Ohlins TTX/TPX rally adapted for BRZ
 

I've finally (today) completed my full BRZ build, and thought you might be interested in the specially built Öhlins TTX/TPX rally dampers I have had built to fit the BRZ...replacing an existing set of Ohlins SUS MP21 R&T.

(I've tried to build my perfect interpretation of a useable daily driver tarmac/dirt rally car, that is still comfortable, reliable and can cover large distances.
It is producing around 350 HP and a touch over 400Nm at the rear wheels via a Harrop supercharger controlled via a Motec. I had a priority to keep weight down, and with a full tank of fuel, it sits at about 1260kg. But with aircon and an OK sound system.)

Fronts are a twin piston strut with a 44 mm piston (TPX 44) and 3-way adjusted with 1-way rebound and 2-way compression. The rear damper is a twin tube damper (TTX 44) with a 44 mm piston and 3-way adjusted.

I couldn't find anyone here in Australia, or the USA, who wanted to take on the challenge...and eventually found an amazing Ohlins rally suspension specialist in Holland (Leo at Madeno Racing) who has produced the most incredible dampers....after many emails, cad drawings, photographs, measurements etc etc.

My stipulation was that they had to be a direct "bolt in" to a standard BRZ/86 suspension set up...but then have enough flexibility of adjustment to be able to cope with a number of different possible set ups.

The TPX and TTX had to be completely re-engineered....including being shortened to a huge degree (Rally dampers have a huge amount of travel...and our cars have a very small amount of travel...sadly..).

The dampers come from the factory with no front mounts, and incompatible rear mounts, so every thing had to be custom made from scratch.

On advice from the builder I have fitted softer spring rates (40N/40N compared to my existing SUS MP21 rate of 60N/60N). He ended up fitting Eibach springs with helpers.

These are the finished beasts....

If there is any interest, I can post comparison pictures and development pictures.

Cheers, Lyndon

Interested and subbed!

Absolutely brilliant. Well done!

How much travel did you end up with? What kind of tires? Stock swaybars?

- Andrew


BuT tWiNtUbEs ArE nO gOoD ;)

If you intend to use for rally, haven't considered ohlin's strut hole camber inserts for reliable under abuse/hits/jumps camber offset? (page #9)
No clue how these performs, but purely from aesthetic viewpoint, looks & finish of these look like porn. :)

Hell - I'd just hang those in the living room and stare at them all day..

I know this will all seem strange...

I run 16" wheels with 225/55 Pirelli P7 and P1's on two sets of Rays CE28's.
Front sway bar is standard, and rear is a hollow 23mm.
Bushes are all standard...but replaced regularly. All arms and links are standard too. (Brakes are AP Racing)
Ride height is set about 5mm above standard.

I've fitted a different rear top mount to release an extra ~25mm of travel.
However, aside from that, the front has the standard length of travel.

I might be wrong, but I've always felt that controlled compliance is your friend for speed on real world roads, and that too much mechanical grip can take a lot of fun out of driving.

This is the comparison of a standard SUS MP21 strut with the TPX as it came out of the box before any modifications!

Rears: comparison of a standard SUS MP21 with the TTX as it came out of the box before any modifications.

225/55-16?? Or 225/50? Or 205/55?

And compliance is indeed the way to go fast on real roads. :thumbsup:

225/55 r16 Pirelli P7's & P1's. (P1's have a touch less grip, but can cope with road surface abuse a little better)

Yeah, it has the camber 'shim' inserts system, and came with a set of inserts from 0 to -3.5 deg.
Its a great system, very quick to change and very accurate.
Having said that I only run about -1.5 deg on the road, and the car is still intended as a road car, I won't be rallying it.

You can see the cutout for the camber inserts under the top bolt in this shot.

Weird...I can only find the Centurato P7 all season in that size on TireRack, and nothing in the P1. The P7 has a TWR of 700, which seems to put it in a very different performance category than what the rest of your suspension setup is capable of delivering. Maybe you have a different selection of Pirelli products down under?

EDIT: Just went to Pirelli Australia, and indeed it does seem that way...

This is a cool project, props! Those photos showing the standard Ohlins vs Motorsports Ohlins says it all, travel is king.

Carn porn!

Beautiful! Would love to see more photos!

There's just too much beauty in the world. I can hardly take it.

wow.

Damn those look gorgeous.

How do they drive on the road? Did you get the suspension compliance you were looking for?

Rears comparisons before final fitting

Front struts comparison

this is one of those scenario's where i want to know how much at the same time knowing that i'll never pay that much, but still wanting them just as bad...

You know what, after I commissioned them about 6 months ago, I spent most of the time worrying that they might be good...but not sooo good that I could actually tell the difference in any meaningful way across a broad spectrum.

