So, progress.
I spent a lot of money on new MCA Gold struts for the rally car, at El Wifeo’s insistence.
TBH, I was happy with the Bilsteins, but we had to spend money on some shocks for the race car, so this sort of made sense. There’s no question that these are the duck’s nuts though!
They went into the rally car yesterday.
That was the easy part.
The rears will be a bit more work. The skinny little Bilsteins, combined with the overly tight spherical bearing in the Chinabay tops, meant that the shafts were flexing.
At best, this was going to wear them out super fast.
At worst, it was going to bend a shaft and bugger the shock.
It’s less of a problem for the race car than the rally car (less shock deflection and rides lower in the travel), but not something I was willing to ignore.
Amongst my piles of ‘treasure’, I have an old pair of Mazda rally struts. They’re based on a pair of Commodore Bilstein rear shocks - but the bodies had been ground down and hard chromed to work as strut inserts.
Problem is that they have worn through the the hard chrome, making them pretty much unsuitable for being used as a strut.
But they are pretty close to the correct dimensions for the back of an E36 Compact... :) They are also much beefier than the old shocks - 50mm OD body and 14mm shaft, up from ~40mm and a 10mm shaft. As well as the obvious strength/stiffness improvement, this also means that they hold more oil - meaning that the oil lasts longer and the shocks are less likely to fade in long stages.
Annnndd they are ‘upside down’, which reduces unsprung weight and also provides a bit more clearance around the half shafts.
First step was to machine the top stud down to fit the Chinabay shock top.
I still have a few questions that I haven’t worked out the answers to, particularly regarding the lower mounting point.
They will also need to be revalved. Hopefully Murray (the M and the C from “MCA”) will be happy to point me in the right direction.
But my big hurdle right now is that I don’t know where the other one of these is! I had a quick look at home yesterday, assuming it was at work. But a close look at work didn’t turn it up... Hopefully it is at home...
