| Suspension |
For years I went along with the opinion held by almost all AW11 owners on the net, and would often recommend aftermarket suspension components that at the time seemed like a great idea. Most of the time this recommendation would be along the lines of an aftermarket lowering spring with a 1.5"-2" drop and an aftermarket adjustable strut. The more I drive these cars however, the more I realize this solution may not be right for every enthusiast. The negatives of these components are usually downplayed while the benefits are sometimes overly emphasized. Compression travel for one, is something that should be carefully considered. In the stock condition there is only around 3" of compression travel. When lowering a stock Mr2, you are directly reducing the amount of compression travel by the same amount of drop that your spring has. The only easy way for the manufactures to work around this situation is to design in very high spring and strut rates. Is this fast? On racetrack yes. Even on the street, your overall grip limit may slightly increase, but this is only when given the right conditions. There is so much more to suspension design than just these two considerations however. Be honest with yourself and ask,
While I don't think that there is anything inherently wrong with aftermarket suspensions, the biggest problem I have is that most components are usually too extreme for a street car. Modest increases in spring rates, strut rates, with a corresponding lowering of the suspension by .5-1" is a very sane and reasonable compromise. The problem is, these components don't really exist, because most aftermarket companies know that enthusiasts probably won't buy these components thinking that they are not getting good value for the money. In the end, the suspension modifications that you make to your car are your own business. Some daily driver owners are perfectly willing to live with the tradeoffs for those few minutes of glory on the track or on the perfect mountain road. Maybe I am getting old, but my next daily driver will probably have
In the end, all I can say is to keep in mind that suspension performance is a *HIGHLY* subjective beast. Identical suspension components can very well draw great praise from one person, while another may dismiss it as junk at the same time. Please check the master brakes section for
all brake info.
Struts: If you have a Mr2 that has over 100k miles and still has the stock struts you owe it to yourself to get new struts as the stock ones are almost guaranteed to be worn completely out by now. There are many different options available, and while many try a performance strut when the time comes, in all honesty, anything is better than the worn out strut that is in there now. However, if you do indeed want to go with a high performance strut, some of the most commonly used on the MKI are the: Bilstein: A famous manufacturer that makes a rather pricey non-adjustable strut. Tokico: Tokico offers both a high-performance non-adjustable and adjustable strut. The non-adjustable runs approx. $50-70 while the adjustable runs approx. $115-140. The adjustable strut adjusts both jounce and rebound. Koni: This legendary company offers an adjustable strut. The adjustable Koni Sport runs approx. $150. It adjusts rebound only. The koni strut is starting to become more preferred over the Tokico lately. KYB: In a similar way to Tokico, KYB has a high performance nonadjustable that runs around $40, and from what I am told now offers an 8-way adjustable strut that I am told is pretty stiff. I have used the KYB non adjustable before on one of my daily driver Mr2s, and can say that it is a great strut. Not harsh at all, and can still keep good body control. There are also many struts available from other well known manufactures like GAB and Monroe. TRD once made non adjustable performance struts for the MKI that I've been told were simply re-labled Bilstein's. They now once again offer a performance strut, although I don't know who makes it. If you are replacing your worn out stock struts with new ones, and stick with the stock springs be prepared for a possible increase in ride height, as the new fresh struts can raise the car back to the stock ride height. So while you may think that sticking with the stock springs is a good thing to do to keep the ride height reasonable, you may change your mind knowing that with worn out struts the car is lower than it was from the factory. If you are thinking about changing out the struts yourself, please check
out the strut change write up I sent to the Mr2
list after changing mine.
Springs There are many different companies that offer springs for the MKI. Some of the more commonly used are Eibach, H&R, Intrax, and Suspension techniques. I don't doubt that there are more. I have not heard of any negative reports on any of these from a quality point of view. DO NOT cut your stock springs as there will not be enough spring travel to absorb bumps, thus wearing out the bump stops on the car. It also NOT recommended that you put on lowering springs without changing the struts to a high performance design, as it will increase wear on the stock struts. Also, it is very wise to replace both spring and strut at the same time, as it will be easier to take it all apart once instead of twice. One of the more popular setups these days is from a company called Ground Control. They make a coil over setup for the MKI with Eibach springs of your choice. Dave A. was the first I know of to have done this modification, however many have now had good results. Take a look at his web page, to see this setup. James Chwalek after talking on the phone with H&R found the following, revealing some lesser known info about perceived harshness of high performance shocks and springs: I was most impressed with the engineer I spoke with at H&R. I believe he is one of the design engineers and as he says "he loves to talk suspensions". He noted that he purposely wanted an aggressive spring rate/lowering to differentiate H&R springs from what was already out there on the market. Then we got into a discussion regarding different spring/strut combos. The engineer mentioned that he used to work for Eibach. In any case we got talking about Tokico vs. Koni adjustables and he mentioned that the feeling of harshness that some people complain about after doing an upgrade really depends on the spring/strut combo (as was discussed in previous MR2 digests). The feeling of stiffness is usually associated with compression. Thus a strut like Tokicos Illuminas which allow adjustment of compression and rebound together can make the springs feel stiffer than a strut like the Konis that allow adjustment of the rebound only. Of course, the stiffness I'm referring to is subjective and depends on the particular car/suspension setup. I asked him about the transient response of the struts and he mentioned that the differences in valving between the Tokicos and Konis made the Tokicos less responsive in a transient case (such as hitting a pothole ) as compared to the Konis. These factors may contribute to the general feeling that Konis "give a better ride" than Tokicos. However, it really depends on the springs (For example, you may want to increase the effective stiffness of the stock spring by using the Tokicos up front for instance) as well as the personal preference of the driver. Sway Bars and Strut Tower braces To be able to add some more tuneability into the handling of you AW11 along with dialing out that pesky body roll, it is recommended that anti-roll bars be put on. The Suspension Techniques Anti Sway Bars are the only front and rear kit that I know of, while Addco offers a rear bar. TRD once offered a front and rear set, but no longer do. There is a stock front bar in all the AW11s along with a stock rear for the all the 85s and for the 89 SCs. ST offers sway bars for both the rear and the front. As far as Strut tower braces are concerned, the 87+ cars had a stock
front brace, while there was never a stock rear brace. GAB makes a rear
Strut Tower Braces, and this is the brace chosen by almost everyone. The
87+ cars with T-tops had a different front brace compared to the hardtop/sunroof,
as the brace was designed so that the t-tops could fit in the front trunk.
As a result, the brace has funky looking turns in it to accommodate the
tops.
Suspension Bushings Thanks to the efforts of many here in the US, the hard rubber suspension bushing kit offered by TRD that was once hard to get and was pretty expensive, can now be easily found, and usually run around ~220 per kit. Try the Toyota dealers in the parts section. The sway bars from Suspension Techniques come with poly bushings for
the sway bars only. There is also TAS, a European company that offers high-performance
nylon bushings. These can be ordered from the large mail-order outlet demon
tweaks in the UK.
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