Pacwest's Merkur v3.0

pacwest · Post by **pacwest** » Tue Dec 02, 2008 2:01 pm

As you can see probably why I went with AVO coil overs. Make a call and they are on the way. Pick your spring rate and they are on the plane next day. Bilsteins not so much.

Sometimes people spend $10 on a $0.10 problem with Merkurs. Other's spend $0.10 on a $10 problem.

Make it easy on yourself.

Raze · Post by **Raze** » Tue Dec 02, 2008 2:24 pm

That's exactly why we were debating AVOs from OPMD or Konis from MC2Racing...

CV12Steve · Post by **CV12Steve** » Tue Dec 02, 2008 2:38 pm

The Bilsteins you'd get from John V.

Raze · Post by **Raze** » Tue Dec 02, 2008 4:34 pm

price on those bils? Do they come assembled or as a DIY kit?

Frag · Post by **Frag** » Tue Dec 02, 2008 10:20 pm

Raze wrote:price on those bils? Do they come assembled or as a DIY kit?

Give him a call the numbers here... http://www.rallyrace.net/jvab/

If you do call him. Tell him I'm sorry I didn't help him push the POS cossie thing back into the garage.

John V · Post by **John V** » Tue Dec 02, 2008 10:33 pm

whitelx wrote:
John V wrote:
Raze wrote:how you like the AVOs? Have you run Konis? We're debating right now which to go with for track use...
Upside-down Bilsteins front, 50mm coilover Bilsteins back.

Just what Ford did to win dozens and dozens of ETCC and BTCC etc races.

Seen what you can get?
can you set them up with the tarmac valving or do you just have the gravel spec valving?

where are you on the supra beam? what is the STA angle going to be on that beam?

I can order the inserts valve any way you or I or collectively we decide.
We have an excellent starting point in the published "Build Sheets" widely available on better Web forums everywhere.

Now the stuff delivered to guys intending them to be daily driver/fun tack day cars was delivered with gravel valving and spring rates but about 1" shorter than gravel length.

All three street guys have said its the best suspension they have ever had.
ALl of the gravel guys, me included say the gravel spec is really about real world perfect on normal everyday roads at any speed above 10.

As for the SQUARE beam, I've given up with the one guy, and am working with a guy I help get set up doing plasma cutting business, intention is to get some rear mounting thangs and adaptor things to use OEM beam for now and really get going on the square beam this winter.
Just did a seconfd run of 30 drive shaft adaptors.

As for STA angle, viewed from where?

John V · Post by **John V** » Tue Dec 02, 2008 10:35 pm

pacwest wrote:As you can see probably why I went with AVO coil overs. Make a call and they are on the way. Pick your spring rate and they are on the plane next day. Bilsteins not so much.

Sometimes people spend $10 on a $0.10 problem with Merkurs. Other's spend $0.10 on a $10 problem.

Make it easy on yourself.

I can't understand at all, what was the delivered price.
What is the valving?
What is the travel?
Did you have any choice on the valving or spring rates?

pacwest · Post by **pacwest** » Tue Dec 02, 2008 11:07 pm

I paid just under 500 Pounds for them plus shipping. I got a very decent deal at the time. They go for just under 6000 Pounds. I got to choose my spring rates and spent a couple days comparing spring rates that others have used in regular perch and the non-multiplied outboard coil over positions. I won't lie, I don't even remember what poundage I got but that is easily measured. It was quite some time ago and I neglected to write it down. But rest assured the poundage I chose compliments how I like my car setup. ZERO understeer with no rear swaybar.

Valving was not an option. It wasn't an option when buying the car nor for about %99 of the people that buy suspension systems for their car. I can change the valving, but choose not too. That being said, bump and rebound are adjustable and I'm quite happy with how they are valved. I'm sure the person who designed them had somewhat of a clue since they (AVO) do race and put some serious thought into their products.

I'm not dissuading anyone from buying from you John. I'm just showing people what I've done hoping to spur incentive for others and to have suggestions made to me. This is not the place for us to debate who to buy from - it's to debate what is best for one's person's budget or application. I don't plan on entering the BTCC anytime soon, and I doubt anyone else is. That being said I bought these when they first came out and not to be fashionable. I wanted something different.

Bilsteins are a good way to go. If you want to. I chose not to for my own reason(s).

AVO list price for the parts I have mated to my cosworth 2wd rear beam and front suspension:

http://www.europerformance.co.uk/pages/ ... uct=425275

John V · Post by **John V** » Tue Dec 02, 2008 11:09 pm

Raze wrote:
John V wrote:
Raze wrote:how you like the AVOs? Have you run Konis? We're debating right now which to go with for track use...
Upside-down Bilsteins front, 50mm coilover Bilsteins back.

