B13 spring stock sizes

Charlie Guthrie smplmchn at mindspring.com
Fri May 22 16:54:57 CDT 2009


We are trying to re-engineer the B13 suspension for Rally-Cross. At 
264,000 miles my son's track SE-R has finally reached the end of its 
useful life as a track star , but we just can't let go. We pieced 
together enough good engine parts to bring it back to life, but the 
other mechanicals just don't make us comfortable at track speeds. We 
also currently compete in Rally-X with an '89 Toyota Corolla with a mere 
70 HP and open differential. There are two other SE-R's competing 
locally (and winning) in our class, so we are motivated to resurrect our 
'92 SE-R.
Our problem is that long ago we participated in the group purchase of 
the HyperCoil springs and over the course of years the stock springs 
have been lost. Could anyone measure some stock springs and let us know 
the dimensions? I've poked around on the Internet and could not find any 
reference to the original spring specifications.
We need:
1.  The number of active coils (total number of turns that excludes the 
flattened coil at the top) (fractions of a turn count, too)(Heck, if you 
just count the total number of turns we'll make the necessary assumptions).
2.  The uncompressed spring height.
3.  The spring wire diameter (preferably measured with a caliper)
4.  The outside diameter of the spring.

The reason we're asking for the dimensions is that we may have to 
substitute springs from another car (The fronts from an E30 BMW look 
possible for the fronts, but the rear springs on the BMW are shorter)

Since someone will undoubtedly want to know: the HyperCoils are 5.65" 
outside diameter, 0.520 wire diameter, and have 6 coils total with 4 
active coils using two different helix angles. The lower two coils  give 
a reasonable ride over slight pavement imperfections. After that the 
lower coils go solid and the two upper coils come into play and they are 
stiff...wheeeee. That makes for a great drive to the track set-up, but 
on dirt we need lots of weight transfer and gradual loading.

We're open to alternate suggestions as well.
Charlie
in Raleigh, NC


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