S2K suspension options/information

[J-AP2]

From the photos it is clear that this version of the motons isn't adjustable for ride height without affecting jounce/rebound travel proportion and/or changing preload. The Hipermaxs on the other hand definitely allow ride height, stroke distribution and preload to be adjusted independently of each other.

1 other advantage of aluminium besides weight is that it is a poorer conductor of heat, meaning it can endure more abuse for a prolonged period.

Jyoji, alu's thermal conductivity is higher (better), not lower (poorer) than steel's. Higher thermal conductivity is a positive to shock function which is exactly to convert kinetic energy into heat energy. Heat leaves through the shock body. If it does not leave fast enough, then the overall operating heat range increases and variances in damping forces are larger until the temps stabilize. Damper manufacturers typically tune for the stabilized temp, but a narrow range is always a target. Higher temperature oils cavitate easier too.

The thin fork on the Hypermax is because steel is strong and doesn't require a thick cross section. It is however, heavier for a given strength, but in low space and cost applications it make sense. In this case probably cost saving.

Moton is a top brand no doubt, as are JRZ and Ohlins - but Sachs, Penske, and Koni (at least their race divisions) should probably be classified separately and a step up since they supply / have supplied F1, whereas the others do / have not.

Yeah noted that the height adjustment on the Moton is not independant of rebound proportion and preload changes...I've directed that point over to Moton and would be keen to see wot they say. I'm not technically inclined enough to make any comments.

My mistake on aluminium's thermal conductivity. Checked it out and the W/mK of aluminium is alot higher than steel. Does the relatively constant thermal conductivity of aluminium have any part to play as compared to steel's rising thermal conductivity as it reaches higher temperatures? Just a quick question, a shock body's ability to lose heat fast enough in order to have a more stable operating heat range and resist cavitation is mainly linked to a monotube/twin-tube design? Afaik, twin-tube designs have an inner and outer tube and a bubble of insulating gas surrounds the inner tube, making the heat path out of the damper longer and thus making twin-tubes less efficient at dissipating heat. But are there are differentiating factors between monotubes from different manufacturers as to how efficient they are at dissipating heat?

[ShaunSG]

Yeah noted that the height adjustment on the Moton is not independant of rebound proportion and preload changes...I've directed that point over to Moton and would be keen to see wot they say.

Cool man.. I think they'll say something along the lines of "we designed it this way so it could be lighter and we don't exactly need a large range of ride heights since sporty street cars fall within a narrow ride height range, and since we've already set it up for a certain ride height which you will see in the recommended settings". This of course would make sense since it is a street coilover and most road car drivers who track will never get to the point where they run extremely low ride heights, or change suspension geometry to the point that damper length becomes an issue.

My mistake on aluminium's thermal conductivity. Checked it out and the W/mK of aluminium is alot higher than steel. Does the relatively constant thermal conductivity of aluminium have any part to play as compared to steel's rising thermal conductivity as it reaches higher temperatures?

Not so much.. with steel it's basically cost saving. The thermal properties are secondary since most damper applications don't run into overheat.

Just a quick question, a shock body's ability to lose heat fast enough in order to have a more stable operating heat range and resist cavitation is mainly linked to a monotube/twin-tube design? Afaik, twin-tube designs have an inner and outer tube and a bubble of insulating gas surrounds the inner tube, making the heat path out of the damper longer and thus making twin-tubes less efficient at dissipating heat. But are there are differentiating factors between monotubes from different manufacturers as to how efficient they are at dissipating heat?

Twin tubes don't shed heat as fast as monotube, but this is not that big a deal because most road car dampers will not suffer from overheating issues. Al is used not because it has high thermal conductivity, but because it is light, strong enough, corrosion resistant and easy to machine. The thermal properties are a small secondary positive. It's like external reservoir dampers that dump heat better because of the extra surface area of the cylinder. It is welcome, but it is secondary. Primary are the ability to better control damper curves, and greater stroke for a given overall length.

