I thought i would tell fellow Volvo fans about my current quest to get coilovers for my 240 turbo Group 5 rally car. I have ran HD blisteins for the past two seasons with great success - but they had some major draw backs as one could imagine. After lots of research, I found John at JVAB in Seattle. He seemed very knowledgeable about both suspension and the stresses Rally racing places on suspension. Something many tuners have no clue about.

So he told me that he was on a second generation of coilovers with 50 mil bilsteins, custom valved and spring matched, along with an offset to accommodate Rally tires. “Great” I say! “When can I get a set”. “Two months” he says. Tick tick tick, 18 months later they finally are ready to ship. Then he calls me and said, “hey we installed them on a 240 rally car down here, and when he hit a pop hole the spindle snapped off”. “Oh” I say “that is horrible”. He says – “no problem I had an engineer design a gusset that will never fail”. “Great” I say “send them up”.

Let me mention that one of my conditions was that they bolted directly on to my car. Well they arrive all shiny and new and I am really excited to get them on - two weeks before my next rally. Once on, we notice that the camber is positive… by two inches. Well that’s no good. John has no clue how to fix it - and after long discussions with various people we grind the crap out of the upper engine bay mounting holes and we get it down to 1 degree of positive camber. Good enough lets go rally!!

The rally was great smooth roads, lots of snow, and fun to drive - except we have a 1 inch hole in our new excuse manifold from an O2 bung that fell out. We weld a bolt in but still only run 4 lbs of pressure cause of the air leaks. Regardless it was a very slow rally - but we finish and are happy. Suspension was stiff as hell, and since the rears could not be installed because of design problem - our rear end was all over the place.

Now last night, after a week off from the car - I head into the garage and Brad and I are cleaning and figuring out the rears. When Brad notices the front camber is now mega mega negative...off goes the wheels and what do you know...The gusset that was engineered failed and both spindles were on the verge of snapping off - metal ripping and spindles pointing to the sky...All I can say thank the Viking gods for having a blown turbo - cause if we would have driven hard it might of happened going over a bridge!

So John has no clue what to do with his design - and I just want to be safe and race. Does anyone know a fabricator that actually understands how force is delivered and how to correctly weld two things together? If anyone wants photos of how these things failed email me at:

hpeschl@stonetile.com


Thanks...

Houston Peschl

Hey Houston, Why not post the photo's here. It would be easier to see what has happened and try to plan around things and ENGINEER a solution. This is a lot more than simple fabrication, but one of the first steps in redoing something is to have a good hard look how it failed. I'm sure the CVC crew could come up with something that will be more sturdy.

Just for clarification, what's wrong with the original strut set-up strength wise?

Wow... he always talks big too, and it could of cost you your life! I know he means well.. but still pretty scary!

I really struggle to post the photos - i am honestly not that computer savy - so this whole html thing is greek to me - if anyone can explain it to a monkey then i should understand!

The old struts were not high enough - I need to adjust depending on the rally - For example - Rocky is hella fast and smooth so low and stiff are a plus - and Merrit is bumpy, rough, and deep ditches - so i need to be higher and have the ability to absorb massive bumps. We are also jumping thecar regularly now - so the old suspension bottomed out and destroyed the strut tops every rally.

email them to me...I'll put the pictures in a gallery here on this website.

