Group Buy EMI Racing & Pole 2 Flag

[liftnot]

Who is EMI racing?
For those of us don't know who he is, Erik Messley is a very talented race driver, a well known set-up engineer(in the WC, Porshce Cup, Viper, NSX!! circle), and a race car builder who happens to be a long time Penske dealer. He has set up many NSX in the past from Australia, Canada, and all over the US. Pole 2 Flag will be working with EMI starting 2017 to provide custom valved Penske for your Gen 1 NSX to extract the most from the suspension.

The most recent Penske equipped car that we know of is Ryan Rush's NA with bolt-ons @ 3000lbs on NT-01 that clocked 1:39 at Laguna Seca. Randy Pobst did a 1:36 in the new NSX at the same track. Ryan's car is very balanced so its not scary when he pushes it.....besides his mad skills.

Erik is not a flake but quite difficult to get hold of cuz he is extremely good at what he does so he is always in high demand. He is very much of a do-it-right-the-1st time kinda guy so you don't pay twice or more to correct your mistakes. Good thing he is only 1.5 hours from us and he knows NSX chassis from real life experience inside and out. Just to give you an ideal how good he is, when we call Penske in PA since we've been waiting for nearly 2 yrs, Jeff at Penske told us to wait for Erik's shock if all possible, besides, Penske or us don't have enough NSX specific data to make a right shock. There are other set up shops around the country but we only know Erik who has all the data from the past to do it right w/o any learning curve.

A few things you should know about your car that is not often mentioned(in addition to alignment, corner balance, different spring rates, brands, etc.)

The motion ratios for F/R are quite a bit different thus need different sprint rates to yield a balanced wheel rate F/R. Tire size: should be 235/275 and light wheels like CE28N, you should have Ti-Dave bushings and clamps, is the car used for street, auto-X, TA, road racing or any combination of these, the weight and HP of the car, P2F bladed sway bar or very old school one piece sway bar. Many Penske parts are machined with close tolerances and many parts are made from alum to keep the unsprung weight down at a minimum.

From this video, you can see the Penske is made with instrument quality compare to a lower end shock. When properly valved using the shock dyno(behind the Dyson talking head), you can create many force-velocity curves to suit your needs. Every Penske shocks come with individual dyno sheet not a generic version. There are over a dozen valve options available for different shocks pending your app, as such, there is no such a thing as off-the-shelf Penske and they don't sponsor anybody. Everybody pay for their Penske shocks, even their own teams.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAlqiLNMhLA

If we haven't bore you enough, if you don't want to read Doug Milliken thick book on Vehicle Dynamics, if you don't want to read Carroll Smith's book either, then you should buy Ross Bentley's ebook on Shocks for Drivers. its a gem...short, concise, easy to read and you may gain a better understanding of untapped speed in a set of good shocks without adding more HP. Shocks are not bolt-ons and changing springs w/o knowing your baseline is very old school.

https://speedsecrets.com/product/shocks-for-drivers/

There are several posts on EliseTalk about the Penskes to get a different perspective:

http://www.lotustalk.com/forums/f91...djustable-penske-shocks-intro-pricing-282889/
http://www.lotustalk.com/forums/f91/my-review-penske-d-shocks-bwr-168777/
http://www.lotustalk.com/forums/f91/bwr-penske-suspension-fall-2016-groupbuy-381473/
Too bad Fred can't help us as he doesn't know NSX.

Here is another perspective from the Camaro forum. pay attention to the reason of hysteresis...if you care to know. The guys behind this also live in San Diego but we don't know them. We also think the camaro is more a muscle car with an old tech steel chassis and heavy A-arms more than a proper sports car but that is besides the point.

http://www.camaro5.com/forums/showthread.php?t=382055

This is a long post. Perhaps we'll share the steps required to de-mystify the so call "Black Art" of set up next time. Get the best, you don't need to worry about the rest. Our shoes are not hot enough to clock 1:39 at LS but we want the car set up so its capable of 1:39.

 

[solidol]

All of this is very interesting. But it's less of a value if there is no way to understand the cost for such a setup.

 

[liftnot]

>But it's less of a value if there is no way to understand the cost for such a setup.
if that is the conclusion you reached after all the links above, its ok. Not every one needs Penskes.

