6G Celicas Forums

SUPERSTRUT SUSPENSION FTW!!! I only go for the best

This post has been edited by BonzaiCelica: May 14, 2012 - 8:31 PM

you spelled it wrong




Wow cant believe I didn't pick up on this sooner, there is a flaw in your comparison between your mac strut and superstrut. The fact that all ST202 superstrut have an LSD and all mac do not have an LSD factory.



wow so you are doing the conversion now Bonzai? Can you make a thread in general discussion about your SS-III conversion?? (so not to clutter this thread)

yup will do when the time is right. I still have much to learn about the Celica before I take this project on.

Can someone convert these numbers in the ST202 Super Strut Suspension. Im comparing the Tein Superstreet to TRD Circuit Coilover Setup. Except that I cannot compare when the measurements on trd website have the spring rate and dampening at N. Does the N stand for Newton???

If you look on tein's website everything is in kg!!!

http://trdparts.jp/english/parts_suskit.html

This post has been edited by BonzaiCelica: Sep 30, 2010 - 6:07 PM

just multiply the kgf/mm value by 9.81 to get it in N/mm.

are you meaning my point of view? i understand how to recognize the difference between the suspension and the lsd, an lsd can not mask the inherent problems of a macpherson design vs a doublewishbone/superstrut design. The two things have different effects its not difficult to seperate them.

BonzaiCelica was saying that you wouldn’t notice the difference between the double wishbone and Macpherson if you were on the streets or the canyon roads.
Yes I would think so too. How and why would you test a car in "normal commuting"(wow i can really feel the difference sitting at these traffic lights!?)
and I’m also saying that would be the lsd working because that’s what it does otherwise you'll still be able to feel it going straight.

There are too many variables in your test/opinion. One way to test it is to get 2 brand new Celica’s 1 with Macpherson, the other with super strut and neither of them have a lsd. Race them round a track with lots of corners, on the same day, and driver etc. Then see what the lap difference is, if any.
I don’t think those 2 Celica’s you drove were in the same condition. They might have had the same amount of miles/kms but 1 car would have had a harder life. Were the tyres the same? Make and model, pressure etc? shocks/struts although they looked fine they'll be worn. Springs standard not after market or lowered. all the mounts and bushes including sub frame etc. Also were were the g-boxs the same s54 or e56 please don't tell me any were auto?

The amount of time and money put in to swap it to super strut I think isn't worth it unless money isn't a factor. The benefits if any would be minimal. What’s the point of doing all that work if you still have stink little tyres and heavy narrow rims. Just buy some better tyres when the ones on your car wear out. You'll get better lap times then(Or get to work faster). Remember there’s lots of good second hand parts out there, and not just standard
And why did the wrc gt4 team and other celica's recenty go from super strut back to Macpherson?






What are the "inherent problems of a macpherson design vs a doublewishbone/superstrut design" then?

ah crap an edit seemed to break my post and lost it .

anyway rusty i've never claimed the comparison was scientific, theres no point in dissecting the things i've said as i've never actually been that specific, just passing comment on what i have found in my experience, and when you actually begin to understand the differences in the designs, the advantages/disadvantages you can begin to attribute them to the different parts of the car doing the job. I suggest you do some reading about scrub radius, camber compensation etc, the camber compensation is an important one, the mcpherson strut doesnt do this well, so as you go through a turn and the car rolls, or the wheel go's through bump, the superstrut/doublewishbone design is better able to maintain a good tyre contact patch with the road, so you get higher grip in turns, so higher cornering speeds, so if you took a celica, one with and one without superstrut, everything else equal, the superstrut will be quicker, because the suspension geometry allows it to maintain higher grip levels. Unless the road is glass smooth where you can literally lock the suspension movement of the mac strut to virtually zero so the contact patch didnt change then the superstrut will always be better.

The mcpherson strut at the end of the day is a compromise designed with taking up less space, and being cheaper and simpler to manufacture, and its geometry is comprimised as a result, its that simple. Superstrut allows toyota to put doublewishbones back into that same space, getting around those problems, why do it if it wasnt worth it? seriously?...

