MeisterR

How fast are you going when you scrape? Jerrick

How much lower you want to go? The way to look at it is you don't want to see if the highest setting is not too low for the track. But if the lowest setting is good enough for your preference. The reason for that is you want to go with the tallest setup you can get away with for your preference. Because that will give you the most travel, and therefore give you the best performance. Jerrick

How low do you want to go? Something around this? or MUCH lower? Because you want to decide how low you want to go, as you don't want to go for a suspension with shorter travel without the need to do so. Jerrick

I'll be bias, so I'll just say I'll be here to help with any technical questions you may have. Jerrick

Just thought I posted up something I found interesting from this year AutoSport Show. One of the rather unique feature of the MeisterR GT1 dampers is that we use a double 44mm piston inside. This is different from other dampers as the GT1 actually use 2 full size piston with 2 wear tape. This spread the load and therefore increase side load capacity making a stronger unit. This is a rather unique design, and I haven't really seen any other suspension brand using similar design... until last week. It seems we weren't the only one using this double piston design, Moton seems to be using this also. There aren't much literature on the function of their design, and it is probably different from the GT1. But just thought it is interesting because this is actually the closest I have seen in terms of what the GT1 internals looks like. Also, from an engineering point of view, the MOTON's damping adjustment system is a work of art. Amazing precision and complex, it's no wonder why their 4-way dampers are £10,000 a set. Overkill? Yes... but what a thing of beauty. Just something interesting I found... Jerrick

One of the adjustable toe arm replace the spring bucket that the inboard springs sit on. That is the only good merit of a true setup. Jerrick

I personally prefer the OEM inboard springs setup. It works, and have a lot less thing to worry about such as turret reinforcement. The only reason from what I hear of a "true" coilovers is if you are going to replace all the rear arms with adjustable arms. That way you have a stronger arms controlling the toe, which mean it won't lose it's spec as easy as the OEM bolt. I still prefer the OEM design, but then at least I can understand why they would want that if it is primary a drift car. Just giving both side of the story. Jerrick

Since you completely blank out the answer I have given previously, I am not sure what to say anymore. A quick search online show: Full weight of the car is 3,216 lbs Sprung weight of 2,951 lbs Unsprung weight of 265lbs. If you can tell me how to factor unsprung weight into the compression/rebound ratios, that would be great. As I am very interested in your scientific calculation. Jerrick

The Ring Banana set the base lap time of 9:21 around the Nurburg Ring. That was driven as the car was purchased, unknown suspensions and unknown alignment with 10 years old tyres. They then installed the MeisterR coilovers and re-do the alignment (something you have to do when installing new suspension anyways). The MX5 then pull a 8.54 lap on the same 10 years old tyres, a 27 seconds improvement with only suspension and alignment difference. The Driver was Gabriele Piana, a driving instructor at RSR Nurburgring, and a GT4 Race Driver. He doesn’t need to learn the Nurburg, he pretty much knows all about it. Traffic differ, and that is an uncontrolled factor. That is why this isn’t a scientific test. So viewer can decide how much difference traffics made out of that 27 seconds, I never tried to hide the fact. This car have been doing countless lap at Nurburg over the past 12 months. And just did another feat not long ago by Completing a full 24 hours endurance race at Circuito Ascari in Spain! This is on the same set of suspension, it have not been rebuild, I haven’t seen the suspension since it left our workshop back in 2015. Again, take it as what you will because this isn’t a scientific test. These are just pure result from a fun project that MeisterR got involved in, and are proud to be a part of. Jerrick

I am still waiting for your REAL science. And while we are on science, let me ask you a VERY BASIC questions. All vehicle dynamics start with a single point, and that is 100% critical damping force (specifically critical rebound force). At what adjustment does your beloved KW V3 reach critical rebound force? Because without knowing that adjustment point, it is literally impossible to tune a dampers. That is just pure science, something that is calculate-able and presentable on a piece of paper. So please let us know about REAL science on your KW V3, because we are all waiting Jerrick

