s12 fiat bodge coilovers

L

LDA

Member
hey all,

blair, (well i tihnk rob said it was you)
Rob said that you bodged some fiat coilovers onto an s12 for the last andover cone dodgers day. what model of fiat did they come off?
i'd love to get some proper suspention to stick in my s12.

thanks

Luke.
 
The coilovers were from a special. I happen to have a Fiat 131 Mirafiori sport Race car shell with a Mitsubishi lancer rear axle fitted. The shocks are from that. Unfortunately, I have no idea who did the conversion, or the specs of the units. All I know is that they are made by Bilstein, and use a 1.9" ID spring, which just catches the inside of the turret. The other thing I cannot be sure of is whether the turret is strong enough to take the weight of the car, normally it only houses the damper, and the seperate spring controls the weight of the car. If this proves not to be strong enough, i will be in trouble!!

I would suggest going down the normal lowering/stiffening route, especially if your car is not stripped and lightened horrendously like mine.

The biggest difference to the driftability on mine came from the welded diff!!

There is plenty you can do to the front though, I now have Tein HRs on the front of the s12........

Blair
 
Spannermonkey said:
The coilovers were from a special. I happen to have a Fiat 131 Mirafiori sport Race car shell with a Mitsubishi lancer rear axle fitted. The shocks are from that. Unfortunately, I have no idea who did the conversion, or the specs of the units. All I know is that they are made by Bilstein, and use a 1.9" ID spring, which just catches the inside of the turret. The other thing I cannot be sure of is whether the turret is strong enough to take the weight of the car, normally it only houses the damper, and the seperate spring controls the weight of the car. If this proves not to be strong enough, i will be in trouble!!

I would suggest going down the normal lowering/stiffening route, especially if your car is not stripped and lightened horrendously like mine.

The biggest difference to the driftability on mine came from the welded diff!!

There is plenty you can do to the front though, I now have Tein HRs on the front of the s12........

Blair
Click to expand...

[edit]doh, loged in as rob :wack:

thanks for that Blair.
i've got a welded diff and its about as stripped as it can get. even spare wires have been removed to make sure i save as much weight as possible.
not got it on the road yet as i'm still trying to stick the ca18det into it to help with power.(and the ca18et lump was fooked)

i've found a company who will lower it all round and someone else said they know of some inserts that fit. (still waiting to find out what they are)
its just that if i stiffen just the fronts then i think the rears will be like driving a boat.
i have driven other stock s12's and they are so soft!

maybe i'll get rid of the whole back axle and stick something else in there like the s13 or 14 axle. weld up some plates and stick some s14 coilovers in there.

someone said something to me about camber and toe mods to the front. do you know of any?

thanks again,

Luke.
 
Last edited:
SidewaysRob said:
[edit]
its just that if i stiffen just the fronts then i think the rears will be like driving a boat.
i have driven other stock s12's and they are so soft!

maybe i'll get rid of the whole back axle and stick something else in there like the s13 or 14 axle. weld up some plates and stick some s14 coilovers in there.
Click to expand...

I think youd be looking at serious work to the rear subframe for that - Im toying with the idea, but its unlikely Ill ever do anything about it :wack:

As for stiffening, I have SE fast road springs on mine, which are pretty good by them selves - they drop the car by about 40mm, and almost eliminate roll. Coupled with the 18s and it actually handles pretty well :nod:

Post up up if you do any cool stuff - Im currently looking into getting the guts of an S13 diff into an S12 case ......... :)
 
at the rear, if you are serious, the best bet would probably be to cut out the original turrets and weld in sections of s13 turrets. This would give you the width to fit s13 coilovers in. This is probably our long-term plan.

At the front, camber is taken care of with pillow ball top mounts, and toe is on the standard tie rods. we haven't looked into caster as no-one makes an adjustable tension rod for the silvia, and we're pretty happy with it as it is!

The best thing about the setup we have is that the car doesn't dictate the driving style. If you want to drive fast and grip, it will, and if you want to drift, you just change the imputs you make, and viola! it drifts!!

Oh, and stripping it doesn't half solve the power issues with the ca18et engine! only last night we had a little 5 mile A-road play with an s14a(280bhp, mates car) Ended up overtaking him in a straight line drag up a dual carriageway!

Good luck with it,
Blair
 
Yeah your s12 is fucking fast blair, really mad fast. It's horrible and laggy in hot drifty conditions though.

The only S12 problems I could see were lack of steering lock and lag.
 
we're looking into the lock problem.

You only noticed the lag cos you're used to N/A!! the lag is far better when the charge cooler is working properly, and the dump valve actually closes!!
 
Well I'm sure I could learn to drive around it, what kind of compression is it running Blair?

The S12 video from Conedodgers looks cool, if I hadn't run out of lock I could have been doing constant laps more reliably.
 
Spannermonkey said:
we're looking into the lock problem.

You only noticed the lag cos you're used to N/A!! the lag is far better when the charge cooler is working properly, and the dump valve actually closes!!
Click to expand...

:confused: Ive got about 29 foot of IC piping and its not laggy at all - the lock isnt that great, but then I have got 18s on .......... :wack:
 
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