Road car and most track / race cars don't suffer from overheating in general but they still do get pretty hot say 100-200 deg F and slightly cooler is almost always better. As a car gets lighter, stiffer and runs less travel, there is actually less heat generated in the dampers. The most challenging damper applications in terms of heat control are rally car / rally truck (Baja, Dakar, etc) where the masses are large, damper travel is huge, damper shaft speeds are massive, and where the terrain is always working the suspension really hard. Some of these dampers have heat exchangers machined into their bodies and air ducted to them. Temps can reach over 300 deg F on these.

[J-AP2]

Thanx fer the info~~~

Well here are a couple replies direct from the local Moton distributor.

"From the photos it is clear that this version of the motons isn't adjustable for ride height without affecting jounce/rebound travel proportion and/or changing preload."

The Moton system is a little different from other brands. By changing ride height will not affect the performance of the damper. It will still perform the same even when if the ride height is change. It is the design of the system (e.g. 22mm piston rod) that generates damping at the slightest movement in the piston. Other systems might need to do some preload of the valve stack.

"The Hipermaxs on the other hand definitely allow ride height, stroke distribution and preload to be adjusted independently of each other."

I’m not familiar with the system on the Hipermax, but I believe it is a simple system. As a guess, the reason why the ride height adjustment is done with the lower part of the shock is because if you lower the car too much, the system will run out of stroke (i.e. cannot compress or extend). Nothing wrong with the system, it’s just the design of it. With the Motons, damping is even achieved on 5mm piston travel.

[ShaunSG]

The Moton system is a little different from other brands. By changing ride height will not affect the performance of the damper. It will still perform the same even when if the ride height is change. It is the design of the system (e.g. 22mm piston rod) that generates damping at the slightest movement in the piston. Other systems might need to do some preload of the valve stack.

Thanks for taking the time Jyoji, more info is always good.

Yes the damping forces are still directly related to shaft speed as all traditional dampers, however without a separate adjuster for ride height, the zero position of the damper is no longer the same. Once any change is made to ride height via spring perch damper travel before arriving at bump stop will be different, and distance travel before topping out will be different.

The second collar you see towards the bottom of the Hipermaxs is to fulfill this function. On push or pull rod suspension, the rod itself is threaded which allows length change which serves the same function for separating ride height and travel proportion from preload.

I’m not familiar with the system on the Hipermax, but I believe it is a simple system. As a guess, the reason why the ride height adjustment is done with the lower part of the shock is because if you lower the car too much, the system will run out of stroke (i.e. cannot compress or extend). Nothing wrong with the system, it’s just the design of it. With the Motons, damping is even achieved on 5mm piston travel.

All dampers run out of stroke at some point. Lower any damper too far via the spring perch, and you are that much closer to hitting the bump stop. This is exactly the reason for a separate ride height adjuster that maintains nominal travel proportion regardless of ride height. Such a feature is almost impossible to construe as negative in any way except cost to include, and weight. The fact that starting from the very top of motorsport and working one's way down, you find dampers with this feature, or dampers that are designed only work with a separate ride height adjuster, until one reaches street coilovers or light track coilovers, shows that it is a positive feature to have.

On road car coilovers, the adjuster for ride height is simple, just as the pushrod on pushrod suspension is a simple rod with a heim and locknuts on it. Both are simple but fulfill an important function in high performance or race applications.

Stroke limits / distribution is a separate issue vs damper response time / distance. No doubt that top brands with good designs have good response. No one can take that away from them, but fact is, it is lacking one positive feature that a number of others in its class have. Whether or not it is important for the street is debatable, but some may prefer to have that option in case they get into certain other situations and setups in the future. Moton is strong on other features that you have already listed, and the lack of ride height adjuster is only one negative point, so all this is just a pro and con comparison of different dampers.

Cheers man!