The rally car suspension was completely different to the superstrut on the road car, and noone but the team know why they changed back, rally's are a whole other set of circumstances so its just not a valid argument against it.

Also they never changed back from superstrut, the last celica, the gen 7, was offered with superstrut just like the gen 6 was.

Whether its worth it too someone is surely just down to what they want and whether they have the budget for it or would rather just spend the money elsewhere, i'm not going to tell anyone that its a must do upgrade, people can figure these things out for themselves.

This post has been edited by Edophus: Oct 18, 2010 - 9:46 AM

oo very nice argument guys! hey Edophus I love it when you said Whether its worth it too someone is surely just down to what they want and whether they have the budget for it or would rather just spend the money elsewhere, i'm not going to tell anyone that its a must do upgrade, people can figure these things out for themselves.

We all know I'm on the only one crazy enough to do this conversion, so you can just say Bonzai I don't mind you pointing the finger at me. Even people that do the gt-4 awd conversion don't even convert their front mcpherson setup up front to superstrut for some odd reason??

well yeah but you have said several times you are looking to get the best out of the celica so i can understand why you would want to go to the trouble of doing it. People will have different reasons i guess for converting in either direction or not converting, most people simply dont understand what it is or does, funnily ehough most often the loudest opposers to it, and probably for them its better not to have it cause it will make life easier for them lol. I too am mad enough to fit it to my car, but have a lot further to go as i'm fitting it to a gen 5, but hey it works for me so... I'm currently researching making my own coilovers aswell which you may be interested in at a future date should you go this route.

i think a debate that parralels this one is the integra dc2 vs dc5, in this case honda took what many see as a backward step with the chassis, by losing the doublewishbone up front in favour of mcpherson struts. Now this isnt to say the dc5 isnt a capable car, it is, but the chassis isnt as good as the older dc2, if you listen to tuners who work on both cars, or proffesional suspension tuners, they will tell you the dc5 is much more difficult to setup, is far less versatile, and is just generally compromised from the beginning, so the end result is compromised, as in the example that it'll need much higher spring rates for example to keep camber under control, static camber and castor become a balancing act that can need to be changed for whatever the car is going to be used for that day, or the track its about to run on, so its use becomes comprimised to the situation its been setup for, its much more difficult to setup as an all round good handling car. How much of that is relevant to us depends really on what you are doing, for example, if i just wanted to go drag racing and had done an awd conversion, i'd probably not use the superstrut, but if i was wanting to take my fwd celica autocrossing, i would use superstrut.

Ok, I've done some quick searching and I think I've put the pieces together.


First thing Super Strut isn’t true double wishbone. Super Strut is Toyotas attempt to still have all the benefits of double wishbone but be cheaper to manufacture and also the design made it more compact and lighter. If Toyota were to put true double wishbone in the Celica 1994+ they would have had problems fitting it and would have had to spend lots of money. The good thing about super strut was the design meant it could be installed into the other ST20# series with little modification and saved Toyota alot of money.

I totally disagree, that’s where and why super strut first began. Super strut suspension was developed for use by Toyota in the ST205 rally car, Yes the WRC Celica would have been different (obviously adjustable suspension), they wouldn't have left it standard lol. But the rally car still had the super strut though, so it would have had the same problems as standard road super strut. Due to its design the suspension failed as it could not keep up with the high demands. Creating problems for the team as they would have had to keep maintaining the suspension rather than repairing crash damage and other things. (So they reverted back to conventional Macpherson strut for reliability reasons.)

Its purpose is to minimise camber change throughout the travel of the suspension (when going over sweet jumps ).
All joints in the super strut system are prone to wear, usually the camber (A.) and no1 control arm (B.) are the first and most common to wear, although the lower control arm no2 (C.) can also wear out the rear bush where it mounts to the body. This bush is not sold separately by Toyota. The top ball joint (D) also wears.