This is something I want to bring up to attention that it isn't true. One have to remember that a suspension is only going to perform as well as it's setting. The best suspension in the world with the incorrect setting / setup will still perform poorly. Just because a suspension is expensive, it doesn't make it any better if the suspension setting was wrong to begin with. Spending £3000 for some race suspension and putting it on a road car, will yield poorer performance than a £700 suspension that were designed for road use to begin with. Many have fallen into the idea that expensive must be better, and you get what you pay for. And while sometime it is true, the idea that more expensive must be better, or that all equal price item must equally perform similar is incorrect. Especially in the suspension world, because it cost the exact same amount to build a damper with the incorrect specification vs building a damper with the correct specification. OBJECTION: Jerrick

We have the ZetaCRD which is the new generation of MeisterR coilovers. The ZetaCRD supersede the Zeta-S by adding in a range of upgrade such as: *Revised damping that provide better response and performance *Thicker damper rod for increase structural strength *New locking collar design that are currently under UK patent pending status *Rubber insulator on springs coils to increase durability ...and a few other bits. At the moment, the ZetaCRD is £725 and 350Z uk member do get 10% discount bringing it down to £652 delivered. Springs rate remain the same at 10kg/mm front, 8kg/mm rear. The rear springs remain the same "in board" springs OEM design. Jerrick

Well, since my pseudo science is confusing, please enlighten us. You promise us that a a road car DOESN'T want the same dynamics as a Tarmac rally car, can you tell me the dynamics a road car want as well as the damper design to achieve that vehicle dynamics. If you can include what wheel frequency a road car should have, what critical damping level, cracking pressure, etc. How to set up the wheel frequency bias so the front and rear suspension do not synchronise on a harmonic frequency. I know there are quite a bit more, but just something basic will do just to enlighten us why a road car DOESN'T want the same dynamics as a tarmac rally car. I am sure you have REAL science to explain how my pseudo science is confusing. Note: The reason I use "Fast Road" car because it explain the type of road car it will be. A road car to me could be a Fiat 500 all the way to a Mercedes S-Class. And of course, those car would require a different dynamics as their main focus will be comfort. A fast road car to me is more specific, it is either a "fast" road car, or road car that will be driven "fast". That mean for those car, the dynamics will mainly be focused on traction, compliancy, weight transfer control, and steering response. That is why I use "Fast Road" car as my target, because that is the type of cars MeisterR product mainly focus for. Jerrick

When was the MeisterR fitted? Do you know which version was it? Just checking to see if you know. For me, feedback like these are important. Always want to know more about criticism so I can see if there are anything I can do to improve things. Jerrick

I guess the best feedback I can give is this: The owner of a local performance shop in the USA who is a big EVO tuner and a big Ohlins dealer drove my 350Z with the GT1 fitted. He was unsure about the MeisterR, and I said "I got a 350Z there with the GT1 coilovers fitted, go for a test drive" He came back 10 minutes laters, got out the car, look at the sales manager, and said "We can sell this". Like I say, performance is "subjective", so there isn't a solid measurement of better or not. But if you ask me the straight questions of: Would I claim that the GT1's perform as well as the Ohlins for fast road and streetcar track use? I would answer YES. It is a big claim, but I couldn't think of a scenario where the Ohlins DFV would out perform the GT1 in every single performance category. And that is me, being fair, unbiased, and quite conservative; because it is a BIG answer to give, and a huge expectation to live up to. Jerrick

A fast road setup is what we in vehicle dynamics class as a "Tarmac Rally" setup. Tarmac Rally is a graph that is "shield" shape in the force vs displacement dyno. This type of damper have smooth progressive lead in to the peak compression force. This allow suspension to absorb uneven road surfaces and retain contact with the road. They have long peaky rebound curve, as they control kinetic energy early on. A motorsport setup have a FvD graph that is what we call a "square" setup. This type of damper have very high compression cracking pressure, very aggressive on the tyres. Do not provide compliancy at all. The rebound do not control the kinetic energy until the very last moment, and this allow the damper to return quickly to it's initial starting point but comes to a abrupt stop. Also not comfortable. A very comfortable damper will have a "oval" graph. This type of damper literally have no cracking pressure, and does not have any abrupt change of direction. The type of damper are what BAD build for Rolls Royce. So I hope this enlighten you what is a "fast road' setup and how it compare to other damper vehicle dynamically. If you honestly think that Ohlins DFV, a complex high pressure mono-tube damper with a high speed compression blow off design. Is not as good as the KW V3, a low pressure twin-tube damper with an adjustable centre jet and a base valve. I am sort of speechless, and would highly recommend getting a little more information regarding suspension design. To me, that is almost like saying Rays wheels aren't as good as Rota, and you are really paying for the name. Jerrick