You can ask Shad about this. He told me don't tell Erik he is using Ohlin's on Kip's car:biggrin:. Ask him about Doug Hayashi, Andrie Hartanto....and who ever else were fast in the Bay area long ago. We have been saving all our pennies for two years for the EMI Penske so maybe someday we can do a 1:39 at Laguna. You can certainly go fast with just Mother Honda or whatever you have. We don't have mad skills so we like to have all the help we can get. This is not your typical bang for the buck mod. We think its very binary, either you see it or you don't. There is really nothing new here and yes, crack is cheaper.

We asked Peter Cunningham what shocks Real Time NSX was running=> Penskes. I am sure RT has kept all the shock data.

 

[Stephen@NCAutoUSA]

Pretty cool. I've heard of Penske but not only from you when we met but others as well.

 

[RYU]

Erik is legit. I've tried to schedule time with him for a simple bench setup (adjusting sway bar, damper settings, ride height, etc) and alignment but after 3 attempts, he's just so busy!

 

[solidol]

>But it's less of a value if there is no way to understand the cost for such a setup.
if that is the conclusion you reached after all the links above, its ok. Not every one needs Penskes.

I don't understand the hostility. Most of what you have posted is not new to me even though I'm not an expert but rather random user off the street. Not everyone needs Penske, not everyone can afford it either. My question was simple - what's the price range for a product/service that you're advertising in this thread? Unless it's only educational nature then I understand.

 

[liftnot]

come on, that was not hostility. just a surprise!
the entry level 7500 DA starts $565 + $90 for the coil per shock. custom shock mount is extra. 7500 has its limitation of travel in the rear so the 8300 series allows more travel.
It will be more than the JRZ but its the best analog shocks you can buy AND have the right guy to valve it.
Perhaps Ryan can chime in as he has the 8300 remote and his thoughts on the Penskes. We want to best so we are saving up for it.

We had custom Koni before and it was non-adjustable. great on smooth surface but just way too harsh otherwise. kinda like the NSX-R shocks. We have now the basic yellow Bilsteins and it has little rebound.

 

[stuntman]

The motion ratios for F/R are quite a bit different thus need different spring rates to yield a balanced wheel rate F/R. Tire size: should be 235/275 and light wheels like CE28N, you should have Ti-Dave bushings and clamps, is the car used for street, auto-X, TA, road racing or any combination of these, the weight and HP of the car, P2F bladed sway bar or very old school one piece sway bar. Many Penske parts are machined with close tolerances and many parts are made from alum to keep the unsprung weight down at a minimum.

That's not entirely true since it depends on how stiff the springs are. Due to the motion ratio difference, as you go stiffer on spring rate, the rear wheel rates becomes relatively higher than the front, which is why you often see bigger spring rate splits (front stiffer than rear) the stiffer you go - to maintain a certain wheel rate split.

The stock spring rates on a 1991 NSX are quite soft and yield a rear wheel rate TWICE as stiff as the front wheel rate, but that wheel rate is ~65lbs stiffer than the front. Meanwhile, KW V3's are a little stiffer than stock, use the same spring rates front and rear to yield a similar (to stock) ~65lb wheel rate split. As you go stiffer than the V3's 343lb spring rate, you need a stiffer front spring rate than rear if you wish to maintain that wheel rate split. The commonly used 1,000/800lb spring rate combo still yields a ~65lb wheel rate split.

A car's handling is a complex, interconnected system like a spider's web, where one aspect affects everything else. The ideal setup needs to take many factors into consideration: tire, tire size, wheels, vehicle weight, weight distribution, polar moment of inertia, center of gravity, swaybars, aero, suspension geometry, etc... As you add aero (especially front aero), maintaining a stable and consistent aero platform quickly becomes a priority. Ryan Rush's setup was a little more on the oversteering side, and he picked up a lot of time with the addition of rear aero. For use with the stock NSX wing, he would need to modify his setup to increase rear grip.

Most Japanese tuners run much higher rear wheel rates than front, by either using stiff springs with the same rate front and rear, or more commonly, running stiffer rear springs than front. Keiichi Tsuchiya's DG5 dampers run rear wheel rates 2X as stiff as the front, with a 280lb wheel rate split! Meanwhile most US tuners/teams/people run much stiffer front swaybars and spring rates than rear to give them wheel rates that are closer to even if not stiffer in the front. Everyone has a different philosophy and that does not make one option better than the other for all occasions.

