HotBits--anyone have experience/feedback

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2007 Mazda6-i; 2000 Escort ZX2 S/R SOLO2 STS prepped
Craig and I are thinking about a suspension makeover for the ZX2/BG. We have SA Konis (Yellows with OTS valving converted from Reds) with GC sleeves. 550/390 rates. Car has some forward bite issues on corner exit...so the thought is to up front rate (650ish) and reduce FSB by about 1.5mm (25.5mm--->24mm--having custom made; we also have a 22mm OE Mazda bar--but not sure we want to go that small...). We think we are about at the limit of the Konis now, and also dont have bump adjustment.

I was looking into HotBits--they are a bit $pendy...but not as bad as I'd have thought for remote resovoir and DA...and we can get a full-custom set in a matter of a few weeks.

Anyone have experience or know someone they run with that has these? Are they good? They look awful beefy--seem to be a big player in the rally scene--and not just a pouser...so autocrossing should be a walk in the park.

Feedback appreciated...
 
Im way out here in la-la land so take this for what its worth...

Hotbits are for real. Very popular in rallycross in europe. That said the quality of the products like this dont seem to be the issue, its the distance.

Best example is the subaru guys, for a while the hot thing was to go with DMS suspension. Why not? DMS had been making a quality item overseas for subarus for years with many rally wins to their credit. But it didnt translate to autocross(or road racing) well. The issues were with servicing the struts in a timely fashion, having a large enough knowledgebase to pool collective information and redoing the valving theories to suit autocross and road racing more so that rally. In the end many went back to known quantities that could be readily serviced stateside.

Closer to home a local fellow went from Ledas back to Koni even though Leda was a well known european make for this particular chassis. Too much work to make them work for the application needed.

Will it be the same for you? I dunno. Perhaps not. But being on your own with a variable quantity isnt a good place to be.

Are the spindles for the ZX2 the same as the MX3? There is a new-ish player thats closer to home than Hotbits. http://www.ast-usa.com/ast_4100.php

Theres an off the shelf SA fitment for the MX3. AST is willing to do custom fitments(for a price).

Terry Fair and the guys at Vorshlag have been pumping out a lot of these to the BMWCCA, Subaru and Evo guys. The shocks/struts compare well to a Moton or JRZ. They have been very aggressive in finding new markets and pricing. Vorshlag themselves are autocrossers and are excellent at customer service. AST has set up refurbishing/revalving centers in the US. If you had planned to have custom fitments made anyway, they may be an option.

EDIT: Primer on the ASTs from Terry Fair on bimmerforums
http://forums.bimmerforums.com/forum/showpost.php?p=16504625&postcount=101

Gavin (no affiliation to AST or Vorshlag)
 
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gavin_leslie said:
Im way out here in la-la land so take this for what its worth...

Hotbits are for real. Very popular in rallycross in europe. That said the quality of the products like this dont seem to be the issue, its the distance.

Best example is the subaru guys, for a while the hot thing was to go with DMS suspension. Why not? DMS had been making a quality item overseas for subarus for years with many rally wins to their credit. But it didnt translate to autocross(or road racing) well. The issues were with servicing the struts in a timely fashion, having a large enough knowledgebase to pool collective information and redoing the valving theories to suit autocross and road racing more so that rally. In the end many went back to known quantities that could be readily serviced stateside.

Closer to home a local fellow went from Ledas back to Koni even though Leda was a well known european make for this particular chassis. Too much work to make them work for the application needed.

Will it be the same for you? I dunno. Perhaps not. But being on your own with a variable quantity isnt a good place to be.

Are the spindles for the ZX2 the same as the MX3? There is a new-ish player thats closer to home than Hotbits. http://www.ast-usa.com/ast_4100.php

Theres an off the shelf SA fitment for the MX3. AST is willing to do custom fitments(for a price).

Terry Fair and the guys at Vorshlag have been pumping out a lot of these to the BMWCCA, Subaru and Evo guys. The shocks/struts compare well to a Moton or JRZ. They have been very aggressive in finding new markets and pricing. Vorshlag themselves are autocrossers and are excellent at customer service. AST has set up refurbishing/revalving centers in the US. If you had planned to have custom fitments made anyway, they may be an option.