[jellyfish]

well recently for the past few month i`ve been looking around for a decent set of coilover within the range of $2k to $3k, with spring weight of 8 to 12 kg for lemonie, need to be able to adjust ride height, damping and preload.

from decent tien to funky priced drift racing V1. but after looking at s2ki it seem to point to buddyclub n+ spec, but it seems like in singapore its a little known brand and ppl who carries them are few, most just wanna sell but, after sales service like warranty seems to draw a blank look.

but somehow i found a shop who brings in buddyclub japan products and have proper 1 yr warranty on their coilovers, and the quotes are pretty decent too, best part they do bring in the 2 version found in japan, the BUDDYCLUB N+ SPEC and the BUDDYCLUB RACING SPEC, difference is the n+ use 10kg and 8kg rear spring and normal rubber urethene mounts whereas the racing spec uses 10kg front and rear, and pillowball top mounts, think the price diff is around $200.

but since this is a writeup/field report, i`ll just post some pic and first impression on the buddyclub n+ SPEC.

ordered the coilover and it took one week to arrive.
comes with 1 yr warranty
price includes installation and some fine tuning on ride height

and after my overseas trip to fraser hill, a call did comfirmed the arrival of the coilover.


woohoo buddies from jp




oooo nice colour too, its anodised red and the springs are powder coated blue.


the shock-body is constructed out of cadmium plated steel shock piston size of 40mm, and hardened chromoly 13mm shaft is used. all inside a single tube design.


some jap word which i dunno what it says


the urethene top mount , for comfort and more durability, but of course sacrifice some feel in steering precision


alu mounting, beautifully crafted, but i wish they are as thick as the motons, lol


buddy makes springs? hmmm, but good to see the rubber dust boot to keep performance in and crap out, more durability, woohoo.


look a light weight rear reinforcement bar from honda free!!!!

installation looks like a PITA, the left rear need to remove the fuel area to avoid scratching stuff up, and the rear bar was removed to have better acess to work on the removal of the old suspension which i say was pretty good for some B road blasting.


front mounted with the mini 15 click adjustable damping set to minimum to let the spring set in. but damping settings ranges from hard (+4kg/mm) to soft (-4kg/mm). at full soft it feels slightly softer than stock ap2 suspension






first impression, after they drop the car down, wahlau!!!!!!!!!! front wheel clearance no finger, rear 1 finger gap looks like ready for track, but its a no go, after some adjustment, and the damping set to full soft, it feels slightly softer than stock ap2 suspension, and a quick drive around the area including going over some hump over and over again managed to settle the spring down, a quick measure show the whole car dropped 1cm all round, so up the car hoist for more adjustment, i set it up at 2 finger front and 2.5 finger rear, spring preload compressed from 20cm initially (uncompressed) to 19cm, then off i went for another drive around, ok feels better but the steering felt funny, must be the change in alignment and it had more camber than needed.initially running at 0.50 deg camber zero toe at front, rear 1.50 deg and 0.20deg toe in. but all that went out the window.

on the way back no weird kok kok kok sound or anything liddat, but going over hump will have a very soft hydralic hiss sound from the moving damper in the rear. but even the stock also have that sound so i`m not bothered by it.

immediately first prob encounted, rear damping adjustment is really a PITA, i need to tear out the panels, take out my spare tooks and spare tyre, pengz!!!!!!!!! in the end after 3 days of fiddling witht the damping from 12 click front and 8 rear, (damn hard) to 5 front rear zero( comfy but abit soft on the rear when thowing clutch in second gear will result in the car squatting abit) in the end i found a good compromise 10 front and rear 7, very nicely damped, i adjust and compressed the rear 8kg spring from 20cm to 18cm to have it slightly harder, and the wheel clearance rear is 11.5cm from lip of rim to the top of the wheel arch and front 11cm from lip of rim to the top of wheel arch, just nice without scrapping the cat up badly.

a quick run to kenny to have the car aligned back to my comfortable spec made the car nicer to drive and corner, less roll is noticed and road vibration is lessened, and the car no longer float on high speed mid corner bump. woohoo!!!!!! now i just need to make more front adjustment as i feel the front still roll but less liao(might need some atiffer arb in the front), front sag is 5.5 cm and rear is 7cm of sag height, just nice for B road blasting, i think it might be the 55S in front that make the car roll more due to the increased grip and the rear i`m using RE11, so it don understeer but provide some slight oversteer if needed when in the 7000rpm range, but nothing like the snap oversteer but the RE11 do let go ever so progressively, and a gentle easing off of the throttle will get back traction on the rear.