Are you offering an 'off-the-shelf' NSX solution for the commonly used 235/275 tire setup with a big front swaybar, or are you custom tailoring each kit?

I've worked with Ryan and Erik quite a bit and Erik does know his stuff and is a very accomplished and knowledgeable person, especially in the NSX and Viper worlds. He just does not have the time or marketing to grow his business into the mainstream success that he deserves. Often the success of a suspension (whether its on the street, track, or in professional racing) is only as good as the person setting it up and the support behind it. Erik is a great and knowledgeable resource for the NSX community and if the budget allows, and you can get a hold of him, you couldn't go wrong with one of his setups.

0.02

 

[liftnot]

[FONT=&quot]Each set is custom valved with individual dyno sheet as every car is different. the is no such thing as off the shelf Penske. the formulas are the same so its up to the set up guy what he things its the best base on his experience and the car owner. thats why we need Erik of his shock dyno, knowledge of the NSX, experience, data, etc. to do it right. I can't think any one better than him that is willing to help us. We discussed at length of the various set up he can provide with his limited time and agreed on the above. This is more for guys who care more about balance than adding hp to reduce the lap time. We are not waiting for our set we are working with him so we can learn a thing or two. He is very difficult to get hold but not possible and we don't expect Penskes flying off the shelf but giving folks an option. Just save up or sell some stocks. Its only money and its a NSX not a tier 2 sports car.

Last time we were there, a fresh, big boy ACR with all the sexy aero trimmings(the big a$$ wing has a deep chord!!) found its way to his shop with 100hp in addition to the 650hp? from Dodge. The driver is a big ego guy from Beverly Hill$$$ and the car just won't hook up. He paid Erik to teach him how to drive but went back to his old ways eventually. More HP. the curves for the front Bilstens PSS9(?) were ok...but the rears were totally wacked. You would think Dodge/Bilstein set it up properly before delivery but maybe they set it up so the guy can do things like Chris Harris and not care about the lap time. Who knows?




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[liftnot]

See PM answers here:

[FONT=&quot]

>Yes, waiting until you have the proper tires(threadwear 200 or less) and 235/275 is a very good decision. Since the only things that (should be) in direct contact with the ground are the tires, their importance is at the top of the list to have correct first. [/FONT]​

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[FONT=&quot]

>Without knowing the valving of the shocks, it's a little bit of a guess as to how much spring rate they will handle prior to the rebound circuits in the shocks not being able to control the rate. If you have a dyno sheet of your shocks, that would be very beneficial! [/FONT]​

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[FONT=&quot]

>Do things properly the first time around. It's MUCH less expensive to do it right once than the alternative![/FONT]​

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[FONT=&quot]

>Putting a set of used Penske shocks on anything other than what they were purposely built for is a good sized gamble. Since each set is custom built and valved for that particular individual, unless your goals and car prep is identical to the car that the shocks are >coming off of, odds are they are going to be an unnecessary compromise in performance. Unlike virtually all of the other shocks out on the market, Penske shocks are custom built for you and your particular application and needs/wants. There is no such thing as >an "off the shelf" Penske so most are not the same. The outside dimensions may be the same or similar, but the internals...the largest determining factor as to how well they work for your particular application...will be highly unlikely to be the same on any 2 given >shocks. Even shocks for a particular car model that EMI sell a lot of, EMI rarely use the same build up inside as each individual has different objectives and modifications done to their cars that make a difference as to what is put inside the shock.

>Taking a set of used Penske shocks and then modifying the internals to your application can get a bit expensive if the basic piston design is not what is best for your particular application. There are 10 piston designs to choose from to give you an idea of how >tunable the line is. Once the piston design is chosen, then there is a virtually limitless amount of different shim configurations and bleed configurations available to use on each of the pistons.​

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[TURBO2GO]

In for more reading.

 

[liftnot]

Here you go Dave. Ross little book is worth to keep and you can't beat the price. To KISS, any good damper must have proper valving to work for your specific car once you calculate the Motion ratio, wheel rate, sprung & unsprung damping and natural Hz, & damping rate. Then you can decide what bump/rebound ratio you want and the knee speed to arrive at the low/high speed compression and rebound. This is basic suspension design approach works for any car.