For A and B typical replacement kilometres is around 80-120k. but driving style and suspension set up and roads driven on can alter that.
Aftermarket and rebuilt ball joints tend to not last as long, often requiring replacement within 6 months. Even sooner with stiffer springs and shocks by putting more stress on the joints. (So how much is that going to cost you in the long run to maintain it???)

Came across a checklist for checking Super strut. Since it has extra linkages. It causes some issues when trying to diagnose noises in the suspension as it can be hard to pin point which joint has worn.



The Honda civic 7th gen, they went back to mac because of cost and double wishbone was too big/heavy for them to fit the new bigger and better k series motor in. You mainly see double wishbone on north-south engines e.g. skylines because there is more room on the sides. The DC5 is a good track car, its a jump in race car, never heard any problems with it.

Yes the 7gen Celica an quite a few other Toyota models were available in super strut.

not true, the opposers are people who have super strut, and have to deal with the cost and problems it creates

well that’s what found and think

p.s BonzaiCelica you better start ordering a couple of sets of replacement bushes when u buy your s/s since it's a 6 week wait in postage

I'm not refering to people finding it expensive as opposers because i can fully understand why they would want to not use it as it can be expensive to maintain no doubt about it, that is fair enough, we must have gone over that a dozen times already, i'm refering to those who say it doesnt work as a suspension design, i've even heard it refered to as a "myth" lol, and some people talk like its made of glass. And of course its not a true doublewishbone design because its a multilink design, but its closest comparison in effect is doublewishbone. I doubt also it is lighter and cheaper than a true doublewishbone design, its certainly both heavier and more expensive from my experience.

Superstrut actually pre-dates the st205 wrc car by a few years, it was first released in 1991, on the corolla levin/treuno, both the corolla and celica platforms did not have provisions for a true double wishbone so to fit a system to those that would perform like a doublewishbone setup then yes we can agree that superstrut could be seen to have saved them money as they didnt need to redevelop the platform. The extra cost of the parts over a true doublewishbone were just passed onto the customer.

The wrc car argument is still not valid, here is a shot of the tte version of superstrut as used on the st205 rally car, it is very very different, different links, all had smaller bearings, it is no comparison at all, it is nothing like the road cars.


As for the honda's, its amazing isnt it then that if the engine bay wouldnt have been wide enough for the K series engines they use now, that those same engines fit just fine into the older chassis with doublewishbones all round lol, its a cost/simplicity based decision pure and simple, the accord euro r has the k series and doublewishbones up front. My own daily driver is doublewishbones all round and transverse engine setup, no packaging problems, plenty of room for the drivetrain and suspension, a k20 also would fit in there justfine. There is no problems as such with the dc5 you misunderstand, it is simply not as good a chassis as the car it replaced due to the loss of doublwishbone suspension in the front, this is not just my opinion, but that of proffesional suspension technicians who setup race cars.

I'll summarise again, to put it simply, superstrut is the better suspension system geometrically, but has a higher cost. Mcpherson strut is more robust and cheaper, but is compromised geometrically. Of course how you measure performance, and therefore which is best to you, is relative to application, so for each person, the answer of which is the better choice can be different.

This post has been edited by Edophus: Oct 22, 2010 - 9:56 AM

ooo more info on the superstrut suspension. I don't think there can be anything else said on this topic. haha thanks to me I got you guys to squeeze all the juice out of this thread.

So I believe the only thing that will truly hold me back from doing this is if I cannot acquire a set of used Tein Super Strut Coilovers. There is no way in hell I'm buying these new. I dont want to spend $3000 for coilovers, when I could spend it on other goods. My plan is to buy the used ones off nengun auctions and then have them rebuilt here in california for $300 all back to factory specs at 7k in front and 5k in rear. I haven't seen any posted on nengun auctions in a while, but when the time is right, I'm hoping there will be some. TRD are slightly better coilover's with the spring rates at 8k front and 6k rear the same spring rates as the integra type r super street tein coilover's. Being that it costs $280 to rebuild one strut from TRD, for another $20 I can have all 4 tein coilovers rebuilt.