now problem i face is under cambered road and a full luggage and hard braking + cornering force, the roll of the car will make the re55s scrape the fender liner, i`m not going for more camber, but i was thinking if a beefier ARB will help. and i`m not going to go to stiffer coils, as i find it quite balanced liao, need more fine tuning, stay tuned for longer field test.

overall i give it a 8.5/10
value 10/10
adjustability 7/10 damn the rear damper adjusting knob location
quality 8.5/10, the aluminium bits do suffer some scratches after some adjustment, material might be soft.
after sales service 8/10 the shock rebuild kit can be brought if needed and rebuild be done in sg, but dunno how much it cost

[J-AP2]

The Moton system is a little different from other brands. By changing ride height will not affect the performance of the damper. It will still perform the same even when if the ride height is change. It is the design of the system (e.g. 22mm piston rod) that generates damping at the slightest movement in the piston. Other systems might need to do some preload of the valve stack.

Thanks for taking the time Jyoji, more info is always good.

Yes the damping forces are still directly related to shaft speed as all traditional dampers, however without a separate adjuster for ride height, the zero position of the damper is no longer the same. Once any change is made to ride height via spring perch damper travel before arriving at bump stop will be different, and distance travel before topping out will be different.

The second collar you see towards the bottom of the Hipermaxs is to fulfill this function. On push or pull rod suspension, the rod itself is threaded which allows length change which serves the same function for separating ride height and travel proportion from preload.

I’m not familiar with the system on the Hipermax, but I believe it is a simple system. As a guess, the reason why the ride height adjustment is done with the lower part of the shock is because if you lower the car too much, the system will run out of stroke (i.e. cannot compress or extend). Nothing wrong with the system, it’s just the design of it. With the Motons, damping is even achieved on 5mm piston travel.

All dampers run out of stroke at some point. Lower any damper too far via the spring perch, and you are that much closer to hitting the bump stop. This is exactly the reason for a separate ride height adjuster that maintains nominal travel proportion regardless of ride height. Such a feature is almost impossible to construe as negative in any way except cost to include, and weight. The fact that starting from the very top of motorsport and working one's way down, you find dampers with this feature, or dampers that are designed only work with a separate ride height adjuster, until one reaches street coilovers or light track coilovers, shows that it is a positive feature to have.

On road car coilovers, the adjuster for ride height is simple, just as the pushrod on pushrod suspension is a simple rod with a heim and locknuts on it. Both are simple but fulfill an important function in high performance or race applications.

Stroke limits / distribution is a separate issue vs damper response time / distance. No doubt that top brands with good designs have good response. No one can take that away from them, but fact is, it is lacking one positive feature that a number of others in its class have. Whether or not it is important for the street is debatable, but some may prefer to have that option in case they get into certain other situations and setups in the future. Moton is strong on other features that you have already listed, and the lack of ride height adjuster is only one negative point, so all this is just a pro and con comparison of different dampers.

Cheers man!

No worries it's good information for me and all to learn from both sides and hear the inputs from both sides. I wonder if the Moton Motorsports versions is also of a one piece structure. Might go find that out.

[J-AP2]

Nice informative review on the BuddyClub N+ jellyfish~~ I would think twice about switching to a stiffer front ARB. The stock F/R ARB balance is quite nice I have to say, until u start tweaking too many things, and having to finetune back the balance can take quite some time and be a PITA. Using the right spring rate to control roll should take priority over stiffer ARBs, which might come in later if fine tuning is really needed. Regular tire choice also plays a part in the overall setup.

That's the stock rear strut bar in the boot isn't it? Rear damper adjustment on the s2k is really a bitch. The right rear is ok, the left rear is a nightmare especially if u have a meaty hand. LoL~~ 1 lovely thing about the HKS Hipermax 3 Sport was that it came with rear tube extensions that made damper adjustment a breeze without needing to remove any panels. I'm trying to have that custom made for the Motons.

