my Tokico Premium shocks aren't so premium

DerekStangGT said:

under hard driving, even after all my suspension mods, i still get a small amount of bady roll. just enough to make my rear tires scrape the fender well when i drive hard and hit a bump. this can't go on. what should i do to stiffen up the rear? coilovers or illuminas? which would give me the stiffer, harsher ride? also, would it be bad to run the same tokico struts but have coilovers in the rear?

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Body roll has nothing to do with shocks. Shocks are simply dampers to control the up/down of the body, damping the coil springs. If you want roll stiffness you need thicker anti-roll or "sway bars" and/or stiffer coils.

i cant picture a scenario where the shock would be responsible for the tire rubbing the fender...like trinity said, try bigger sway bars or not being so low

Did you roll your fenders?

You need subframe connectors!

i think the easiest fix would be to go with different springs Derek. The sportlines are pretty low, so you might want to go a tad higher. Maybe some C-springs

Was the Bumpstop ever installed with the Sportlines?

I don't think have the best shocks but unless you are hitting a bump when the rubing occurs it is not the shocks.


now if it is hitting a bump in the corner that causes it stiffer shock may help.

If you rear end is shifting from side to side you may condsider a panhard rod.

I have bilsteins, H&R SS, 10" wheels with 285's and I can corner until the car just goes into a 4 wheels slide with no rubbing.

So I would think it is either rear end shift, too much drop, or uneven surface and soft shocks.

trinity_gt said:

Body roll has nothing to do with shocks. Shocks are simply dampers to control the up/down of the body, damping the coil springs. If you want roll stiffness you need thicker anti-roll or "sway bars" and/or stiffer coils.

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Shocks can reduce body roll, but yes, its mostly the spring choice. but stiffer swaybars can hurt rather than help. After significantly stiffening the rear springs and shocks, you don't want a swaybar any stiffer than the stocker. Otherwise the back end just slides out.

my tires rub, with my illuminas set on 5, susp. in sig. only with a full tank of gas, and pulling into the parking lot at work. I think it is just a sign that I need a different job. having a stero didn't help either.

wms004 said:

Shocks can reduce body roll, but yes, its mostly the spring choice.

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Shocks will help damp body motion during transient maneuvers but they won't alter the set a vehicle takes in a corner. Unless the issue is slaloming where body motions are underdamped, the shocks aren't the problem of heeling over in a corner.

but stiffer swaybars can hurt rather than help. After significantly stiffening the rear springs and shocks, you don't want a swaybar any stiffer than the stocker. Otherwise the back end just slides out.

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For sure. Sway bars are the primary tuning element for roll stiffness (they're about the only suspension item combating lean aside from the main coils' rate) but it's quite easy to seriously muck up the balance of the car in pursuit of table-flat cornering. On a street driven car some understeer is a good thing.

The original poster complained of "a small amount" of body roll. A small mount is probably actually a good thing with respect to weight transfer and balance and I'm not sure it's wise to stiffen rates, dampers and bars enough to eliminate it completely.

DerekStangGT said:

under hard driving, even after all my suspension mods, i still get a small amount of bady roll. just enough to make my rear tires scrape the fender well when i drive hard and hit a bump. this can't go on. what should i do to stiffen up the rear? coilovers or illuminas? which would give me the stiffer, harsher ride? also, would it be bad to run the same tokico struts but have coilovers in the rear?

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I would guess that the simple answer is you have fitter to big wheels/tyres on a lowered car.

So the fact that it rubs should be expected. Like trying to fit 1 pint of water into a 1/2 pint class - some of the water will spill out! EASY ISN'T IT.

Regardless of the other posts, of coruse shock/springs have an affect on body roll. And as for anti-roll bars, well they are considered by some engineers as a design flaw with the rest of the setup. In an ideal would anti-roll bars should not be required. I beleive the Noble M12 doesn't use any at all and has been rated as one of the best handling road cars in the world and will pull over 1.2g (lateral) on a skid pad.

Where are the wheels rubbing? If its the inner arch then a wider offset wheel or wheel spacer may help, but this may cuase it to rub on the outer arch, so that will need rolling out.

As for body roll, well you need some. If you don't waqnt any remove the shocks and replace them scaffolding poles, your car will handle like crap but at least it won't roll.

To get the best from the car it needs wheel travel to allow the suspension to work, it may just be a case of the suspension crashing out, in which case modified bump stops may help.

Other areas to look at could be lateral axel location, a live axel as on the GT will move sideways under extream loads, ways to prevent these are by chaning the rear link setup and adding a Watts linkage or a Panhard rod. Evolution Motorsport do a very nice Tri-link setup with a Watts linkage, that is what I would go for.

However the best thing really to do would be to revise your whole setup, remember moderation is the key, if you go to extreme with anyone thing it will be detremental to something else.

The GT was never even considered to have giant wheels and slammed suspension, hence it doesn't really work very well without major modifications to the whole suspension design and concept. With modern cars like Ferrari's and Jaguar's its a different story as they are designed for very large wheels and can cope with them, often running 19" or 20" rims.

As mentioned, a Panhard bar will help. Without it the differential can shift left and right an inch or more in each direction. I had the problem of tire rub when I would go over very angled entrances when I had the 275's on 9" wheels. Installing the Panhard Bar eliminated that.