Now you need a damper that CAN and ABLE to accommodate these changes and be able to graph it, AND someone who knows what they are doing not just because they have a shock dyno and most don't. then you can make logical decisions not base on " whats good for u, must be good for me" approach. Besides, the NSX chassis is alum, the upright is alum, the wishbones are forged, very svelte alum, so why use steel shocks? is it price? Honda really went out of their way to make this right and we are already guilty of going to 17/18 but we'll have a solution planned.

Even the mighty Elise chassis has steel wishbone and steel knuckles, the sexy 4C also. The McLaren alum wishbones are very beefy not like ours. Nissan GTR? don't know...but needs more HP to go quicker.

After we got rid of the custom Konis, almost bought a set of JRZ but we have been putting up with the basic yellow Bilsteins that has no rebound for years until we found the right shock and EMI and now it makes sense for us that is THE only source we are willing to wait for. So far when we are approaching Turn 9 at 110mph+ at Big Willow, we feel very close to God. We are not saying other shocks don't work and we need more driving lessons but curious mind needs to know just how good this chassis is and this is the way to know. Chassis dynamics is very complex thus we are willing to go with the best and not worry about the rest. IF EMI does not have NSX data, then we will keep searching. Peter Cunningham told us at 2015 EXPO, his Real Time NSX has Penskes but valved in-house. There are all the little "speed secret" "tricks" you can do but its really all physics and how well you understand it, and how well you execute them.

we have asked Ryan to chime in as he has 1st hand experience with EMI and his 8300 Penskes. We got a ride at Buttonwillow and is a pleasant ride and we certainly don't have the balls or the skills to push at certain turns as him with the basic Bilsteins. At least that is our excuse.

People throw money on all kinds of things on their NSX and we chose to maximize what we have. The Penskes are finely made like an "instrument" not a basic crude shock devise. Their philosophy is focus on increasing grip to keep the tires in contact with the pavement as often as it can thru damping. We don't have big budget either but IMO, this NSX is worth it as they won't make cars like this anymore and 1:39 at Laguna Seca is a highly respectable time for any car. We also wish the Penskes is not so expensive but we like folks to experience what a great shock by EMI can do to this chassis. At least you have that option to consider.

Thx for your interests Dave. Check the other links for more reading on the Lotus and the Camaro as well.

http://www.nsxprime.com/forum/showthread.php/198770-Ross-Bentley-amp-Pole2Flag
https://speedsecrets.com/product/shocks-for-drivers/

 

[Ponyboy]

Subscribed! I'm running the Comptech Pro suspension right now but have always wanted to try the custom Penskes. I remember DH absolutely and positively gushing over how much better the Penske suspension and tuning was over his previous setup. However, my tire combination is 235/285, in 17/18 stagger, so I'm hoping he can account for that variable when the time comes.

Thanks Tim!

 

[liftnot]

^DH (aka Doug Hayashi) lap time was one of the main reasons Ryan went thru the trouble getting hold of Erick:wink: and not just "any" Penske dealer. Quite a few folks on Lotus Talk are pleasantly surprised of the Penskes by BWR as well and you would think Mother Lotus knows a lot about damping but we are sure even they have to "compromise" to appeal to a broader market for sales sake.

Knowing the difficulty getting hold of and the limited time Erick has for us, we try to keep the formula tight but we don't expect many will pony-up the money when the time is ripe. As long as you go in with your "eyes open" that they will be tuned for that combination and using another will be "off" a bit. It certainly wouldn't be a catastrophic performance "off" and the car would be completely drivable and everything....just not quite as ideal as it could be. 235/275 is the ideal size with threadwear 200 or less for grip. We have Dunlop Direzza ZII Star Spec and its a great tire with decent tread life.
Erick used to offer the option of re-using the oem hats(to save money in the early NSX days) or his custom hats below. But to KISS, we recommend his custom billet hats @$800 for 4. Track tested extensively to save time and logistic.

More PM answers and its no boosheet:
>Penske shocks are very customizable so we can put together a package that works for each car/person combination. They are not just pure racing shocks, It can be valved street friendly as well.

>Putting a set of used Penske shocks on anything other than what they were purposely built for is a good sized gamble. Since each set is custom built and valved for that particular individual, unless your goals and car prep is identical to the car that the shocks are coming off of, odds are they are going to be an unnecessary compromise in performance. Unlike virtually all of the other shocks out on the market, Penske shocks are custom built for you and your particular application and needs/wants. There is no such thing as an "off the shelf" Penske so most are not the same. The outside dimensions may be the same or similar, but the internals...the largest determining factor as to how well they work for your particular application...will be highly unlikely to be the same on any 2 given shocks. Even shocks for a particular car model that EMI sell a lot of, rarely use the same build up inside as each individual has different objectives and modifications done to their cars that make a difference as to what is put inside the shock.

