down to price. If you can get them for a really good price then go for it.

 

I too think that they are going to be some pretty serious overkill and likely not that well matched for daily driver status. The spring rates are going to be exceedingly firm but if you want to spend the money that way then go for it. For the money, these are not going to do more in perforamcne for you than some good but cheaper set-ups.

On the grand scheme of racing, Ohlins makes some very good race shocks and really pretty units too but as was noted above that race shocks are going to need more service and have more compromise than street performance units. I do not know what know what is involved in these shocks vs. their race shocks since they don't really make street shocks.

Above there was some discussion of an Ohlins seminar that I'm sure was very interesting, I would have liked to hear it. I have some thoughts and concerns about a few of the comments noted but better to let it pass than raise some arguements when they are not here to discuss it openly (don't shoot the messenger).

The primary thing is to make sure that your uses and their design expectations are in line or otherwise you could regret it. Not all good high performance parts are well suited to all uses. I just finished test driving a new 350Z with a test set of KONIs but this car had a high end performance exhaust and a replacement low differential gear with a tight LSD. The constant wailing and whine from the gear lash in the diff, juddering of too tight a limited and cunking ill-fit of the exhaust made this car just nasty on the street. A blast on the track I'm sure and the noises and clunking would be fine to drive from the paddock to the grid before a race but otehrwise these parts just destroyed a really great car.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by carl_aka_carlos &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">

a wee bit of overkill if you ask me, but hey, whatever floats your boat.</TD></TR></TABLE>

I think most of you are thinking of the race-level ohlins stuff. What he's referring to is their lowest-end damper - which is nothing more than a street setup. I never like buying the cheapest model of anything because the quality that's guaranteed with the high-end stuff doesn't necessarily trickle-down .

 

One more person for the JIC FLTA-2 RS (custom dampers/springs) group buy and the price goes down to an even more unbelievable level....

Chris - agreeing that the Ohlins are overkill and pointing out another possible option.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by CRX Lee &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote"> they don't really make street shocks.</TD></TR></TABLE>

sure they do...In fact you can purchase some for your Volvo directly from the dealership.

fyi

 

swEEdish ir0n

 

Would you buy a $25,000 Ferrari?

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by CRX Lee &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Above there was some discussion of an Ohlins seminar that I'm sure was very interesting, I would have liked to hear it. I have some thoughts and concerns about a few of the comments noted but better to let it pass than raise some arguements when they are not here to discuss it openly (don't shoot the messenger).
</TD></TR></TABLE>

The drunk messenger
PM me if you wanted to discuss anything I said.


Modified by siisgood00 at 4:47 PM 11/21/2003

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by JeffS &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">

I think most of you are thinking of the race-level ohlins stuff. What he's referring to is their lowest-end damper - which is nothing more than a street setup. I never like buying the cheapest model of anything because the quality that's guaranteed with the high-end stuff doesn't necessarily trickle-down .</TD></TR></TABLE>

Jeffs is right, the street dampers are made in Japan with Ohlins supervision. They aren't the custom dampers from Ohlins, more like tein or something. I would be worried about rebuilding these since Ohlins USA has told me they would not service the street dampers. Two years ago, the US Ohlins rep didn't even know they existed

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Johnny Tran &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">
sure they do...In fact you can purchase some for your Volvo directly from the dealership.
fyi </TD></TR></TABLE>

News to me, I knew they made some streetable sport bike shocks but not street car shocks. I've never heard reference to them and they certainly have not been a blip on the KONI radar. We've always wondered when or if it was going to happen as generally the race shock business is not really that profitable but the street market can be a good place to recoup sales based on your racing background although it presents it's own set of challenges. If anyone has some Ohlins street units, I'll open the same offer to for free dyno testing.

 

http://ohlins.com/pdf/productn...3.pdf

This is the US list so the Honda Civic/Integra applications aren't listed, but it's the same dampers.

 

Yea, the ones I'm looking at are the set on the left... No good or good?? I running Tanabe Sustec Pros already. Should I switch to these?

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by jonnybravo &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Yea, the ones I'm looking at are the set on the left... No good or good?? I running Tanabe Sustec Pros already. Should I switch to these?</TD></TR></TABLE>

The Tanabes are KYBs internally. I can't tell from the photo at least what is inside the ohlins street units (some brands you can recognize for external features like weld methods, closures, etc. if they haven't tried to hide it).

I think the key to "good or no good" is a mix of what is really inside (which you may never know without a dyno), how much, and how bad you want them. Swirl this together in a bowl and see what it tastes like.

 

Here is a link to someone with a set of Ohlins high end dampers for his ITR.

http://www.itrca.com/forums/vi...hlins

Unfortunately picture link is no longer good, and I was never able to find these shocks on the Ohlins web site, but high end ones obviously existed for an Integra. But $897 a corner is a little pricey!!!

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by usuck &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote"> http://ohlins.com/pdf/productn...3.pdf
</TD></TR></TABLE>

I had a set simailar to the 2nd shock from the right.

They are street shocks similar to a off the shelf koni yellow. I have pictures some where, I will try to find em.

They were adjustable from the top of the shaft using a allen key (something like 26 clicks) plus they had the external valve(shrader valve?) for the gas recharge.

The bodies weren't shorter and the shafts irratatingly bottomed out AT LEAST a 1/2 - 3/4 inch outside the body so you had to use a very tall bumpstop.

 

I'm running Zeal s6's with 10k front and 8k rear rates on the streets all the time, all over Southern California, and in terms of roughness I'm not bothered one bit. I even had my friend who drives a stock Prelude Type SH drive my car and he agreed completely.

The funny thing is that I read so many warnings about how these rates were "too hard" and "not good for the street" when I was researching which coilovers to buy. Even the manufacturer was spouting all kinds of conjecture like that. Take this, Zeal (a coilover manufacturer) sells the same shock but with 2 different spring rates. They label one "street" and one "race." The absurdity of this comes when you look at how they compare to stock shocks, and both the "street" and "race" versions have nearly twice the spring rating as stock shocks. Zeal tried to imply that there was a huge difference between the two, like that one is meant for driving your car down the street and the other is for the Speed Channel touring car series. What's funny is that one of the raceways near me has worse pavement imo then what I drive around town on. I should really have softer springs for the track!

When it comes to any performance upgrades, research it yourself, gather facts and then think about your situation. When it comes to coilovers consider the quality of the roads you drive on, how fast you drive on these roads amoung other things. Only consider your own situation and the facts at hand, you often can't take others advice because it just doesn't apply to your situation.