QA1 Adjustabel Shocks

[spd4me]

Got a pair of QA1 "Ultra Ride" 12 setting adjustable shocks but they just ain't gona work. These shocks only have 4" of travel. With the shock pulled out all the way, I have to compress my 10" spring 1" to fit. With car at ride height, my spring is compressed to 8" (1200 lbs front end, 600 each wheel, 300 lbs spring = 2" compression). That means I will only have 1" of rebound. So I'm going with a set of QA1 7553. They come in stiffness of 1,3,4,5,7. QA1 also have the old style with the three settings you set by pushing down on staft and turn (no. SR2254P) but they only come with a polyurethane bushing that cannot be replace with a bearing. Sent that back too.
Bob

[Naumoff]

Can't you have a machine shop make you a bushing?

[spd4me]

The old style 3 setting shock comes with a larger size yellow polyurethane bushing that is a bolt size larger than the Unique bolts. In order to re-adjust the shock, you have to remove from car so might as well just put on a different stiffness shock. The Ultra Ride would have been the ticket if it just had a longer stroke. The Pro Bilisten is the same as the QA1 Ultr Ride. That's why I was trying to get Eliminator to respond to this thread. He has the Bilisten shocks.

[decooney]

Bob,
I ran into the same situation with the front end of my previous Unique 427, and with lots of measuring my goal was to use the shorter shock (extended as far as possible) and a longer spring after working through the details several times. I ended up purchasing an extension from the former Carrera company. As I recall it threaded right on to the end of my shock and worked perfectly. The shock ended up right at 50% so I had plenty of travel. It made a huge difference in how the front felt and I was able to lower the front how I wanted it. Maybe they still sell them through QA1, who now owns Carerra, or maybe QA1 sells for their shocks too. Just a thought if you want to use your first set of shocks. Duane

[eliminator]

What is the extended length and the collapsed lenght of the QA1 Ultra Ride
shocks you are talking about??

[spd4me]

Rick
The Ultra Rides extend to 14" and compress to 10-1/8". It really needs to extend to 15" or more to work.
Bob

[spd4me]

Duane
I went back and looked in catalog and they still make extensions of 1" and 2". If I used a 1" that would give me a 2" compression and 2" rebound. Thanks for the tip.
Bob

[eliminator]

Bob,

Your problem with that shock was with the compression and not the rebound.

Average ride height on a 427 type car is about 11 1/2" to 12" (eye to eye shock measurement) so you have around 2" plus of rebound but under 2" of compression. We need a 5" travel shock that would give us around 3" comprssion and 2" of rebound.

Your shock would not compress enough to get the 10" spring on it.

[spd4me]

Rick
Don't you have Bilstens shocks? Their website shows a shock with a 10" compression and 14" rebound which is the same as Ultra Ride.

[spd4me]

This all sounds confusing. I had one of the Ultra Ride shocks. With it fully extended to 14" and the bottom spring jam nut turned all the way down, I still had to compress the 10" 300 lbs spring 1" to fit. Which measn when put on car and weight compressed the spring to 8", the ride height would be only 13" when it should be 12". If I went to a 9" spring it would compress everything 2". 14" minus 2" = 12". Does that sound right? Do you know what the total outside diameter of the top eyelet is on your Bilstein? If it's more than 1.5" there isn't enough room at the top mounting bracket.

[nolastyankee]

Bob,
There is a source for 9" springs...Classic Jaguar makes a set that will fit Carrera's, I think yours are the same diameter. They have them in 300# rate.

Another thought...You should be able accomplish your same goal with 8" springs by running down your adjustable spring perch to take up the room. You'd just need to be sure there is no coil bind.

[spd4me]

Brian
QA1 and Carrera have springs from 7" to 14" (www.qa1.com). If I go with a 9" spring and a 1" extension, that will allow me to be able to adjust height up and down a little and still give me 2" of compression and rebound with the major goal of being able to adjust stiffness of shock without removing from car. The problem now is the top eyelet is bigger (because it has a bigger shaft and is aluminum) than the carrera's that came with car and there isn't enough clearance at the top mounting bracket to fit. I'm going to see if they have a smaller steel eyelet that will fit the larger shaft shocks.
Bob

[nolastyankee]

Bob,
Thanks for the tip on the 9" springs. I thought I heard Rick talk about not being able to find 9" springs a couple threads ago, but I may not be remembering correctly. You should be able to source a new eyelet, but worst case a custom upper shock mount should not be too difficult to fab. Only down side is increasing the angle of the shocks, although the shock angle on the narrowed rear ends is much improved vs. original Jag.

[eliminator]

Didn't know about the 9" springs. I wanted a 9" with a 350 -375# spring rate.
And I didn't want a chrome spring because of the problems the chroming process causes with the steel spring.

[spd4me]

The QA1 springs come in powder coated or chrome. They also have variable rate springs. The size of the eyelet is my problem. The Ultra Rides use a 5/8" shaft with 18 threads and alunimum eyelet which has a larger outside dia. than steel eyelet. The steel shocks have a 1/2" shaft with 20 threads and a smaller outside dia. eyelet which fit the Unique cars (talking about front shocks and not rear). I would have to take a steel eyelet, drill and thread for a 5/8 x 18 thread shaft or grind off some of the aluminum eyelet's top (maybe 1/16") or just forget the whole thing.

[eliminator]

Unique uses 1/2" mounting bolts on the front shocks and 5/8" mounting shafts on the rear. The 5/8" on the rear are used because that is the size Jaguar used on the IRS.
The Billstein are 1/2" eyes so it all worked out on the front, on the rear Billstein replaced the bushings and we changed to a 5/8".
I doubt if you could drill a bushing out on these shocks, they are very, very hard.

[spd4me]

The mounting bolts are fine. What I'm talking about is where the top eyelet is screwed onto the top of the shock shaft not where the mounting bolt goes through the eyelet.