Building the front struts

I started out with the standard 323 front struts. The shock shaft has been shortened by 100mm and then re-tapped to M14X1.5. The next step was to ditch the old 323 shocks and holders. I removed the old spring cups from the shock body with an angle grinder and then smoothed everything off. You can buy adjustable sleeves and nuts that you can then weld onto the shock - but the local supplier had the customer service of a tree stump and my tolerance for poor service is zero. Also - the bought kit came in at over $300. In the end I was lucky enough to spot some second hand KW coilover shocks on Trademe for $100. There would be some people cringing around now - these retail for over $1200 new. I biffed the shocks and cut up the struts (they’re stainless) to get the stainless thread that I could then weld onto my strut. By fluke the I.D of the KW ones was only marginally smaller than mine. I machined them out on a lathe with a boring tool. You get about 110mm of adjustment but you still need to do a mock install to see how low you want the car to sit. Once I’d found the right height I tig welded them to the strut body.



I also incorporated keeper springs (the yellow ones). They are a lower spring rate and just help keep everything captive when the car is jacked up. The main springs are rated at 6kg/mm. Pretty stiff - but I’ll see how they feel once everything is back together. I machined the spring hat out of billet aluminium and these have a little lip that go straight into the spherical bearing of the adjustable camber plates. I also machined up and tapped a thread into some round bar - then tig welded a nut on top to bolt the shock shaft to the camber plates.



I was going to make up some camber plates but in the end it was cheaper and more time economical to buy some. I found some on ebay (Mookeeh) with blank mounts (i.e drill and stud them yourself) for $100US).



They seem okay - you can replace the bearing in them so if it’s crap I’ll do that. So once everything is installed then you can dial up the preload to make the ride really stiff or dial it down to ride in the weeds!