949 Racing Xida coilovers GT86/GR86
 

Some of you know we have been working on Xidas for the 86 platform for about a year now. Development thread on "Blub", our project car https://www.ft86club.com/forums/showthread.php?t=131052

We wrapped up the important valving and dimensional aspects of the design a few months ago. That last element was our custom strut flange, of which final protos just arrived. Xidas will have a separate strut flange for a few reasons.

-Allows shock length adjustments to accommodate different outside tire diameters, camber and fender clearance. By making a modular assembly, we can retain full OEM stroke which is vital for maximum bump absorption on typically bumpy club tracks and public roads.
-Lower cost to manufacture
-Allows users to use any top mount or camber plate with any stack height and still get bump travel dialed in.

We will ship kits with strut flange height set for this combo: 255/40/17 on 17x9, -1.5° camber and OEM upper mounts. From there, owners can fine tune height by assembling one corner completely but removing the spring, pushing the wheel all the way up and verifying adequate tire clearance at full steering lock. With the extremes of stack heights from different camber plates varying as much as 40mm and tires varying in outside diameter by about 20mm then camber affecting tire clearance by 15mm or so then custom vs OEM fender liners another 15mm or so, you can see a single shock length creates severe limitations to getting things dialed in.

The camber range adjustment will vary depending on ride height of course but owners should get about -1° to about -4° depending on ride height.

One issue we encountered with OEM geometry aftermarket struts was the tires hitting the strut casing if we used double crash bolts. So we offset the centerline of our strut casing a small amount to allow the tires to be tilted in further before they contact the strut casing. This will allow drivers to get close to -3° camber with stock shock mounts on 255/40/17 on 9" wheels.

One more day of renting a track to verify everything works the way we want then we go to production. We would really like to get the kits on the shelf and ready to ship before the end of 2019.

Base kit will be single adjustable with either the mellow, street oriented Street spring pack (175/150) or the Race spring pack (500/500). Custom rates available but will add a bit to the kit cost.

Triple adjustable and semi-active ACE systems will follow in Spring 2020.

Shown here with prototype mounts. Production billet coaxial mounts will look a bit different.

If piston size was a d_ck swinging contest, you guys would be John Holmes... lol

Est price? I will be in the market for a new coilover setup next year. Two years on Flex Z's has me craving a bit more.

Mother of god

Flex Z's to Xidas is like upgrading from a 1996 Civic to a 2019 GT3 :)

Pricing, ETA TBD.

Realy nice bit for strut mounts and shocks to be designed right away with performance alignment in mind, as i highly doubt anyone buying these will stick to using OE alignment's 0 front camber. BTW, for adjusting max steering lock to not rub i can suggest this steering limiter kit from Verus originally designed/sold as part from brake ducts to not rub, to not need to make/design something from scratch. Imho right camber is more important on track, then slightly wider max steering angle.

I'd suggest to post also to quicken dialing w/o trying every possible combo some suggested base ballpark numbers to dial shock for few common use/tire types. Eg. for DD/comfort dial this much clicks, for track this, for grippy slicks this.

Some may wish/ask for shock dyno charts.

Can you tell, what current shock bump & rebound travel is front & rear for these? (preferably posting also for comparison stock's).

Also what is advised height adjustment and what are min & max values of range? (to me it doesn't matter so much how low one can slam, but if i will be able to dial it to at least OE height)

@949 Racing

Could you please tell me/us what Semi-Active electronic damping is with regard to your Xida dampers?
Ta.

https://www.ft86club.com/forums/show...&postcount=117

I can imagine. I didn't plan on running the FLZs for as long as I did.

Shock body diameter is not the same as piston size.

Fronts look like inverted struts. Nothing has been posted about piston size.

Inverted struts are fairly common.

Actually, I didn't consider the body being smaller than OEM...was just struck by the piston to body ratio in the picture and assumed it was huge...lol

EDIT: there's probably a joke in there about how pictures can make stuff look bigger than real life...

Fronts look no different than the Ohlins I had on my car:

http://i.imgur.com/0U24RKe.jpg

Right...they have the same large piston to body ratio...are you saying the piston itself is no bigger than OEM..?? I'm confused as to what you're saying..

Pretty sure he is interpreting your comments as you misidentifying the shock body on an inverted monotube damper as the piston.

Which is also how I read it.

Ahhh...didn't realize the piston was hidden. I assumed an inverted damper would have a piston similarly exposed like that of inverted motorcycle forks. Got it now.