EDIT: Primer on the ASTs from Terry Fair on bimmerforums
http://forums.bimmerforums.com/forum/showpost.php?p=16504625&postcount=101

Gavin (no affiliation to AST or Vorshlag)
Click to expand...

Thanks, Gavn. I looked--am lookin--at the AST stuff too--its not much cheaper and, as you said, is 'only' Single Adjustable--at least off the shelf... And yes, MX3 and ZX2 are same...we actually have MX3 Konis now. I have a HotBits dealer (Davenport) in Minneapolis--I am in Milwaukee--so tweaking/revalving etc. seems pretty possible; alot of MN drivers autocross here too. Vorschlag, on the other hand, is in Texas.

The Hotbits is 100% custom to my spec (spring rates rate/rideheight etc.) for $2400 delivered--3 week turn. Seem like a good deal in the big picture.
 
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Have you considered the Koni 28 series as an alternate? IIRC those run in the 2500-3000 range and are double adj.
 
Auto-Xer said:
Thanks, Gavn. I looked--am lookin--at the AST stuff too--its not much cheaper and, as you said, is 'only' Single Adjustable--at least off the shelf... And yes, MX3 and ZX2 are same...we actually have MX3 Konis now. I have a HotBits dealer (Davenport) in Minneapolis--I am in Milwaukee--so tweaking/revalving etc. seems pretty possible; alot of MN drivers autocross here too. Vorschlag, on the other hand, is in Texas.

The Hotbits is 100% custom to my spec (spring rates rate/rideheight etc.) for $2400 delivered--3 week turn. Seem like a good deal in the big picture.
Click to expand...
Not trying to convince you one way or the other, but Im just throwing this out there to consider......

I figured AST wasnt going to be cheaper than Hotbits. Itll be a custom to custom comparison since AST can make custom applications(I assume in any flavor you would like up to the s00per pimpy inverted struts).

In my mind its the intangibles that are what make the difference. DMS had dealers here as well, but the revalving services just wasnt on par with...say a PSI, RRT or Tri-point. Will this be the same with Hotbits? Dunno.

Also, As I mentioned, there is a fairly large existing customer base thats using the items in the feild who have feedback of what works and what doesnt (pretty much all of it looks to be the same as Moton/JRZ setup info).

I dont know about you, but after a few years of building the wrong car for DSP with ZERO help or knowledgebase as to how to set up the car and having to do everything, including time wasting mistakes and dead ends, Im kinda tired. The prospect of picking up another "nobody knows what the hell this is so I have to do all the legwork" project just doesnt sound appealing. I want to spend my time with my ass in the seat and just drive.

If it wasnt for the fact that I lucked out and found a set of Penske triple adjustables (ex 993RSR porsche struts modified to fit...yeah, I had to engineer that too), Id probably be looking at AST...real closely

Again, just random thoughts

aMaff said:
Have you considered the Koni 28 series as an alternate? IIRC those run in the 2500-3000 range and are double adj.
Click to expand...
The 28s are in the natural state of shocks. To get them in struts is a bit more than $3000(I want to say $4200, but that might not be right). Ill have to see if I can find the quote. I got the quote from Tri-point(they did j-rhos struts/shocks for his nissan). Maybe Truechoice is cheaper?....but I doubt it.

Gavin
 
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I can see the frustration there. Our path at least has another option...if we can't close the gap on the ST Civics, we have FSP to fall back on, and honestly that is a better fit for the car anyhow. However I am stubborn--and want to see a ST non-Spec-Civic as a trophy contender. The good news is that I have the-best-of-the-best in ST here locally (Jason Frank et al) to benchmark to...whereas FSP is non-existant locally. We beat cars that were in the top 30 at Nationals in ST last year...not that it means much, but...we got there in only about 70-75 runs per driver (140-150 on car)...so I think the potential still exists to move up a bit. ST winner--no. ST trophy car...I think so. There is still alot of work to do...and the suspension is the key I think...and we are at--or near--the limits of what we have on the car now.

It is certainly hard developing a car with "with ZERO help or knowledgebase as to how to set up the car and having to do everything". We're doing that now! But I guess I see that as a challenege...still.