Bro if u are not gonna use RE55S in the future on the front, u might not rub with other tires since the RE55S typically has a larger section width compared to other tires (esp street) as well as a squarish sidewall, which reduces tire-to-fender clearance.

[ShaunSG]

I wonder if the Moton Motorsports versions is also of a one piece structure. Might go find that out.

Most of the Moton range both club and motorsport, seem to be one piece. Some of Moton's BMW dampers are two piece though. Some of their E92 dampers are two piece, and below is a 2 piece E46 race damper..

[J-AP2]

Icic....any input on why they would keep most of their motorsport dampers as 1 piece instead of 2 piece?

[jellyfish]

Nice informative review on the BuddyClub N+ jellyfish~~ I would think twice about switching to a stiffer front ARB. The stock F/R ARB balance is quite nice I have to say, until u start tweaking too many things, and having to finetune back the balance can take quite some time and be a PITA. Using the right spring rate to control roll should take priority over stiffer ARBs, which might come in later if fine tuning is really needed. Regular tire choice also plays a part in the overall setup.

That's the stock rear strut bar in the boot isn't it? Rear damper adjustment on the s2k is really a bitch. The right rear is ok, the left rear is a nightmare especially if u have a meaty hand. LoL~~ 1 lovely thing about the HKS Hipermax 3 Sport was that it came with rear tube extensions that made damper adjustment a breeze without needing to remove any panels. I'm trying to have that custom made for the Motons.

Bro if u are not gonna use RE55S in the future on the front, u might not rub with other tires since the RE55S typically has a larger section width compared to other tires (esp street) as well as a squarish sidewall, which reduces tire-to-fender clearance.

hehehe thanx for the advise on the arb, now don need liao, as the last setting did not result in any rubbing issue, and now i`m slowly fine tuning the tyre pressure and damper setting.

yup thats the stock strut bar, lol, funny that they don`t spray them properly.

i`m thinking of getting another set of re55s for standby when i go b road blasting again, its such a nice grippy tyre, but its still semi slick, so wet days are restricting the drive.the tyre don rub liao, ride height also settled liao without sacrificing suspension travel front and rear

[ShaunSG]

Icic....any input on why they would keep most of their motorsport dampers as 1 piece instead of 2 piece?

Range of possibilities...

- As mentioned in previous post, all formula and LMP, DP cars etc. have inboard dampers with threaded components separately to adjust ride heights with. The most advanced GT and touring cars like SGT and DTM move over to inboard systems and no longer need rideheight (RH) adjusters on the damper since they are moved over to the push or pull rod.

For cars that still have the outboard coilovers (this includes most GT and touring cars and just about all road cars)...

- Damper length vs stroke length. If suspension kinematics are good, and unless the track is ultra smooth and/or the car a high downforce car, the operators are going to want to let the suspension have a relatively large amount of travel. If the shock length is limited due to suspension design, then adding a RH adjuster on the damper, and not through an external system like a threaded mount or a pushrod, will take up some available damper travel. In this case keeping the travel may take priority. In cases where the damper is long and the nominal stroke short by comparison, there is lots of space for an adjuster on the damper itself.

- Damper location. Related to above, if the end of a damper points directly into a control arm, etc. it would not be possible to design a RH adjuster that maintains full damper travel because as the damper is lowered, the portion that protrudes from the bottom of the threaded tube (assuming it is hollow at the base like many are), would run into the control arm. In such a case there is little use for an adjuster except to increase RH which is unlikely to happen on a circuit car. If the bottom hangs out over free space or a hollow, then an RH adjuster would make more sense.

- Cost. Threaded tube

- Weight. If a racecar operates at only 1 track or a few tracks of similar characteristic, the RH will fall within a narrow window and the adjuster can be eliminated by designing the damper to that length for a small weight saving.

- Other means of arriving at performance target. Regardless of inboard or outboard suspension, even if the car runs a few different tracks with different characteristics requiring a range of RH, it is very easy for a team to machine their own shims/spacers/brackets to change installed length if required. Start off on the short side and then machine parts are necessary. Even if they run exactly the same RH at bumpy high load tracks vs smooth low load tracks, teams have the ability to change the configuration and run a large range of spring and damper forces to prevent bottoming. I've run projects in the off season where I've had to test over 500 individual springs ranging from 600 lb/in all the way up to 4700 lb/in and damper dyno tests with some pretty large force ranges within the same shaft speeds. This was to support just 2 cars running at any one time.