volvo245gti@shaw.ca

If it were me, which is is not, I would do this:
-Source a 3" or 5" ID spring(s) in length(s) that gets the desired rate(s), ride height(s), and travel (ranges) that sits just above the tire. (the 3" ID are a touch harder to get than 2.5" here). I'd rather solve the tire clearance problem using means other than offsetting the strut in or radically spacing the wheels out if possible. It is completely possible to get 7" of usable travel at a ride height higher than or close to the factory with the spring above the average 15" rally tire tire in a 240, JV's stuff has just under 8", why offset the tube and compromise strength for less than 1" of travel other than 2.5" springs being a bit cheaper? I also feel that a fatter shorter spring is less prone to put side-force on the strut, and odd harmonics, and feel that for a gravel rally car, being limited to under 2 degrees of negative camber is no big deal.
-Make up a tube and threaded collar that isn't offset that uses a sturdy clamp with bushings for use with a 40mm standard bilstein insert. Kevin Hawkinson's car had 40mm bilsteins that weren't offset on it made by JVAB before, and they didn't break at all. What is the expression....oh...yes..."If it ain't broke, don't fix it." The swedes seem to break spindles with a non-offset mounted strut before any 40mm insert, and on moderate length stages, they don't seem to be having problems with the 40mm inserts.
-See if you can get jest the "ambulance" spindle as a core from Sellholm or anywhere really and fit it to the clamp/gusset assembly to easily change the strut assemblies out. The whole sellholm 40 or 50mm front suspension is a lot of dough, as is really any adjustable coil-over-strut arrangement where the labor and detail work are done correctly, but just the spindle/steering arm core may be something they can get.
-Use your existing JVAB spherical top bearing arrangement for the standard 40 or 50mm bilstien (you will have to measure and it might help to confer with JV the dimensions of the top of the strut).

I didn't wish to publicly state what I thought of the offset design as shown on turbobricks, as I value having JVAB interested in volvos, and I sat down with a few people to try to figure out the existing design before deciding what i thought about it. If I see any of you in person, I'd feel more comfortable stating what I think of that design "off the record."

Flame away!

wow dude...that sucks...now I know why I got random messages from people on different forums saying to "watch out" with the JVAB products, I had spoken to some people who were hella happy though, but wow does that suck, sorry to hear this Houston!

myself I wouldn't know where to begin, suspension goemetry etc etc but I hope you get it fixed!!!

ciao

You know what you should do, Houston? You should post it for sale on Turbobricks. Don't badmouth it, just say that its "self cambering" feature isn't what you're looking for in a rally car.

And if you check out what he's saying in Performance and Suspension about his design, he's talking about bringing everyones' suspension back and fixing it properly. He's got a cad drawing of what he plans to use to fix it.

jesus, thank god you did find out about it before shit really hit the fan!

http://www.rallyanarchy.com/phorum/read ... #msg-13381

Well these are the parts John has made to mount the rear ends...any comments?

He has redesigned the fronts now and I have a CAD drawing of the new design - its out of a solid piece of machined metal...the way it should have been done originally. I would like opnions on it...but again have issues posting pictures!

Oh my...I don't think I'd put that on a street car let alone a rally car! While the welding is pretty, the thickness is not sufficient to handle the stress (blatent statements of the obvious are my specialty) - adding the washers in for strength is a nice touch. If you did the modelling on the stresses in that part they would show that that top mount is liable to rip through above the washer.

For example, here are the forward mounts on my STREET car (3/16 thick steel in a low stress position).

Your brain is scary with how much stuff it knows...

Thank you so much for that comment - i have no clue if this design is strong or not. I tried to rely on John as an "Expert" and that has failed. I plan to take his version of what he has created to a fabricator and have them model it and design one that i can really beat on and trust. So if anyone has a good fabricator that has these skills a referral is greatly appreciated.

And thank you for sharing your knowledge - please feel free to suggest any improvements - I need to know my navigator and my life are safe while racing!

H.

That's what I was thinking looking at it- sheetmetal is great for bodywork, fairings, covers, stuff like that. I was kind of hoping that's what they were building, not something STRUCTURAL. That's what PLATE is for.

From an engineering perspective (although I'm not one), I wouldn't make the shackle part out of pieces (unless there wasn't another way) and I wouldn't have the joint for the top plate (the one that holds the strut) where it is, I would have that top plate form the corner and then weld on the outer part as a butt weld, not an angle. This would create zones of potential brittleness in the weld affected zone (think cracks). That base part should be machined from a solid piece with a flange on the side that the shield parts sets into (a rabbet). I would also provide some gusseting to the sides where the strut mount bolts in to stop latteral stresses (machined in to the billet). It's a rally car, not a grocery getter.