If those were the pistons, this would be a hydraulic press.

Hence, my initial "Wow!"...

No plan to offer the Verus steering limiter kit. On the Miatas, and Mustangs we developed as well as the 86, we just don't use full lock when parking. Not quite as fool proof as actual limiters but we're OK with that.

We always publish dyno charts, when the time comes.

Our view on presets or recommend adjustments is that there is no such thing. As a brand, we prefer not to spoon feed actual tuning settings to folks but instead really drive the point home on how important and critical it is to learn your own setup personally. Become your own expert. No one on the planet can tell you what your optimum ride heights, camber settings, rake, pressures or damping settings are. In fact, those optimum settings change as your tires cycle out, weather changes, switch from HPDE to TT or autocross.

You buy a bunch of hardware that is highly tuneable, learn to tune it. We'll be right there with info on how to go through the process of learning what adjustments do what. We'd rather educate you on how to set the car up than to take a guess on what we think you might need and possibly steer you in the wrong direction.

When it comes to starting points, they are just that. If you don't care how optimized your set up is, then just pick a baseline and leave it. If you do care about optimizing then you are the only one on the planet that knows what you like and what you need. You are going to do sweeps through all the settings so starting point isn't as critical. We'll publish a single baseline to start with but strongly encourage owners to "mess with it" to find their own sweet spot.

as others have mentioned, piston size is not the same as shaft diameter.

aftermarket is larger, yes, but

1) if it's very expensive, usually it's a proprietary/own design for pistons, so the size varies based on application need, or
2) if cost is of concern to manufacturer, they often outsource to the same handful of shock component makers. it's why half the aftermarket shocks have the same "46mm" piston because it's all made by BC or someone copying BC's design.

A smaller shaft diameter is actually better when possible because then you have more of the surface area of the piston available for tuning damping characteristics.

Should also mention that the all Xida kits will ship with two sets of "camber chips"; one low offset, one high offset. The chip is the eccentric insert in the flange that locates the mounting bolt. Each chip can be flipped into either higher or lower camber. So you have four possible camber positions. The lowest of four camber positions should equate to about -.75° degree at OEM ride height, stock basically. From there you can add camber by flipping or swapping chips and also by lowering the ride height. The intent is to make it possible for drivers to reach camber ranges usually beyond even the best aftermarket camber plates, but without requiring camber plates at all. This makes setting up the suspension more affordable.

Of course, drivers can still run camber plates and either add camber by adjusting plates, using the chips or a combination of both.

Based on a lot of tire pyrometer, AIM data, driver feedback and tire wear, we know the 86 can often use up to -4.5° camber up front with certain tire and wheel combos. Even with crash bolts and camber plates, we never got near that on Blub unless we ran the car so low the suspension stopped working. We aim to fix that :)

Sign me up :)

Hopefully being a club orange member works for the 86 platform stuff too!

Offset camber inserts like rally coilovers have:w00t:? Both ensurance against slipping and ability to use stronger against sheering/thicker OE bolts even while having several camber choices. I'd sometimes wish for this to be more widespread among coilovers makers, as seems not too expensive, but very advantageous on many accounts solution to camber change (of course, for fine adjustments better paired with another, like single set of camberbolts or camberplates).

I am assuming that the spring packages will be interchangeable? As in i can swap between the street and the race springs without having to send the suspension in to get the settings(valving, dampening, etc) changed?


Will there be a group buy for the initial run?

Yes, that's correct.

What would the rebuild price per corner be? Will the rebuild be local to the US or will it have to be ship outside? Thanks, can't wait to see how the final product looks and functions.

They are supposedly rebuilt by inertia labs, which is in the US (based on their journal iirc). Pricing wise, I am not to sure they had said anything about it

Standard 2.5" diameter front and 2.25" diameter rear springs. Readily available from several manufacturers globally. One could also purchase the optional spring pack from us to swap back and forth. Same shock.

We have never run a GB so not likely we will for the 86 Xida. Generally, the stuff we launch is eagerly anticipated and tends to sell out quickly. We will also produce the same number of kits regardless, not contingent on pre-orders. Price will be fixed, again not connected to how may pre-orders we might get. They are also our own unique design with mostly proprietary components. Meaning no other shop on the planet has them, not even Tractive. GB's are generally for shops that are just reselling something out of a catalog, not a private label product. GB's also for shops that don't actually stock the product, just passing them through for minimal profit as basically a handling fee.

When spec is finalized and they are in production, we'll accept pre-orders for the first batch of 40 kits.


