Dampers and coils

[saxon]

My pre-cat is still on the original Koni's and the ride is a little too soft I feel after 28 years!! Great on the motorway though!!

I don't track the car and am interested in what people recommend. main options seem to be:

Protech £560+fitting
Gaz Gold Pro £625+ fitting
Nitron £1200+fitting

To be honest I know everyone says Nitron's are the best but cost is an issue so it's more a choice between the Protech and Gaz Gold really I think unless the difference with Nitrons is really night and day!!

Grateful for any views. I'm guessing I should allow about £150 for fitting - is that right?

Saxon

[Jobster]

take the uprated Billstein's provided by Ben Lang. Fit and forget.

[Belle427]

I’m just removing a set of gaz golds to go back to billies as I don’t track it am am not interested in the adjustability.
The dampers were refurbed by gaz about 1500 miles ago, springs have some minor powder coat lifting that have been touched up but nothing major.
They will be going on eBay in a week or so for less than half the price of a new set, they are for a Chim but I’m guessing they are the same.

[magpies]

if going back to billies I would also fit height adjustable kits from RallyDesign or Burtons. I've done that on my S1.

[rigga]

You won't beat protech customer service, and they are a great product.

[angus337]

Another option is Gaz monotube, similar design to the Nitrons, but a fair bit cheaper. Very happy with mine.

[v12.24v]

The old Koni dampers are adjustable. Do you tried this already?
http://www.koni.com/en-US/Cars/Technology/Adjustme...

In my Griffith 500 I had also koni dampers and adjusted them, works very well but is also a lot of work because you need to remove the dampers from the car, and you have disassemble the spring and ubber mounting eye.
But, I have switched meanwhile also to the Ben lang Bildteil set up. Best regards

Edited by v12.24v on Sunday 14th June 10:12

Edited by v12.24v on Sunday 14th June 10:12

[Moose v8]

Myself used protech very pleased with product

[Toma500]

Ive had protechs on for ten years gone back to billies 3 rebuilds in that time and if you drive all year they squeak at the rose joints after a while cant fault the customer service and rebuilds are cheap but if you want to fit and forget billies your mate

[saxon]

Thanks for all the suggestions. I'm ruling out anything that costs more than about £600 purely on grounds of spending so much on the car already this year (full retrim, new hood and a heap of fault fixing)

Had a nice email back from Koni saying I could have the dampers serviced for £75 each plus parts and oil, to shot blast and re-powder coat them is a further £75 each. In short it's about the same cost as a new set of Protech, Gaz gold Pro or similar. No idea how they compare.

I would welcome any thoughts people have on this option - interesting as I hadn't realised the Koni were adjustable. I guess it would be nice from an originality point of view but they didn't mention anything about coils so I'm not sure how much replacing those might add to the bill as I'm pretty sure mine must be shot after 28 years and 73000 miles. They're certainly covered in crud!

Saxon

[O mage]

saxon said:

Thanks for all the suggestions. I'm ruling out anything that costs more than about £600 purely on grounds of spending so much on the car already this year (full retrim, new hood and a heap of fault fixing)

Had a nice email back from Koni saying I could have the dampers serviced for £75 each plus parts and oil, to shot blast and re-powder coat them is a further £75 each. In short it's about the same cost as a new set of Protech, Gaz gold Pro or similar. No idea how they compare.

I would welcome any thoughts people have on this option - interesting as I hadn't realised the Koni were adjustable. I guess it would be nice from an originality point of view but they didn't mention anything about coils so I'm not sure how much replacing those might add to the bill as I'm pretty sure mine must be shot after 28 years and 73000 miles. They're certainly covered in crud!

Saxon
If they are not leaking you could take the front pair off and adjust them up then see if its made a difference if it does you could do the rear at little cost.

[ChimpOnGas]

saxon said:

Thanks for all the suggestions. I'm ruling out anything that costs more than about £600 purely on grounds of spending so much on the car already this year (full retrim, new hood and a heap of fault fixing)

While I appreciate you're trying to keep costs down, the Bilsteins are so much better than the slightly cheaper Protech and Gaz Gold Pro options I'd encourage you to see if you can stretch your budget a little by £100 a corner. Why not fit the Bilsteins in pairs to spread the cost, do the fronts or rears first, then when funds permit do the other end of the car. I ran Gaz Gold Pros for a number of years before moving to the Mk4 Bilsteins from Ben Lang, these were specified in Mk2 Tuscan S spec and were custom strung and valved to my car, the difference is night and day better.

If you drive your Griff on British roads I would strongly advise avoiding any coil overs that have rose joints at either end, rose jointed suspension has no place on the road, ride quality on rose jointed suspension is always going to be horrible compared with rubber bushes and rose joints will always be a lot noisier too. Keep in mind the purpose of suspension is to suspend, it should isolate the car and driver from poor surfaces and keep your tyres in contact with the road at all times.

When I ran Gaz Gold Pros my ride was very harsh compared with the far superior Bilsteins, I had to have My Gaz units rebuilt once as one damper had started to leak badly and all the aluminum collars on the lower rose joints had become oval causing vague handling and lots of nasty noises. I think people believe the firmer and harsher the suspension the better the car will handle and faster they'll cover ground, the reality of course is the complete opposite is true, for example Lotus have long understood to go faster you actually need compliant and well damped suspension.