If you think of "sharp" and "non-sharp" as piston speed, that will help it easier to understand. When you are driving on the motorway, you get a lot of small vibration that isn't very fast, those I would say it's "non-sharp" When you are driving down a country road and hit a pot hole, you get a very big and fast movement, those I would call "sharp". Because those two event are two different piston velocity, it mean it is handled different in the damper. The "slower" movement are part of the "bleed circuit". You want the internal oil to flow pass the piston easily so those small movement are absorbed instead of being transferred. This is where "harsh" ride from coilovers comes from, because race suspension don't really have a bleed circuit. The don't want the bleed because it will put more force onto tyres faster and harder, and that is how you get damping response. The issue with that on a road car is it will ride harsh like if the suspension did not exist... something I absolutely hate. The GT1 use a "Zero Bleed" piston, but we control the "bleed circuit" by using a dual stack shims on the compression side. What that mean is you have a stack that is very light that will open easily, but then it is limited by a second stack that is stiffer. That way you can have bleed for ride comfort, but will not get sloppy steering response because the bleed are immediately controlled. The "faster" movement are part of the "blow off". When the suspension reach a certain velocity, basically it mean it is no longer vehicle dynamically relevant. Because when you hit a pot hole, you don't really need any damping force to control it. So this blow off tells the suspension to let it go, because you don't need to worry about it. If your suspensions generate too much force, that is when you get this super jarring ride and your tyre lose traction... not good. The GT1 internal shims stack have this blow off incorporated. That is when 20 years of suspension engineering experience from a vehicle dynamic engineers really comes into play. Basically, this is when Black Art Design start doing black arts... and make things work. Building a suspension is actually pretty easy. Building a suspension that works is the more difficult task. And when it comes to engineering, I can tell you that us British still have it in a world class level. Jerrick

The Ohlins DFV is a very good suspension. It is the "bar" we use to measure the MeisterR GT1. I actually had a few customers who been in both Ohlins DFV and the MeisterR GT1, and most reaction is positive for both suspension. "In Theory", the Ohlins DFV should handle big bumps better (such as curb strike / pot holes), and the MeisterR GT1 will handle smaller vibration (such as small bumps on country roads, vibration that you will get on motorway) better. However, feedback seems to be the other way around, where some said the GT1 actually handle the pot holes better than the DFV. There are very minor difference between the two in those area, but it is just what the owners pick up and send back to us as feedback. Those feedback mainly comes from EVO and GTR owners as Ohlins been offering the DFV to those community for a bit longer than others. The latest MeisterR GT1 uses a "Zero Bleed" CNC piston, and it allows us a lot more control over the dynamics of the damper. So far they have been working great, and I am sure as time goes on we will get more reviews for them. The GT1 being quite a bit cheaper than the DFV is also a bonus, but I personally feel at this price bracket the performance of the suspension is much more important. Jerrick

Really? I swear I was sitting there typing it out? Can you show me where it was copy and pasted from please? Jerrick