Just what Ford did to win dozens and dozens of ETCC and BTCC etc races.

Seen what you can get?
got some links, I'm having trouble finding part numbers for our application...

You won't find anything.
I build them to Ford Motorsport specs using thick wall 4130 CrMo steel for the bottom tubes, Bilstein inverted 40 or 41mm inserts, each set vbalved after discussion about weight, real use etc.

Here's some hot off the presses:

Here's some 6061 being made into lock rings, lower spring seats and upper spring seats in 2 operations for 3 parts:

And viola, mon sewer:

And just checking thread tolerances etc but I think you can see that this is serious beefy stuff, 2 wide spaced 1.5" long guide bushes

not some old conventional strut with one wobbly 15mm guide bush and some stiff valving, but different basic design.
Real stuff.

Here's some extended upper spring seats for the rear to move the spring away from the body a bit:

Rear s are same but with extended eyelet rather than the pin mount like these VW Golf units.

Here's a set that went to Chicago:

whitelx · Post by **whitelx** » Tue Dec 02, 2008 11:20 pm

adapters for the stock beam would be great too!

pacwest · Post by **pacwest** » Tue Dec 02, 2008 11:56 pm

Ok back on track with the build. I welded up the holes in the floor and urethaned them. Painted them white to match and tried my best to replicate the original tool marks of the German urethane scraper.

Now that my black interior has been delivered, I can go ahead with some gauge placement. I'm really fussy about gauges. Being a watch buff I am a bit anal about clock faces. If it's digital it better look like avionics. If it's analogue, it better not look like it should be in a 69 camaro. That puts me in a tough spot for finding what I like. I bought these from the UK and they showed up in 3 days. I dig that. Simple analogue face with a "digital" look by being backlit blue LED lighting. The bezel is silver but I'll paint black if it looks tacky in my old clock/warning module center. I'll spend tomorrow playing with them in my install plate mock up before I commit to a full dash install for them. I want to have the blue LED idiot light for oil pressure right beside the oil temp gauge and oil pressure gauge. the oil temp is in C and the oil pressure is in bar. I also have a turbo boost gauge in -1 bar to 2 bar. Not %100 sold on these but I don't see me running a stack ST8100 anytime soon.

pacwest · Post by **pacwest** » Thu Dec 04, 2008 3:02 pm

Crappy phone pics, but hey. This is what showed up today. Just need some coolant (and install it) and I can start getting underway on the engine.

The rad is quite nice. Welds are all hot and it fits perfect. It doesn't have a fan switch bung but that is of no matter. the rad fill from teh header tank is threaded so I can use proper fittings now. I run my switch from the head anyway. Matt (got_xr) had some nice little bits for me yesterday and I wanted to spend some money when we went down and saw JohnV in Seattle yesterday but he didn't have what I wanted in stock. All the Cossie turbine housings were spoken for! Matthew got some very nice looking Supra diff to Cosworth/Scorpio shaft adapters.

pacwest · Post by **pacwest** » Wed Dec 10, 2008 2:55 am

Took my Compomotives to the refinisher today to get them stripped and repainted. Bought replacement stickers from ebay.co.uk as well. Today I installed my Bullitt Mustang fuel door. Made a nice polished aluminum backing plate for it to mount to inside the fuel pod, but as I was polishing it it got sucked out of my hands and smoked me in the head. Any sharper and I'd need stitches. Luckily I just got a big goose egg and a bad cut. Funny shaped aluminum is hard to polish safely.... wears those safety goggles. Thankfully I was.

Drilled my dash's defrost vent to mount the LED for the new alarm. My Jag has the alarm LED there and I like it. Looks more modern. Wired some of it up and mocked up some wiring/pipes for preparation of the dash install. I dug up the HKS boost knob and mapped its placement out on my clock blank plate template. Won't be sad to see the clock and warning modules go. 3 gauges, brake bias knob and boost know go in there. Should look good. I took out the oil sender unit and the turbo feed line and will get more fittings to mount the new oil temp and pressure senders for the gauges. Spent about 10 hours on the car today....

Picked up my Yokohama A032r tires today. Soft compound 235/40/17. Treadwear 60!!!

thebronze · Post by **thebronze** » Wed Dec 10, 2008 5:00 am

Dude...You need any help, just ask. I'm a pretty good fabricator (you've seen My bike)

pacwest · Post by **pacwest** » Wed Dec 10, 2008 2:17 pm

Any time you wanna come over to the garage. Let me know. Have a lookie at some fo the stuff I've done get some ideas.

I'll trade ya some wrenchin' time for taking his res pics of your RS bits. You should also have a look at my bumper mounts and how the lights fit.