Hi guys and dolls.

BC have recently developed some coilovers for the ST205.
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/BC-Adjustable-Coilov...A1%7C240%3A1318

Normally eveyrone in the UK only buy Tein an TRD coilovers and tent to avoid every other brands when it comes to coilover.
Recently in GBP isnt doing so well and Tein has also anounced a huge price increase hence putting me into the "definately cant afford" status.

Well the new BC coilovers have adopted the idea of using the origional housing of the stock Super strut shocks and changing the inserts like the D2, k-sport and G4's. In a nutshell it's a crap design but BC's inserts are different as they require you to cut the stock shocks down and allowing you to use the full length of the coilover shocks.

Here are some pictures I've been sent and I've been convinced to be the first to try a set in the UK.










Untill now I've not heard of BC before in the UK but after doing some research, I've found that they're pretty good.
So what's everyones opinion with BC around the world on other cars? Has anyone experienced using them before?

Ray

last week search coilovers for my celica and find this bc coilovers
it is more cheap than megan racing and tein
they have a site in uk

That's not the same one Celica3000.
This one is for the ST202 and they never made one for the ST205 untill now because of the complicated superstrut design.
They are a lot cheaper than other brands and I'm more interested in their reputation with other cars.

This post has been edited by yellowchinaman: Jan 25, 2009 - 9:01 AM

yes, i see it is st 205
i share the information to the guys see it is cheap and read about thesse coilovers

Ray, very usefull information. thanks.
Will you buy them?

This post has been edited by VinT: Jan 29, 2009 - 1:23 PM

yes I did. Arrived this morning and I'm the first in the UK to have them. I'll be writing aup a review after I've fitted them.

Im going to get these for my Celica...
prefer them over the aliminium D2's, these seem stronger + as you mentioned, reasonably priced.

Ok so I've had a good inspection of the BC coilovers and read the leaftlets that came with it.
I'vealso taken some close up pictures and voice my thoughts and elaberate on a few features.
The kit for the ST205 is coilovers are the BR Type which is BC flagship Gold and black product.
THere is a thinner one available in the UK which is the V1 design and they are red and black.
The difference is a bit like the Tein Super street and Super drift.

The entire kit looks like this.

None of that silly purple, or metalic blue colour.
It looks sleak and looks like it does the job.
The kit comes with 2 keys, on eslightly larger than the other for height adjustments.
Also included is a long alan key for adjusting the top mounts.

The first think I noticed was its Triple lock ring design boasting that common alu rings chew up the threads after a few adjustments.
I couldnt help thinking the key isnt as heavy duty and thick as the rings its self and that the hooks looked a bit shallow and that after a few slips, I could end up rounding off the rings.


But when placed on teh rings itself, it actually felt quite sturdy but I still didnt like the hooks of the keys being slightly rounded.


The groves on the rings where at a slight angle where the key hooks on quite tightly. Still I'd be cautious about ajusting it at the wrong angle.

Next thing I noticed was that the top and bottom ends of the springs where welded at the tip unlike normal lowering springs on a normal SSS setup.
There is also a L shaped ring seated at the top and bottom of the springs.
This is all so that there is no squeaking or rubbing of metal on metal like what you'd find on TRD and Tein lowering springs. I'm not sure if other coilovers have the same design feature.


Now this set comes with adjustable "TRUE CHAMBER" topmounts in the front but not the rear.
What they mean by true chamber top mounts is compared to the D2, these align upso that the adjustments can move in a perfect horizontal motion not in a 45 degree angle.

The top mount looks pretty impressive. I've seen the TRD and Tein top mounts and this looks like its the business. There's no Hard rubber but made of I believe solid steal same as the rear. Though the rear is not adjustable, it is already fixed at an angle.



The front has bearings which helps reduce the damping force delivered to the pillow and is suppose to be very durable.


Next off is the actual cylinder. They are 53mm pistons which is suppose to be larger than other street competitors that uses 44mm pistons.
And because its not the actual cylinder being inserted into the SSS legs, it is larger and holds more volume.
Wthin the springs, I couldnt help noticing that teh rubber gater which keeps the dirt off looks a bit flimsy. Yes it does the job but it does look like a gineric part.

Pulling it back I discovered what looks like a bump stop inside the gater.