Also, taking a set of used Penske shocks and then modifying the internals to your application can get a bit expensive if the basic piston design is not what is best for your particular application. There are 10 piston designs to choose from to give you an idea of how tunable the line is. Once the piston design is chosen, then there is a virtually limitless amount of different shim configurations and bleed configurations available to use on each of the pistons.​

 

[stuntman]

235/275 is the ideal size with threadwear 200 or less for grip. We have Dunlop Direzza ZII Star Spec and its a great tire with decent tread life.

There is no such thing as an "off the shelf" Penske so most are not the same. The outside dimensions may be the same or similar, but the internals...the largest determining factor as to how well they work for your particular application...will be highly unlikely to be the same on any 2 given shocks. Even shocks for a particular car model that EMI sell a lot of, rarely use the same build up inside as each individual has different objectives and modifications done to their cars that make a difference as to what is put inside the shock.]

There really isn't an "Ideal" size for the NSX, but rather 235/275 has been one of the most commonly used combinations over the past 10-15 years due to tire size and availability. Personally, a 225/35-17 & 275/35-18 would be a better choice to fit within the small front wheel arches better, but since that is a very rare size and there aren't many good options in that size, 235/40-17 has been the go-to (even though it rubs the fender liners and at full lock) due to the greater choices available, which is starting to decline in options as well.

There is nothing wrong with a 235/275 and personally, i'm leaning toward a 235/295 being a better split option due to the tire temps of my setup which suggest running a wider rear tire, which will also make it last longer. Due to tire choices, I may end up with a 225 or 245 front with the 295 or 305 rear. Also it's important to keep in mind that the tire width number "235" does not matter, but rather the ACTUAL TREAD WIDTH is what matters. This is a must-read to better understand how to properly chose and size your tires:

http://www.motoiq.com/MagazineArtic...LY-select-and-size-TIRES-for-PERFORMANCE.aspx

Also the UTQG "200 treadwear" DOES NOT MATTER. Read the above link for explanation. The Michelin PSS is rated at ~300 treadwear and is as sticky or stickier than many sub 200TW tires. I think it's important better understand tire sizing and selection and not push the commonly-held misunderstandings of tires.

You seem to harp on Penskes not being "off the shelf". Due to their business model, they don't offer a factory-direct 'off the shelf' offerings, and many other high end damper companies don't either. But there are aftermarket retail and race shops that do develop their own piston combination for a given car and platform and offer an "off the shelf" Pensek solution for their customers, to avoid all the complex time consuming and expensive development to come up with their own custom setup.

I'm a bit confused by this thread if it's trying to just convince people of the benefit of custom Penskes and to go to you (P2F) to work with EMI on their behalf to develop a custom set -which I would be supportive of; or if you guys came up with an 'off-the-shelf' Penske offering that had a wide range of adjustment for a given spring rate range that you guys have tested and offer baseline damper settings to start off with -which would probably avoid a lot of headaches and confusion for the customer.

You don't really want a full blown race damping or spring rate setup for a street/track car since pretty much all racecars ride like crap from a ride quality standpoint. IMO, most NSXs aren't track-only toys and the key would be to find a good compromise between performance and ride quality, and choosing valving that accomplishes this while allowing for some range of adjustment to slightly change spring rates to finely tune for a given customer's specific setup.

0.02

 

[liftnot]

200 is just the guide. use the best sticky tires you can afford by all means, NT-01 FTW, otherwise, why go thru the trouble buying expensive shocks. EMI is not the only shop knows how to build shocks. It just happen he has valid NSX data and he is proven and he is very good at what he does and he happens to be a long time Penske dealer for good reasons and he happens to be willing to help us on an individual specific bases because that is what he believes a balanced NSX can deliver a lot too and we are somewhat close to him. We are not trying to convince people as those who gets it are fully capable of making their own decisions but offering them the option should they like to try Penske. It is the same as your offering KW's and you trust your sources. but we don't want steel shocks for our alum cars and we have been driving on basic yellow bilsteins for a long time. Those who gets it, we will spend more time to discuss their specific needs thru PM. Penskes are not one size fits all. When a NSX becomes bigger and heavier, 235/275 is not enough but when its lighter, 235/275 is more ideal. We had 235/275 NT-05 and that was a great combo now we want a set of good shocks to control that. Sounds like you want to go bigger overall but we want to go the other direction to improve this car thru cg, pmi, moi, inertia, unsprung, less weight, less roll and IMO, that is always a good thing to do to make the car more efficient as we don't live much pass 120mph.