This post has been edited by BonzaiCelica: Sep 26, 2013 - 11:37 PM

hope it works out for you Bonzai!. Depending on how quickly i can get things done, and where your at i'm looking at converting stock superstrut struts to coilovers using inserts and adding threaded sleeves etc, thats possibly another option for you, and good value, and a good setup, probably better than a lot of jdm coilovers tbh, i'm using shorter inserts to keep stroke length when lowered, thats the plan at least, i've been unable to start yet due to no workspace but that will change within the next month. Thats essentially what the trd's are and hence why they arent rebuildable as such, as to rebuild them, you have to pay for a new insert, but you arguably get a better product that way, not that tiens are that bad, but it depends who you listen too, most people are more than happy with them, which is all that matters. BC coilovers also do a cheapish kit for the st205 which is probably one of the better budget coilovers, you need to do a little work to the front struts though but any engineering company could do it no problem, they would most probably be happy to sell you a kit that comprised of st205 front and st202 rear coilovers, and spring rates of your choice.

If your buying second hand struts its worth getting a fresh balljoint, the upper one D on rusty's diagram, added, its a fairly easy job to change and they are cheap, its common for people to burst the boots on these when removing the strut, unless you use my method . You are basically doing what i have done btw and getting a whole superstrut setup from a front clip, although in my case i got it from a breaking st205 for very little money, and its all near new condition, having been replaced on the car not long before it was broken up, i will hopefully never have to pay full price for any parts this way, it does not have to be expensive, if you take the oppertunity when parts come up and plan ahead.

This post has been edited by Edophus: Oct 23, 2010 - 2:15 PM

i finnally uploaded a bit more of the ss3, this is some footage from one corner my freind took, it is a 80-90mph corner

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hfa8GUMUElc

the guy you hear talking about it not sounding as good as his and passing the integra's is my honda loving freind who's integra and civic i did a lot of work on. If you see the vid in the wet he is not happy when i pass him and pull a lead on him, but meh, he had d2 coilovers and they were a joke, cheap coilovers usually suck, he changed to hks coilovers and they were so much better.

btw way i forgot to mention the inserts in the trd suspension kit, are the same between the mcpherson and superstrut versions, so when you hear people say there are less options for the superstrut cars, there are actually just less cheap off the shelf options, there are just as many good options for either, i personally wouldnt be touching the likes of tien, d2, ksport, megans, bc, thats not because there crap because we all know people are happy with them, but for only a little more you can have a better setup thats customised to your choice, using the likes of koni or bilstien inserts, i find people who say that there is less options, dont actually know all the options .

This post has been edited by Edophus: Oct 24, 2010 - 4:37 PM

I show about $1,700 Shipped to California from Nengun. That's So Much

how much did you lower those TRD Coilovers when you went to the track, or did you not adjust the height?? Do the TRD have rebound adjustment as well???

they were pretty much as low as was practical, what measurement compared to stock that was i dont know, at a guess maybe 2 inches, maybe more even. They are single adjustable, i would have thought it adjusts both bound and rebound together, the kyb inserts have 4 adjustment settings to cover a range of different spring rates from 6kg/mm to 16kg/mm up front and 4kg/mm to 10kg/mm at the rear.

What i'm looking into is converting the original superstrut by hacking them apart and welding on a sleeve with adjustable spring platform and using a double adjustable insert to get both rebound and bound adjustment, pretty much identical job to the way its done on the front struts of an ae86 for example. Still waiting to see what some other suspension company's can do in terms of taking the original strut and converting it before commiting to either route though.

good deal. I'll have some information with specs and prices very soon. hopefully by Thursday or Friday.

these are quite expensive Edophus. Although Tein might not be up to par with these TRD they are way cheaper. that price doesn't include shipping to the U.S. another $120 for shipping. $1500 for Brand new Cartridges. I'm better off buying Tein Coilovers for the McPherson setup for $1400. Koni doesn't make any custom shocks. I'm going to contact Ohlins to see what kind of a price they give me.

This post has been edited by BonzaiCelica: Feb 18, 2013 - 10:58 PM