The finish looks 50/50 with these. The shiny end look very shiny and the welds didnt look too bad. Yes some bits looked like an overkill of weld

And some the rest looked nice and consistant

But look carefully at the black paint, it doesn't look very neat. I dont think it was powdercoated bup prayed and around the welds where quite a bit of excess flakes.

Last of all the actual inset.
This is the bit which needs to be inserted into the SS legs.
Its seperate from the cyliner and of clean metal allowing you to spot weld it to the legs.

I'm a bit sceptical about welding this because Im worried about the oil heating up inside the shocks.
But I guess they must have thought this through hence why the insert its self is hollow allowing it to cool quicker

I guess I'll only know on the day at the workshop.

One other thing. The Damping adjuster at the top.
It can be adjusted to 30 levels of firmness.
Unlike the TRD adjustable shocks which just have 1,2,3 and 4
It turns over about 3 times and clicks about every 2 mm of a turn.
It is great that it has 30 settings but I'm thinking that each time I change the settings I'll have to turn it all the way to soft, and count the number of clicks up to make sure its the same on both sides.

Well thats it for now. I should hopefully be welding these to the legs next week and please excuse my poor spelling and grammar.

Megan coilovers are indeed getting cheaper. Got mine for 800 bucks or so and they used to be over 1000.

This post has been edited by trdproven: Jan 31, 2009 - 8:13 AM

yeah unfortunately for us here in the uk the GBP isn't ddoing so well so price of imports have gone u alot. Where as it used to cost about £1000 foro Tein coilovers here, it's not about £1500 because the price has gone up too.

please and thank you for keep us updated on this brand...we'll all wait for your opinions...

good review
send email for bc uk ask shipping to portugal £45 more the coilovers £649
total £694- €787.63 good price
i am attemped to buy

This post has been edited by celica3000: Feb 1, 2009 - 7:06 AM

i'm still stumped as to how these are installed. you'll need to remove the 'base' of your stock suspension in order to fit these? how are you supposed to do that?

I think that has to be done only for the super strut suspension, for normal McPherson that's not needed.

>

Its teh bottom legs of the superstrut which is costing a lot of money to make. Thats why D2, G Force, K Sport etc all offers coilover which is inserted into the legs like chaning the hydrolics. But this give a very short travel. Only 3 inchs I believe which is rubbish. Only TRD and Tein make a full superstrut coilover.
This one isdifferent because it requires you to cut the legs down to the bottom and they offer a bigger and logercoilover which in inserted in by about 2 inches and welded onto the stock legs.
This allows thefull travel of the full coilover like TRD and Tein but at less then half the cost.
Look at the first page and you'll understand

>

Correct.

I had a bit of set back. The used legs donated to me had broken top ball joints so I need to order them first.

i understand that part, i bought a set of blown superstrut shocks (i wanted it for the lowering springs and top mounts) and it looked like the 'legs' were welded to the struts. my question should have been: how much work is involved to remove the legs from the struts? i already threw mine out a long time ago. i thought they were useless but damn i should have kept them.

not alot. I've not taken the inserts out personally buy my friend who donated these old ones to me had D2's and he said they came out easily. But it was a messy job. KYB offers replacement inserts. as long as you know the sice and travel range etc.. you can get almost anyone to send you a set of inserts.

Hey im doing some rearch on lowering my car, and BC coilovers seem to be in a good price range. I have a few questions...how long will these coilovers last (that is if the 205 is close to the 204) and a more generic question. Are coilovers rebuildable/repairable?

how long will they last is like asking how long is a piece of string?
There's no actual milage garantee but there is a 1 years worrentee.
All the parts can be replace. If you have a BC supplier in your country then you can order replacements parts. Anything specific to the ST205 coilover which is in need to replace would need to be ordered through performance guru in NZ otherwise it's all rebuildable.
I think they do make a macpherson version for the ST202 as well. Check on ebay.

^yes they make it for the st202/3/4. Ive got my eyes set on these now, time to save up

save up because in the end I'm organising a group buy and so I'm sure I can help you out too when the time comes.

^ that sounds great man, i was going to organise something for the aussie members who were interested but yeh GB ftw!

