Seefo

bilstein will cut new circlip rings when you send the shock for a rebuild. Bilstein Supra shocks come with two circlip cuts I think. We ended up buying used OEM Bilsteins from a jap car since we wanted to rebuild them upfront.

Any decent shock rebuild or even local machine shop can cut you new circlip rings for a fraction of what a rebuild will cost though.

Sc400Axa

How much car is lower (your set up) than stock SC300 ?
What will be difference in high (with your set up) on first gen SC400 ?

flash9

This is my current ride height measured from the fender wall to the center of the tire rim. See my earlier posts for clarification.
I can not speak for the 1st Generation SC400 since I do not own one.

Sc400Axa

flash9 : Could you please explain (some picture) regarding "NOTE: When ordering the shocks, I paid $10 per shock to have Bilstein CA cut a new snap ring grove 7” down the shock body. This allowed the 7” Coilover Sleeves to fit without doing any cutting of the sleeves." - cannot see how sleeve is mounted on shock (snap ring).

flash9

I hope this helps:
There is a step, inside the coilover sleeve that sits on this snap ring.
Someone has reported to me that they now charge $15 each but still well worth the cost to know it is done right.

Sc400Axa

Thanks flash9
So you bought yours on http://www.ajusa.com/ and send them to Bilstien CA to make new location for snap ring (7" from top for all 4) and Bilstien CA ship you back.
You contact this ?
http://www.bilsteinus.com/about-bilstein/contact/
AFTERMARKET & MOTORSPORTS HEADQUARTERS - WEST
thyssenkrupp Bilstein of America
14102 Stowe Drive
Poway, CA. 92064
1-858-386-5900

flash9

I would suggest you contact Amanda (800-877-1911 x122) at AJUSA. She should be able to help you.
Basically, AJUSA has Bilstein pull them from their inventory and cut the grove before drop shipping them directly to you.
This reduces the shipping fees and I think AJUSA offers free shipping.
Just an FYI - To keep things simple, I suggest you tell Amanda and Bilstein you are installing these onto a Toyota Supera.
They really do not like the idea of people installing these on cars Bilstien has not tested them on.

Asha'man

iTrader: (1)

This is excellent info. I have the original gixxer_drew setup from about 2010 or so, before the alleged revision of the shock bodies. I have 600lb front springs and 375lb rears, as I was going for a sporty/track oriented setup. They were on my '95 SC400 until earlier this year, when that car got backburnered in favor of my newly acquired '92 five speed SC300. That car saw seven track days this past season and I felt like the suspension did very well, though I'm only just learning how to drive fast on the road course and am even further behind in analyzing vehicle performance in such a scenario.

My thoughts at this point are that for a dedicated road course car, more spring rate would be nice and probably some upgraded internal valving to handle it. Since my SC300 is nice and straight and is a rare chassis (factory hardtop, no sunroof), I'm thinking it'll stay a street car and might see a 1JZ or something down the road, and I'll bring my SC400 out of mothballs, stick a manual tranny in it, put it on a serious diet, and make it the dedicated road course car. Since there don't seem to be any good coilover setups for the track for less than $1500 or more except the gixxer_drew setup, I'm extremely glad to hear you say there haven't been any major changes to the AK shocks. I actually asked a Bilstein rep at SEMA this year about those changes, but of course it's such a specific bit of info that he didn't know of any changes offhand.

Any info on what Bilstein CA charges to revalve? I'd love to be able to run some more spring rate right off the bat without dropping a ton of cash, but if that has to wait until the car is actually on the track, so be it. I can stick with what I have on the other car (600/375) and make it work until I get faster and push the car further.

I'll also hopefully be adding some info to Seefo's suspension spreadsheet. My 300 with me in it (205lbs or so) weighed 3550 at the track this past October, and my 400 weighed 3700 on the nose in the same situation, though with a heavy set of 19's on it. I'm hoping to drop ~200 lbs out of the 400 without losing too much functionality as a streetable car, but we'll see what happens.

Here's the 300 at the last event this year, at Pueblo Motorsports Park here in Colorado.

Seefo

It was ~$350 for us to revalve them at a local shop that is highly recommended by autocross guys. His pricing was almost identical to bilstein, except he had a 2-4 week turn around vs. 6-8 weeks. This did NOT include any circlip cutting.

Clear

Hey guys, thought I'd chime in on buying these struts from AJUSA, if you contact Amanda, she can actually pull up recent invoices, and duplicate orders. I gave her flash9's invoice information and she was able to pull it up and then all I had to do was tell her to cut the circlip lower. After getting the circlips lowered and paying for the struts, my total came out to $450 and some change.

If you want my invoice information to make it easy, just PM me and I can send it to you.
Happy Holidays!
​​​​​

Here's a pic of what one of the struts looks
Circlip lowered 7 inches

Sc400Axa

Looks like Moog K90292 is not currently available, is there any special about this part, as high quality ?
Or can be used one from ebay "Monroe New Shock and Strut Mount Rear for Toyota Supra Lexus SC400 SC300 92-2000" ?

flash9

Nothing special about the Moog Shock Mounts - Any Lexus SC300 or SC400 Front and Rear Shock mounts can work.
I think many Toyota Supra Mounts of the same time-frame might also be interchangeable and they might be less expensive.

Sc400Axa

While assembling shocks I discovered that new groove (7" from top) was not cut deep enough so sleeve cannot go over it (C ring need to be around half inch in sleeve) sleeve sit on top of C ring.
Does anybody has issue like this ?
Just looking under magnifier can be easily seen that new groove is not deep as original one.
Guess, there is no quick fix, the only way is to return to be redone.

flash9

Did Bilstein cut the relocated snap ring grove?

They do so many of these I just find it hard to believe they would mess this up.

Sc400Axa

Yes, Bilstein did it for all 4 and, all 4 are cut on same way - groove was not deep enough.
Part Number: BIL AS003
Item: DAMPER SHAFT REPLACEMENT
Fits: new groove and move c clip 7in from shock body
Qty: 4
Unit Price: $15.00
Price: $60.00