Suspension Upgrade Journey
Part 8 - Upgrade Rear Absorber Again
24th April 2003
After driving some time and received inputs from Bill Sherwood (Passenger) I decided to change the rear absorber. Some how felt it is not working properly. Again I visit the mech because previous visits saw 2 sets of rear absorber for sale. :)
1st set is
TRD TOKICO
48531-TA491
Rally/Dirt Trial Application
Fixed rate
Twin-tube gas
Height - max = 455 mm, min = 290 mm
Compression 185 kgf, rebound 70 kgf
Reaction Force of Rod = 18.4 kgf
short stroke (? mm) non adjustable gas.
2nd set is something something 8 step adjustable, but was not working properly, seems dead. I.e. the absorber does not rebound by itself :(
So we installed the TRD one.
The moment the 14080 was taken out, the mech. tested it by pushing the tube down and let it rise. But it didn't rise at all. He said, GAS type absorber must rebound by themselves. We tried it on the TA491 and it does rebound very quickly.
After the installation, it was found that the rear height, did not drop / reduce at all. In fact it is higher now. This shows that the previous 14080 did not support the rear at all and left the support responsibility to the 6.5 kg/mm coils only. Regardless, the rebound reaction would entirely be from the 6.5 kg/mm coil only again.
Since the rear was bouncy on soft setting (i.e. no.5 ), we could have set it to higher stiffness (no.6 to 8), but we tried that before and the car did not perform correctly.
i.e. once the car is force downward, it must rebound as quickly as possible. This is to make sure after a bump jump (i.e. light jump to the air) the absorber will push the wheels down quickly to re-engage full contact with the road. However the 14080 that I was using did not rebound quick enough on hard setting, therefore made the car dangerous at high speed bump.
Ride Feel
Once I drove out into the open streets. Oh my god, ....... beda ba beda boom, it was so bumpy and hard. It just shows how in-effective the old 14080 was. Now the car jumps as much as before, but regain contact much quicker. I feel much safer at high speed. Braking also improve somewhat???
After a few days, I got used to it, it is not that bad, just sudden. i.e. most of the roads gives rise and fall in small displacement, where the suspension manage to follow considerably comfortably. Except some are so deep and sudden, the car flies into the sky :), but strangely I learn where the spots are and avoid them or driving slower on those spots. Overall very good, to be honest, and on the greedy side. I wouldn't want to let it go :)
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