With the Gaz suspension my TVR banged and crashed about, the car would skip and changed direction on rough B roads without steering input, when I switched to Bilsteins they literally transformed the car, on normal British roads where we all actually drive the car stopped skipping about because the suspension was actually soaking up the irregularities in the road surface. The result was a much more comfortable and controlled drive, piloting the car became way less stressful as I was no longer banging and crashing about.

Quite simply the car handled massively better on the superior damped and rubber bushed Bilsteins so was actually much much faster A to B than its was on the super adjustable and rose jointed Gaz track focused suspension, my 4.0 litre Chimaera became a proper B road weapon that on such roads is now way faster than my mates Gaz equipped 5.0 litre Chimaera, a car that has a lot more grunt!

You've come onto PH for advice, I'm very confident in saying paying a little bit more per corner and selecting Bilstein suspension is the very best advice you'll get.

[Moose v8]

I do agree with previous post up to point, but it's also down to personal preference, my Griff has double adjustable protech fully polly bushed, the ride is firm but wouldn't say over hard handles well. Regarding Road noise can you hear it over the exhaust I can't 🤔

[neutral 3]

Bilsteins yellow sports, All day long. Koni are very good as well, I worked in the suspension industry some years ago, for one of the major cos.
Fit Bilstein to all of my quick cars, inc two Griffs.

[saxon]

Interesting the very strong advice re: Bilstein - I appreciate it. As the Bilstein are the same price as Nitron's roughly I would welcome views from experts on how comparable they are. I haven't taken the car on a track in 23 years but might do very occasionally in future so it's 99% road use.

Thanks,

Saxon

[neutral 3]

saxon said:

Interesting the very strong advice re: Bilstein - I appreciate it. As the Bilstein are the same price as Nitron's roughly I would welcome views from experts on how comparable they are. I haven't taken the car on a track in 23 years but might do very occasionally in future so it's 99% road use.

Thanks,

Saxon

The quality of Bilstein verses others is like night and day. Bilstein were OE fit for the works and Alpina race teams, for their BMW 3.0CSLs, in the ETC race series from 1973. They are also fully re buildable. I fitted a new pair of Nitrons to the front of my car a few years ago. They are ok, but not a patch on the new rear Bilsteins ( with the Tuscan settings ) that I fitted recently.

Your Koni springs will be saggy after all these years. Koni are very good units, OE for Ferrari and Maserati and Lamborghini for years. The early Konis have to be stripped to adjust them, which is a faff.
Sadly nothing is cheap when it comes to TVRs and quality suspension. If I were you I would bite the bullit and go for the Bilstein ( yellow Sports )
I have a spare used rear pair, for sale cheaply, they are on F/ B market place.

Edited by neutral 3 on Tuesday 16th June 14:18

[ray von]

saxon said:

Interesting the very strong advice re: Bilstein - I appreciate it. As the Bilstein are the same price as Nitron's roughly I would welcome views from experts on how comparable they are. I haven't taken the car on a track in 23 years but might do very occasionally in future so it's 99% road use.

Thanks,

Saxon

If you want experts views you've come to the right place I've had TVR's with Nitrons, Gaz and Bilsteins. If I was getting any now it would be Bilsteins 100%. Gaz may have improved but I had a very bad experience with them.
I've posted this before a TVR dealer told me " The problem with most TVR owners is they buy other brands then spend all their time getting the car to drive as though they are running Bilsteins"

CoG is bang on the money IMHO

[neutral 3]

ray von said:

If you want experts views you've come to the right place I've had TVR's with Nitrons, Gaz and Bilsteins. If I was getting any now it would be Bilsteins 100%. Gaz may have improved but I had a very bad experience with them.
I've posted this before a TVR dealer told me " The problem with most TVR owners is they buy other brands then spend all their time getting the car to drive as though they are running Bilsteins"

CoG is bang on the money IMHO

GAZ...... me too and their customer service was simply appalling, Never again.

[Zener]

neutral 3 said:

ray von said:

If you want experts views you've come to the right place I've had TVR's with Nitrons, Gaz and Bilsteins. If I was getting any now it would be Bilsteins 100%. Gaz may have improved but I had a very bad experience with them.
I've posted this before a TVR dealer told me " The problem with most TVR owners is they buy other brands then spend all their time getting the car to drive as though they are running Bilsteins"

CoG is bang on the money IMHO

GAZ...... me too and their customer service was simply appalling, Never again.

In all fairness I like my Mono's for what I want the right choice I also run heavier springs , found stock springs and dampers wallow driven hard (not surprising they are a road focused set-up) for for all round ability and reliability Bilstein also get my vote when I sent the Mono's in for a service (O/S/R had lost its gas) in the original boxes and packaged due to their value they promptly misplaced the full set (I had proof they had been delivered) the threat of "Well looks like you owe me a set of new Mono's then" seemed to get things rolling along nicely

[BIG DUNC]

OP, I was in a similar position to you.
Two years ago I was finishing the body off job on my pre cat and had gone way over budget.

I was hoping to wire brush and paint the original Koni’s. I knew that at donkey’s years old they should be replaced but I thought I would run the car for a year first to spread the cost.

However, I observed that the force needed to compress each one was massively different so at least 3 of them were goosed.

I was really tight on budget and went for pro-techs.

I have been very happy with them. I didn’t really want anything adjustable, but it was satisfying spending a bit of time playing with ride height and damping. Now it is as I like it, I probably won’t touch them again.

I am not saying they are the best, or better than other suggestions on this thread. What I am saying is that you won’t regret it and the car will drive nicely on them.

Just my 2ps worth.