We are not coming up with anything new here. Its all proven stuff. You have your formulas and we have our formulas. Its not that hard to do the calculations. They are different and that does not mean either are wrong. If you or anybody can do 1:39 with a near stock NSX w/ the off-the-shelf KW's w/o aero, we would love to take driving lessons from you and buy you a beer to help us save us mucho bucks. Erick is very hard to get hold of and his time is very limited as well, and we hope we can pull this off for a few people because Erick is that good. unless you're willing to accommodate his schedule, by all means, go with the shops you know.

These Penske$$$$ are not going to fly off the shelf and we are not quitting our day job. Ryan's car rides very nice. Penskes can/should be valved according to the needs and wants of the buyers. Its all answered in our posts.

 

[stuntman]

I don't sell KWs.

Ryan's car can benefit from wider rear tires.

Ryan's car has a good amount of aero on his car when he did the 39, and his car is probably capable of 37s. My personal street car could probably do 39s on the NT05s that are on it now.

A super light NSX might see a benefit of 215/275 over 235/275. It all depends on how you want to approach a given problem and there are tons of ways of accomplishing the same goal.

I think you keep viewing me as a competitor for some reason, when I work with Erik on a constant basis, I've instructed Ryan, helped fine tune his damper settings, and built his spoiler. I'm just clarifying some misconceptions.

 

[liftnot]

The NSX Penske market is very very tiny. We can never be a competitor to KW. You said in your KW threads you helped to developed the KW a few years ago and perhaps also sponsored by them? many have bought them and are fine with them. We want another alternative thats all. You came here to correct us. We never went to your threads. I don't see any misconceptions. We just wish we have your mad skills.

We don't get any financial benefit from EMI or Penskes. The drive to his shop is PITA thru Orange County traffic but we want the best shock set up for what we want even if we can't do 1:39. This is no different for guys who spend $10k+ for a Tour de France bike but will never race. we have a great chassis so we want to see what a pro-valved shock feels like before we kick the bucket. If EMI had a track record with JRZ, Ohlins, KW, we'll go with that. We want the best and we are willing to save up for it.

 

[stuntman]

I had one of the first KW sets for the NSX and the FXMD car I drove was sponsored by them. Over the years I've had the pleasure to personally work on, help set up, and drive most coilovers out there on the NSX. I've also helped countless people help set up their coilovers, alignments, damper settings, and change spring rates.

For the KWs, I've given various street and damper baseline recommendations and spring rate options that work with the factory valving since I have personally had a lot of setup time with their off the shelf NSX damper and its a commonly used known quantity. You seem pretty bent on bashing them for having stainless steel bodies and for their spring choices. I explained how the OEM springs, coilovers that use the same spring rate (like KW) and coilovers that use stiffer front springs than rear all accomplish the same goal of a given wheel rate split. The misconception was that you claimed the spring rates had to be different for the car to be balanced, as well as what constitutes an 'ideal' tire size or UTQG.

Building a damper from scratch is tough and i've seen many companies come and go in the NSX community and have always helped out when spring choices were out in left field. I've also always preached the necessity to understand what the goals are for each individual and how important it is to know everything on their car before throwing out spring recommendations like most people do.

I don't want to pull your thread off topic, but I just dont like seeing misconceptions thrown around and spread. As I've said before, the support for a given suspension is often the key to its success and Erik/EMI is a very knowledgeable guy and you cant go wrong with him.

 

[liftnot]

nothing wrong with SS. we want alum. its not bashing. its preference. We discussed these numbers at length with Erick to come up with a doable plan. He is telling us what to do, not the other way around. We have no base line, we don't know how tune-able the KW are and what internal parts are available to create the curves that we want and its more than just changing springs. Not leveraging his knowledge of the Penske would be the wrong approach.
It will be silly to come up with our "own" valving after 30 yr. Heck, P2F doesn't even own a shock dyno but we know what it can do. We were inline so we gonna give it our best shot. People use all kinds of spring rates F/R and still ok with that and thats fine.