Suspension is a bit of a 'black art' that very very few people fully understand...and I'm that classic numpty who has some idea and no idea all at the same time.

Luckily I have some very talented professional driving friends that I can bounce dumb ideas off, or seek assurances that I'm not stark raving mad.

Its important to remember that I'm primarily talking about hard road use, back roads, dirt roads, rough roads....( I have zero track based experience, I grew up in the world of rally)

To me, WRC rally suspension (generally) is the best real world point 'A to point B' suspension there is. Everything I have ever read about anyone who has experienced it first hand are simply in awe at its capabilities...

I wanted as many of those capabilities as I could realistically get squeezed into the huge compromises of our BRZ/86 underlying fundamentals. Basically that means having to work with very limited travel.

But, it is possible to have amazing control over that short travel...and that control then allows you to be able to use all of that available travel to its best advantage.

To cut a long story short.... they are truly phenomenal. Mid corner vicious bumps, dips, ridges, undulations, are now simply driven over with almost zero effect on what you want the car to do. Suddenly you can actually feel that the tyres are able to do more of what they are supposed to do. To me, thats where (beautifully controlled) compliance comes in.

A vastly experienced driving friend once told me that the definition of good suspension...is simply that you shouldn't have to actually think about it at all while you are driving. I finally understand this.

But the dampers should be phenomenal, they were hideously expensive and took a huge amount of development time, by world experts. Valving was carefully chosen and testing was critical. Leo at Madeno Racing understood completely what I wanted, and could interpret that. (But being in Holland, I had to send him photos of the sorts of back roads that are common in Australia).

As an interesting aside, when I first spoke to Leo about the dampers he obviously asked me about the rest of the suspension components, I explained to him that it was fundamentally standard (save for an adjustable stiffer rear anti roll bar) but refreshed often, and I then explained my reasoning ...so I was prepared for a lecture about bushes, rose joints, arms, links, pick up points, etc etc! But, no... instead he said that actually sounded perfectly fine for the cars intended use, and would in fact offer some real benefits. He also said that world wide among the serious damper manufacturers there is a concerted move back to softer spring rates.

None of this is intended as a criticism of people who do things differently to me, and I stress this set up works for me and my uses... I am sure that it would not be ideal for others and their particular uses.

Just over $17000 USD including (big) import duties and shipping.

But quite honestly, with the amount of work that went into them, and the quality of the custom construction they are true value for money.

I would imagine that subsequent copies could possibly be cheaper because I have effectively funded the development process.

cars are a hobby. some just have a bigger sand box :)

they look as amazing as they must perform, and i'm completely jealous!

I just read the Ohlins TTX manual again. For fun I guess? It's good stuff. Also drove my car for the first time in a week. Thanks for the inspiration grumpysnapper.

That's about it for this rainy quarantine Saturday.

- Andrew

You've just described what i'd like a set a dampers to do. Perfect.. ideal.. except for the $17,000 part. With exotic parts plus heavy customization, it comes with the territory. Definitely not my territory.

I'm sure they disclosed to you all the internal hardware, pistons, bleed and preload adjustment range with all the graphs and squiggly lines. Which piston and base valve was selected for your application?

This was a financial stretch for me too, at the end of way too much money already having been thrown at the BRZ... by any rational assessment (ie. by my wife...).
But the whole purpose of this project was to create my own 'ultimate' rear wheel drive car, and enjoy it, before things change so much that such things are either illegal, or so highly regulated and monitored that driving as we know it evaporates.
I have not left a single thing un-touched, and/or un-considered on the car. My philosophy was that anything and everything had to either improve function, decrease weight or simply make me want to drive more. Those fundamental principles were actually quite liberating.

In terms of the insides and the testing graphs, valving details etc, I undertook not to disclose any of that sort of detail to third parties, out of respect for the builders own intellectual properties. I hope you understand that both he and I are not trying to be precious about it though. ( I can say that the comparative testing graphs alongside those of the SUS MP21 units are, um, confronting in terms of relative performance 'abilities').

Ive always sort of thought this picture of my car pretty much sums up my thoughts about driving and cars.

Thats great mate, you are dead right... the whole point is the car on the (hopefully great) road and driving!

And an Ohlins manual is good clean fun! (Actually as you would know, a lot of the 'simple' advice in an Ohlins manual would help people so much...if they took notice of it... even if they dont run Ohlins!)

I like your kind of crazy!!

This is what I want in an 86. I would have to sell some stuff and not tell the wife:). Would your builder make me the exact same setup? Or is there secret information between the two of you that he can’t share.

Can you have them rebuilt closer to home or do you have to send them back to Holland?

