Gaz Coilover Ordering & Fitment Experience

[josepilove]

Hi All, I'm long-time lurker, but I figured it was time i contribute something.

I recently ordered a set of GAZ GHA coilovers from Corby Motorsports in Essex, UK. I chose to go with GAZ because:
A) they make coilovers for race cars and I liked knowing that they were built by people who build race cars --yes, I know I got the non-motorsport ones, but my car will only see light auto-x, GAZ Gold are their "motorsport-rated" ones.
B) they zinc coat the entire assembly including the steering knuckle.
C) they seemed pretty competitive on price.

This is not intended to be a thread to hash out or argue about who makes the best coilovers for e28, but rather a place to document my experience ordering and having a set made up, since there seems to be very little first-hand knowledge of the process.

April 12 - I ordered the coilovers online - i paid £668.91 plus £80 shipping to the US--it came out to about $950. On the order page they said they'd contact me to provide instructions for shipping my strut-tube cores to them.

April 19 - I FINALLY got an email from them, i guess they took a long Easter holiday. They provided shipping information and confirmed that the entire unit would be black zinc coated before being shipped back to me, 3 weeks after the cores arrived.
The "standard" units allow for ~75mm of drop from stock, but they could build shocks for ~100mm of drop. I'm only looking for about 60mm and 40mm, so I went with their standard offering.

April 22 - I got the cores all packed up. They (and you) want you to remove everything from the hubs before shipping. It cost about $130 to ship via USPS (UPS and FedEx were around $300). The post office said there wasn't any tracking info available, but I was able to track right up until delivery using the customs number.

Everything removed

Spindles wrapped for protection

Taped and safety-wired together--this actually worked well and made a semi-compact package

Final size of the package. I believe it was 25lbs


May 3 - USPS tracking shows the package delivered.

May 11 - I haven't heard anything since they were delivered. I am waiting to hear when they get shipped. They say 3 week lead-time, so they will be on their way back state-side at the end of the month. I'll update when I hear more.

May 15 - I have been told they will ship out at the latter-half of next week.

[Sleeper21]

Ive been looking at Gaz too

[josepilove]

FINALLY!

Well, it was pretty disconcerting to see how this box arrived. It was a miracle that nothing was missing.


But everything arrived and looked alright.


The coating isn't perfect...actually quite a few scratches and nicks...some abrasion from the poor packaging.


Front


Gaz's standard spring rate for the front is 450lb/in - 8 inch long springs.


Unless I can't read (I'm pretty sure I can) there wasn't any information that said the front springs would be 2.25", so I had to call up Ground Control and order some new perches...THAT was a delightful process. I don't like talking on the phone, but within 5 minutes I had the right parts on order for $49 shipped - they'll be here by the weekend.


Top adjusters are pretty standard (42 position)


75mm (~5") of front adjustment

It appears that they kept the original strut tube, cut off the perch, and threaded the tube; the brake line retainer is bent the same way it was when I shipped it to them.

The website also said very little about the top hat situation. For the fronts there are two little aluminum top hats that would allow mounting on the stock strut mounts.


Rear

Bare shock


Rear springs aren't marked for rate, but they do say "E28" on them.


Stock diameter and 11.5" long.


About 7" of adjustment


Adjuster (42 position)

Rears don't have a top perch, but the stock ones should do just fine.


Overall
I am really glad they are here, they should have been here 2 weeks ago, but oh well. Once they were in the mail they got here in under a week; shipped on Wednesday, DHL said they'd arrive Friday, they showed up today.

I am disappointed with the care in packaging...I was literally pulling loose nuts out of a box that had two giant holes in it.

I am also disappointed with how scratched everything is already. I don't really care, it would get dinged and nicked up Anyway, but for a grand I'd like to be the one to do it.

[josepilove]

I got everything installed this weekend and have a couple notes on installation.

1) Rear shocks shaft tops don't have enough threads to allow one to tighten it down on a stock upper perch. I had to use ~8mm of washers to get a secure fit.

2) I grossly under estimated how low these would take the car. I spun the front perches down so i was 1" from the BOTTOM as the "initial" height. When I put the wheels (RC 090, 225 tire) on the inner-tire was rubbing on spring, I was pissed. I spun the perches up until the cleared the rubber (~1" from the TOP) and lowered the car. The front tire was tucked ~.5". Now I have it set 1/4" from the highest position as a safe wait-for-it-to-settle position.

I was planning on putting tender springs in, but I had the wrong size. I will be putting them in, there is PLENTY of room for them height-wise, but I'll probably need some 5-10mm spacers as well.

3) The front damper adjusters don't have "click" positions. I started everything on full-soft and have been slowly increasing full-turns at a time. I am not sure how many turns there are.

4) Lastly, and most disappointingly, the rear passenger side damper adjuster doesn't work. It is frozen, it jiggles a little back and forth between two stops. The other side has really nice clicks at half-turns.

I have contacted Gaz about the rear damper adjustment, so we'll see what they are willing to do.

[epearce]

That's disappointing, I hope they stand by their products and fix the issues.

[Nebraska_e28]

Good feedback to know. Thanks for posting!

[josepilove]

I gave Gaz a call this morning (+44 01268 724585) and told them what was happening. They were pretty helpful and sympathetic to me not wanting to ship them back (which was their initial course of action). Recommended i try loosening and retightening the adjuster knob with an allen key. He said the adjuster was just a spring and a ball-bearing. He also mentioned using the allen key as a lever to help get it unstuck

Moments later they replied to my email from two days ago saying:

On the rear it is probably just where the knob has taken a knock in transit as they are all tested on full soft then wound up & tested on hard then wound back down again so, with a soft face mallet strike it flat on the face & this should then make it turn easier.

Additionally, I got clarification that the front do not have clicks, but full-soft to full-hard is 4 complete turns; he recommended I start at 1.75 turns from full-soft.

Later today I'll try some things out and report back.

[josepilove]

This morning I tried smacking the face of the knob with a plastic dead-blow hammer. I noticed a little change in how the knob felt, but it still wouldn't turn properly. Then I tried the, seemingly awful, method of using an allen key in the set-screw as a lever; oddly enough that worked! I guess it was just stuck and my wimpy, desk-job fingers couldn't turn it.

So now I've got adjustable dampers in all four corners.

[josepilove]

I've had them on and adjusted well-enough for a month now and I am quite pleased with them. I think I'm at 2.5 of 4 turns up front and 10 or 12 clicks of 42 out back. One of these days I'll get it properly aligned and corner weighted at Mueller Motorsports just north of where I'm at, but I've got too much else going on now to bother with that and I'm happy enough with where this is at.

When i lowered the car before these coilovers I built a bash-guard to protect the pan...and I put to work. Since having these coilover (probably 1k miles) I've not scraped at all; spirited back roads, terrible Michigan roads, daily mediocre WI roads.

Overall I am quite pleased with these. I was intentionally critical in the early posts, but I'd do it all over again. The build, performance, and support of the Gaz GHA coilovers is great. My only complaint was the shipping, which I plan to provide feedback to Gaz about.

[Nebraska_e28]

How did they respond to your feedback on shipping?

[josepilove]

How did they respond to your feedback on shipping?

Thanks for keeping me accountable. I hadn't contacted them until just this morning.

I'll be sure to let you know when I hear something.