We really need to work on getting power down better--if we can get on the gas sooner, and limit the wheelspin on exit, the ZX2 will be 'right there'. It is faster than the Civics once it hooks up, and is a decent transition car too...but lacks off of sweepers.
 
Auto-Xer said:
and want to see a ST non-Spec-Civic as a trophy contender.
Click to expand...
< cough >jasonrhodesinanissan< cough > ;)

Auto-Xer said:
It is certainly hard developing a car with "with ZERO help or knowledgebase as to how to set up the car and having to do everything". We're doing that now! But I guess I see that as a challenege...still.
Click to expand...
Yeah....getting to you too eh?

Keep fighting the good fight. Sometimes, despite common sense telling us better, you have to find out just how far you can go (in this case, with the "wrong" chassis"). Ive seen your posts here and on other sites and it does seem that you will see this to the end, but all Im saying is..whatever suspension system you chose, make sure that its going to move you forwards and not stall you out. You have no time to waste and the civics arent getting slower. :)

Auto-Xer said:
We really need to work on getting power down better--if we can get on the gas sooner, and limit the wheelspin on exit, the ZX2 will be 'right there'. It is faster than the Civics once it hooks up, and is a decent transition car too...but lacks off of sweepers.
Click to expand...
DANGER....TANGENT AHEAD: Get as much castor as you can in the front end. Aside from dynamic camber and the ability to run slightly less static camber, blah, blah, blah... theres an interesting side effect where the inside front wheel will be kept in contact with the ground for a slightly longer period of time per degree of roll angle.

I actually made offset blocks to mount the tops of my struts as far under and rearwards of the strut tower hole. Its a little help, but hey...you gotta take whatever help you can get.

bon chance!

Gavin
 
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Want to explain the offset blocks--photo is worth 1000 words. We have Cusco plates now...does anyone else make a BG plate that is camber/castor adjustable...ours are camber only now.
 
holy crap, that's bad ass! What a great idea for squeezing a little extra caster out of it!
 
To fill in some of the blanks....

The camber plates themselves are castor adjustable. I had a set of cuscos as well and while they were camber adjustable they centered the struts and gave LESS castor than was available with the stock upper mounts.

I wanted to move the plates as far back as possible, but the inside of the upper strut is domed a bit which restricted movement. To get past that domed upper section and get a bit more distance I notched the adaptor plate. I suppose I could have Kept the whole thing as a rectangle and profiled one corner to fit, but..weight savings right?

Originally I was rocking 2.5deg of camber. As it sits I have 5deg of castor on both sides now. One side can get 5.5deg, Id have to do a bit of finagling to get the other side to match..but I wont. I have about 1/2" between the springs and the strut towers so this is as good as it gets for me since I have an older chassis.

Now that OEMs have better P/S systems and ECU controls for power management they can overcome the issues of the self centering/gyroscopic effect of lots of castor, FWD and power. Some of the newer cars out are sporting 7-8deg of castor from the factory (Civic, Golf, Mazda3(?)...have to check on that one). The upper mounts are jammed to the firewall but usually have very little static camber(mini=0deg).

um...sorry for the Off topic

Gavin
 
Yep I know that MKV/B6 VW/Audis have HUGE castor OE. I think that is common among the German cars...and might explain why they are renowned handlers.

This something to consider for sure--thanks again, Gavin.
 
Have you looked into BC Racing suspension? I have contact info to the guy that heads North America's distribution, and could probably answer all your questions. The spring rates are custom ordered at 2kg/mm increments. For example, I'm running 8kg/mm springs in the front and 10kg/mm springs in the rear. Each strut is valved to the spring, but also allows you to change the spring rates +/- 2kg/mm. All four corners are pillow ball, and the fronts have camber plates. Each strut has an elongated hole where it mounts to the knuckle to gain even more camber. I was able to get -2 in the rear because of it.

I think the only "con" is that they are only 1-way adjustable.

I have a link to my install thread in my sig. Feel free to ask any questions.
 
Those look rather nice; the ER series is DA as well...but they don't appear to have a BG chassis application.
 
1st. 1990-1994 as I recall. 91+ Escorts shared chassis...so did MX3s and Kia Sopheas
 
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