Thanks,
Justin

I’m sure the Leo, the Dutch suspension man would be more than than happy to replicate these units...when I commissioned them I told him that I was happy for him to use this development process to be able to supply other enthusiasts with identical/similar dampers.
The dampers can be serviced by Ohlins service centres fairly easily (I’m told)...

Like the Hot Lava / Creamsicle bar colorway.

Of course the car is also a sleeper... barely distinguishable from a 'standard' 86/brz.

Well done, mate! :cheers:

With similar goals, I've taken a different approach due to obvious budget constraints. Thankfully I'm not too uncomfortable with taking things apart and half decent with a wrench and micrometer.

One of the most interesting piston design from ohlins is the high frequency piston. The design is pretty ingenious how damping pressure can go limp only at high frequencies or when the shaft is changing direction of motion. It's produces "negative-stiction". But the cost of just the pistons, you can probably get a pretty decent set of off the shelf pre-built complete coilover damper kit for similar price. That only makes me wonder about them more. lol I can respect that they want to keep he information confidential, but my guess is that they utilized this high frequency piston inside your shocks.

Given crazy high Australian import duties on car parts, folks in the US could get these Ohlins for maybe $10k-12k?

No. While cost very probably similar to one you quoted, but not due reason of cheaper importing, rather price itself being such, if there is no extra R&D cost, that grumpysnapper already paid for.
IIRC most common rally coilover sets cost somewhere in 7-15K range, be it built from Ohlins or Reiger or whatever parts bin. Actually don't most top vendors built-to-order custom sets cost at least 7K?
What would put me off most though, are very short maintenance/rehaul intervals that i've heard on real rally shocks. Like every 1K miles or after each heavy race and such. Though of course if one won't actually abuse it to rally-ish multi meter jumps, cutting across ditch, going at 150-200kmh over rocky road, that should keep wear less .. still probably expected mileage less then that of OE like shocks. Yes, rally suspension allows to do wonders and seems magic like .. but not sure it's that good for long mileage daily driving role (even price aside).
With no budget limits for top-notch suspension for daily driving (or "normal" track) i'd rather think something like CSG Penskes (which also each is custom made/valved/sprung IIRC).

that's a good point. i'm curious to hear about what the road-going service intervals would be

I’m going to use Ohlins dirt covers, and simply give them a general clean every now and again, with these measures my builder is confident of 1 to 2 years of (my) driving between ‘checking’, not necessarily full servicing. This should be about 15000km hard road use (including lots of dirt) per year.
The reality of stress and wear in even hard road use has almost no real equivalence with high end competition rallying... where a rebuild is advised at around 350km for an extremely rough dirt rally up to about 1000km on ok tarmac.
It’s also good to bare in mind that these dampers already have a much higher quality of sealing against internal damage than is ‘ normal’.
As Leo explained to me, they should effectively last a lifetime... but it’s maintaining them at their %100 peak which is what takes commitment.... which is relevant to any discussion about dampers cheap or expensive, custom or off the shelf. I suspect most dampers are actually way less than ‘fresh’ after 2 years.

We don’t have salt on our roads, so I don’t know of the normal effects of salt on any dampers.

I'm just passing what i've been told in one local shop that services several local rallyist (and rallycross) cars. Of course i was interested to chat about the goodies like ohlins rally dampers or APR radical brakes and other car porn that i saw on those installed :).
Otherwise, if anything, rally dampers should be of much stronger construction. Heck, one can see it even in your pics vs R&T ones, much thicker bodies, attachment points of heavy welded plates with extra ribs and such. If Leo told that they will last for you, then i guess indeed that those short servicing intervals that surprised me, attributes to real hardcore competition rallying, and they should last well if not abused to THAT extent. Then again, rally race tires also are worth only for one race too.
Such driving & wear differs slightly from "normal" :)

Your basic point is right though! Unless you are very committed, these dampers are not realistic for a daily commute type life, essentially because it is very expensive 'overkill'.

The other thing to really keep in mind is that these dampers are only a Group N type standard (but without the full travel they should have!).... the proper WRC grades of damper suspension would make my dampers look and feel like toys.

Group N had/has a semblance of road car reality... WRC has almost zero.

Real top level WRC suspension can run to 40K per corner (!!)...and replaced a couple of times per day...

Daily use of WRC suspension would be a challenge, to say the least.

I cant begin to image the abilities of legit WRC suspension....

Damn - now I'll have to lysol my keyboard and monitor again. :)

My hope is the Xida option the folks at 949 are marinating will get close to this. I can't really afford those, much less these, but you have channeled my exact thinking in your goals and execution.

A little more travel, precision wheel control, good ride quality. These are this real world driver's holy trinity. :cheers:

Rears fitted, showing position of canister, and clearances.

Fronts complete and fitted.