[J-AP2]

hehehe thanx for the advise on the arb, now don need liao, as the last setting did not result in any rubbing issue, and now i`m slowly fine tuning the tyre pressure and damper setting.

yup thats the stock strut bar, lol, funny that they don`t spray them properly.

i`m thinking of getting another set of re55s for standby when i go b road blasting again, its such a nice grippy tyre, but its still semi slick, so wet days are restricting the drive.the tyre don rub liao, ride height also settled liao without sacrificing suspension travel front and rear

Good to hear that u got it all sorted bro~Well Honda prolly thinks that since it can't really be seen and quite a number of owners dun even know abt the rear strut bar, might as well save the paint, save the Earth!

RE55S have stopped production. Since u do mainly b-roads, why not go with a full set of RE11? Good for dry n wet conditions, better treadlife too. U're pampered by the RE55S grip already~~~lol~RE11S isn't scheduled to come in anytime soon so its still gonna be a while before those are available here locally.

[jellyfish]

hehehe thanx for the advise on the arb, now don need liao, as the last setting did not result in any rubbing issue, and now i`m slowly fine tuning the tyre pressure and damper setting.

yup thats the stock strut bar, lol, funny that they don`t spray them properly.

i`m thinking of getting another set of re55s for standby when i go b road blasting again, its such a nice grippy tyre, but its still semi slick, so wet days are restricting the drive.the tyre don rub liao, ride height also settled liao without sacrificing suspension travel front and rear

Good to hear that u got it all sorted bro~Well Honda prolly thinks that since it can't really be seen and quite a number of owners dun even know abt the rear strut bar, might as well save the paint, save the Earth!

RE55S have stopped production. Since u do mainly b-roads, why not go with a full set of RE11? Good for dry n wet conditions, better treadlife too. U're pampered by the RE55S grip already~~~lol~RE11S isn't scheduled to come in anytime soon so its still gonna be a while before those are available here locally.

think i'll buy 2 pair of the fronts for the time being, as BS still have some old stock left, yeah its a very grippy tyre with soft enuf compound, but i do say they do die early in B road blasting, mine is half worn after 1680km whacking fraser, genting and cameron all within 5 days, what a joy to use these tyres, can't wait for re11s to come, the current re11 does take abit of pounding and grip level is totally different from the 55s, more oversteer can be felt and one need to feather the throttle more carefully during corner exits. then after that i might go back to re11, lol

It makes wonder how much better the type S stock suspension is over the ap 2, as the ap2 stock showed very neutral habits during cornering in those b roads, no bumps and potholes can upset its composure, its just the body roll which i find abit on the high side and the stock front suspension seem to be overwhelmed by the grip of the 55s and sometime bottom out under full braking and cornering, now after the n spec it sure felt better, i've just increased the front damping click to one more click, now it felt more damped in its stroke, but wish that compression and rebound can be tuned separately, i then can tune it for less compression and slightly more rebound.

[NT]

Hi all,

I read with interest all the comments so far in this thread.

At the moment, I'm using stock Type S suspension but am thinking of changing to aftermarket because the car doesn't feel very stable at high speeed.

So my main requirements are:

1. car needs to feel "planted" or stable at high speed, mainly for safety especially on the NSH;

2. Improvement in handling;

3. Not something that is bone shattering since I sometimes have passengers.

Any recommendations?

[J-AP2]

Hi all,

I read with interest all the comments so far in this thread.

At the moment, I'm using stock Type S suspension but am thinking of changing to aftermarket because the car doesn't feel very stable at high speeed.

So my main requirements are:

1. car needs to feel "planted" or stable at high speed, mainly for safety especially on the NSH;

2. Improvement in handling;

3. Not something that is bone shattering since I sometimes have passengers.

Any recommendations?

Budget?