>Building a damper from scratch is tough......
thats why we are glad to have Erick around and folks who are willing to shell out the money are more likely to learn to get the most out of the shocks. P2F will provide after sale phone support to lessen Erick's work load. Did you not say Ryan's car is one of the most balanced street NSXs you've ever driven? and he is only a few seconds away from Randy time with the new NSX. That says a lot about this good old chassis.......so we want that.

when I was working at NPTI, Trevor Harris walked by our cubicles and I asked him about where is a good source to get good shocks.....but he said no two cars should have the same shocks and walked away. He thought I meant the two GTP cars #83/84 and he was thinking way ahead. I did not know what he meant until much later and Erick thinks the same.

 

[stuntman]

My recommendation was to work with erik to come up with a good Penske valving that would accept a spring rate range that would offer a good compromise of ride quality and on track performance, and having enough range of adjustment to allow for slight spring rate changes to fine tune for each persona specific setup. This creating and offering an "off the shelf solution" for the NSX community. That is if you could come to an agreement with him that compensates him and does not just take his knowledge to profit off of. But since Erik's really busy, it might be worth exploring a mutually beneficial relationship that offers a great product to the community, saving people the hassle of developing a setup from scratch.

Ryan's car oversteered a bit too much initially. We adjusted the alignment and dampers to calm it down but it needed a spring rate change to be ideal. Instead, we added more rear downforce which picked up a couple seconds in lap time and balanced out his suspension setup quite nicely. Aero has a big influence on the cara handling.

With a slight amount more aero and a slightly stickier tire, comparable to the new NSX's Trofeo Rs, I don't think it would be difficult to make Ryan's car turn the same lap time as Randy did in the new NSX because his car is probably within 2 seconds of it as it sits. The original NSX was a great platform. It just needed a little more tire, aero, power, and suspension work.

 

[liftnot]

>That is if you could come to an agreement with him that compensates him and does not just take his knowledge to profit off of.
we are not that kinda people. He can tell...thats why he is willing but it will be a test of patience with his racing schedule.

Thread #18
>We don't get any financial benefit from EMI or Penskes.

 

[liftnot]

Thx to Sugoi who hook us up with Andrie Hartanto(www.prima-racing.com) who used to race/track NSX quite often in the Bay area back in the days. We now have a legit second source for Penske shocks AND Andrie is a JRZ dealer too for those who have JRZ:wink:.

Andrie has all the suspension data on the NSX as well as shock dyno to valve your shocks specifically for your car.

[FONT=&quot]I have experience with Koni 3012 based comptech pro suspension. I developed Koni 2812 which Ferrand Kong in Seattle run, Moton triple adjustable, JRZ, Penske, KW club sport, Sachs, ohlins TTX, MCS etc. I'm a certified dealer for Penske and JRZ. I'm the first one that was directly trained by Penske to do regressive valving in the Bay Area. There are a lot of good shock out there but it is my believe the Penske is currently the best.

[/FONT][FONT=&quot]Andrie is leaving for PRI tomorrow but when he gets back, he will do a proper post so you can contact him direct. [/FONT]

 

[scammy]

Thx to Sugoi who hook us up with Andrie Hartanto(www.prima-racing.com) who used to race/track NSX quite often in the Bay area back in the days. We now have a legit second source for Penske shocks AND Andrie is a JRZ dealer too for those who have JRZ:wink:.

Andrie has all the suspension data on the NSX as well as shock dyno to valve your shocks specifically for your car.

I have experience with Koni 3012 based comptech pro suspension. I developed Koni 2812 which Ferrand Kong in Seattle run, Moton triple adjustable, JRZ, Penske, KW club sport, Sachs, ohlins TTX, MCS etc. I'm a certified dealer for Penske and JRZ. I'm the first one that was directly trained by Penske to do regressive valving in the Bay Area. There are a lot of good shock out there but it is my believe the Penske is currently the best.

Andrie is leaving for PRI tomorrow but when he gets back, he will do a proper post so you can contact him direct.

I would like to hear how he rates his top 5 or so and reasons why

 

[liftnot]

he'll be back. PM is best to keep the noise down:wink: EMI said similar. why? it would get too sparky in public.