Last night I started working on cutting the stock leg Taras had donated to me for this project.
The aim was to cut the leg down to just the lower section of the superstrut.
The tools I had to do this job with was:

Angle grinder with grinding and cutting blades
hacksaw
File
Vice clamp

And for safety:
Goggles and gloves

I first started by securing the legs in a vice clamp and then began cutting away with the angle grinder.
The first problem was clamping it securely. Because the legs had other bits like the brake hose holder sticking out, I was limited to how to clamp it down and also my angle grinder couln't cut all the way round.

I managed to cut about 2 thirds the way round and about less then a cm away from the bottom.
Using a hacksaw I manually sawed the rest off.

These where the bits that was not needed:

and I was left with this:


Next thing was to change the blades to a grindig blade and stert to take the excess bits down to the bottom and evening it out.

This took a long time because even though I cut the legs down with less then 1cm left, that was still a lot to grind away.
Also towards the end I had to stop, check and grind again trying to make sure that the surface was evenly flat. This really tested my patience.

After when I thought I had finished with the angle grinder, I used a course flat file and started to skim the surface in all directions to ensure the surface was flat.


The end result was a mnice, smooth and flat surface.


Notice how I left about a 1mm edge there.
In the instructions, it dodnt say how far you're suppose to take it down to. I decided to not take it all the way down because I didn't want to risk making a mess with the angle grinder and to give a bit of a lip for when i tap weld it.
As long as both legs are evenly the same there shouldnt be a problem.

So here they are after cutting:


And give them a good wash:


Then finally back home for a test fit:

Now they're looking more like a super strut coil over

NOTE that I didnt insert them fully just in case I had to take them off again.
I was really impress how nicely they fitted into the legs. It was air tight with no play what so ever and I had to tap it a bit to get it that far in. At first I was a bit worried abut it not fitting here because if it was too big, I'd have to drill the leg a bit and too small would mean play and that will ruin everything.
BC had made these insert to fit perfectly and I'm very pleased with it so well done.

Next is to order new bushes as the ones in the legs now are leaking and there's none in stock so I should get them by next week.
Then I'll need to take it to my friends workshop for the leaking bushes to be pressed out and replaced and finally insert the coilovers in and weld them down.


Overvies so far:
Everything is coming to plan and there has been no surprises. The scariest bit is over and I'm a bit relieved.
Cutting the legs took just over 2 hours with the tools I had.
I do want to point out that this was not a job for the faint hearted. I was covered in metal shavings and made a bit of a mess at the garage.
Where as most DIY mechanics are confident with bolt on and bolt off upgrades, this definately requires some engineering confidence and a lot of patiences.
I did enjoy doing this but I can also imagine that a lot of people would be reluctant to give it a try.
However, this only applys to the ST205 superstrut. ST185, and ST202,3,4 BC coil overs wouldn't have to face this problem but I'm sure most ST205 owners wouldnt mind this becasue we are faffers and saving almost a grand with these coilovers if they work.

Looking good. But I have one question..
Are there any fastening in this connections?

nope. You just press them all the way in and then weld around the edges.
I found out that surprisingly, a few amature rally teams use the same method to make their own coilovers on the ST205 in in the middle easter countries so it must be pretty strong and proven to work.

Look at the size of that shock on the coilover. Its almst the same size as the oil filter!:



This post has been edited by yellowchinaman: Feb 5, 2009 - 11:23 AM

>
I see. Thanks.

ok another small update.
I didnt do much last week because I went away with the misses and yesterday I had my engineere press out the warn bushes and replaced with new ones.


For those who was worried about welding and cooking the shocks well I found this out. It comes apart!!!!


After spot welding it they finally finished off as a full SS coilover.


Hopefully this weekend I'll have them installed.

Hello!
I have a D2 coiloverkit and it works fine in the rear but in front the damping hight is just ½an ince, but they have just taken my front kit back and remaked the kits for the superstrut celicas. The new kit is like the BC one. I can update you with pictures after the installation. Also the dampers are upgraded to a new better version as well.

>

So D2 have now adopted the insert design same as BC?
Its been a while and I've not updated anything. Basically I'm stuck because there is a problem withe these BC coilovers.
I'm having to pain-steakingly cut off the welds to correct a mistake in thes coilovers and its very annoying and I'm still not done.
I'll post up the details later after I've corrected them.

For those of you eagerly awaiting more info, here's a quote from yellowchinaman via gt4dc via gt4oc.net forum

-"yellowchinaman"+