Our authorized US service & warranty center is Inertia Labs in Plano, TX. http://www.inertialaboratory.com/
Chris should be able to quote rebuilds now as he has seen the prototypes and knows what parts they have in them. IIRC, it's usually $150-200 per shock but best check with him of the actual number is critical to you.

are the semi active ones out for other cars?

Yes. 90-05 and 2016-2019 Miata, Mustang GT350/R
Working on Mustang S550 GT, EcoBoost and 86 platform.


My 2019 Miata daily driver has ACE and the touchscreen controller.

the semi active is more for the street?

Ace are for whatever you want them for.

The standard Xida options do a far better-than-average job of working across a wide range of scenarios. With stiff spring rates they ride better than you'd expect, and with soft rates they still handle better than you'd expect.

Ace takes that versatility to 11.

Successful test at Sonoma this weekend. Temps were good but high winds kept us from going under 1:50 on street tires. Finally saw the right temperature gradients across the tire with the prototype strut flanges. At race ride height, with camber plate and highest offset camber chips installed, it's possible to crank in -6° camber up front. From past experience and pyrometer data, we started at -4° and that ended up being pretty close. Before this event, we had been limited to -1.7° on LF and I think -2.8° on the right side. As a result, we had been frying the outside shoulders of the front tires and never getting full grip from the tires. That's sorted now.


For pure competition use, most 86's on 255's will want between -3.5 and -5° depending on the spring rates, surface and tire being used. Ideal camber is dialed in by getting pyrometer reading, looking at lap data and driver feedback. On track or autocross, the tires wear evenly at those camber settings. On a daily driver though, that much camber makes the car tramline (follow pavement grooves) and wears the inside edges of the front tires. It's up to each driver to decide if they want a full highway friendly camber setting closer to -.5° , full race camber above -3.5° or a compromise in between. For dual duty cars that see some occasional track/autocross use, mostly canyon on the weekends and very little highway use, a setting between -1.5° and -2.5° might be a decent compromise.

The more straight line highway driving you do, the more you want the front tires around -.5°. The more hard cornering you do, the more camber you want. When the car is turning hard, body rolling a few degrees, the higher camber setting keeps the tire flatter for increased grip and also results in better wear.. but only if the car spends almost all its tire life cornering hard.

On our Mustang GT350 (also front struts like 86) with slightly lowered suspension and 305/30/19's, we ran -4.5° up front. That car was perfect on track.

So anyway, track testing successful, no problems encountered. We go into production in a week or two. Our custom springs will take a bit longer to produce so our best guess on when we can start shipping to customers is perhaps 2nd week December. We will make an announcement here and also an email blast to our mailing list when the site is open for pre-orders. Pricing should be finalized in a few weeks. We are really stoked to be wrapping up the R&D process and getting these launched.

I'm fairly certain all Tractive shocks use a 46mm piston and a shaft diameter of 16mm. For comparison, Bilstein use a 46mm piston for their SLA shocks and I believe(don't quote me on this) a 37mm piston for their inverted struts with 14mm shafts.

So it's sounding like the camber chips will give us the ability to run close to -3* static without the use of camber plates?

I'm currently using RaceSeng plates on a stock shock/spring setup and I get about -3* with those maxed out. But I have issues with spring perch/inner fender clearance as well as endlink clearance. My hope is to be able to get pretty close to -3* and return to factory upper mounts for better NVH. I've also recently added adjustable control arms in the front if I need a nudge more to get the static camber I want. I'd rather get most of it through the strut flange, so as to not push the bottom of the tire too far past the path of the front bumper for drag reasons.

Yup.

86 Xida Pricing Announced
 

Tentative pricing posted on our site now. http://949racing.com/xida-coilover-86.aspx

I emphasize that this pricing is tentative. It may change before we begin accepting pre-orders but we're pretty confident it will stay in that range. We plan to start accepting pre-orders in November for December shipment.

It's important to note that most owners will not need camber plates to reach -3° camber up front. If you have camber plates already, you probably won't need them. If you don't have camber plates, you don't need to budget for them. The adjustment range with included camber chips should be around -.5° through around -3.5° depending on ride height. So factor in any budgeting that you will simply re-use your OEM top mounts front and rear.

Love the insert bit, would love to see such more widespread among aftermarket suspension makers. Hate the bit that you guys are on other side of pond. By chance, do you have some reseller shop on EU side to make shipping/import/servicing simpler?

No EU dealers, sorry. Any Tractive distributor can service but only we have the Xida.