Thanks Rob, first I seen this video. I heard of Fat Cat Motorsport as they are more heavily involved in the Miata community in the USA. What he say have a lot of truth honestly, probably one of the most accurate video I have heard regarding dampers. There are a few bits I don't agree with, mainly regarding the knob, and I'll explain a bit. Design: Mono-tube vs. Twin-tube. I agree with him pretty much, and that is why we are exclusive mono-tube supplier. Twin-tube isn't bad, but the design mean they do have that "phase lag" as he speak. Twin-tube also have issue with heat under hard usage, because it cannot cool off as well as a mono-tube damper. This mean if you are to do a 25 minute session, the suspension will feel good in the first 15 minute, and by the last 10 minutes you feel like you could stiffen the damper 2 more clicks. That is because the oil have heat up to the point where the viscosity had change, and therefore the actual damping force the damper is generating is less then when the oil was cooler. Accuracy: Getting the damper to do what you want. Very true, especially about the lack of compression from most dampers. The reason for this is that most dampers actually lack compression because low compression damper ride nicer. In order to give the sporty feeling, you have loads of rebound adjustment (to the point where it is out side critical damping). So when a user want something that "feel" more planted, they put up the higher rebound force. What this doesn't do is that it doesn't increase compression force, and that mean you are not putting any more load into the tyres. You will get a suspension that feel planted, but it isn't generating any more traction because it isn't pushing the tyres harder. That is why when people go from crappy suspension to good suspension, they see their lap time drop by a second or two, because the good damper is now generating proper compression force to work the tyres. Another thing on this "ideal" damping is having less rebound mean the car "feel" less planted. But that is because the suspension is now letting the car move, which mean the car now get to properly "use" it's tyres. I get this from race driver all the time... we build them a proper race setup and they will tell me that it "feel" wobbly and less planted than the old setup But when they look at the lap time and see it is 2 seconds faster, they all just scratch their head. As Colin Chapman once said: "Any suspension will work if you don't let it." That basically hit a nail on the head... You got to have good compression force relative to the rebound force, and you cannot have more rebound force than what your springs can support. Over valve a damper at your own peril... Precision: Mono-tube vs. Twin-tube. As he say, that is another difference and it does illustrate if you are to damper match each damper. A mono-tube have all the component that generate damping force located at the piston, the shims, and the bleed valve; all tie together under high pressure gas. Basically if you have good component, you have accurate build; you will get very accurate and repeatable build. A twin-tube damper have more parts, and therefore variance in each component will alter the damping force. This typically make matching a twin-tube damper very difficult, because if everything are just off a little bit, you end up having a huge difference in damping force. Psychology / Confidence: OEM sport suspension Yep, again... agreed with him. Been in one of those older Audi S-line car (it was an A3) and first thought was that the compression force was way too stiff. I understand they are trying to give you that stiff sporty feeling, but that was just excessive for a road car and not needed. The same goes for the 2009 Nissan GTR that I had as a test car, the OEM Bilstein was horrible. I am glad to say that the OEM are now slowly waking up to this stiffer isn't always nicer even if customer wanted sport suspension. Some of the latest OEM car I rode in actually are doing a pretty good job and getting closer to where it should be. Adjusting the knob, what I don't agree with. He say adjusting a knob is moving you away from an "ideal" curve assuming you have one. That is true, if your car only have 1 "ideal" function. For a fast road car that will not see track day (like his TT in Poland), there can be an ideal damping curve. However, if you give that TT an ideal damping curve for Poland and then take the car on a track day at Silverstone Arena GP circuit, the car will feel a bit too soft and won't fully use it's tyres. For a fast road & track car, you need that damping knob because you are shifting the car from a fast road function to a track day function. By having adjustment to the amount of rebound force you make, and more importantly how aggressive the compression force are generated. You can shift between a suspension that will ride nice on broken road and retain great traction, to a suspension that will push hard onto the tyres to generate traction and sharp steering response. That is the point I don't agree with, because there are too many different function an all rounder fast road & track suspension have to face to just have 1 damping curve take care of all the functions. Therefore, an adjustment knob is necessary to dial a suspension to the owner's preference, as well as the immediate function that the car has to perform (Going on track, or going home after the track day). Interesting, I enjoy that video. A lot of truth in it, and a lot of truth that many companies do not want to admit. Jerrick

The damper actually don't really care about the sprung and unsprung mass of a vehicle. The sprung and unsprung mass of the car actually is part of the wheel frequency calculation. The wheel frequency is a calculation of the springs rate, the car corner weight, and suspension motion ratio. Once you work out what springs rate you need to achieve the wheel frequency you are after (Generally for road car, you want to stay under 2.0Hz). Then you can pair the damper valving to the springs rate. For a fast road car, you want to have around a 1:3 compression to rebound ratio, for more sporty type track cary, you can go down to 1:2, and I have seen some Ohlins run 1:1 but that is a bit too much even by our standard. This ratio are than pair to the springs rate critical damping rebound force. As you can only run so much rebound force before the damper start to stop the springs working in it's natural frequency, you can work that number out and make sure your damper stay under that figures. Too much rebound force will start to stop the suspension from moving, causing the suspension to "jack down". This create a lot of bad vehicle dynamics that you DO NOT want. The damping adjustment is allows you to shift where you want to be at in regards to ride quality. For a road car, generally you want to be between the 50% to 70% critical damping. For a track car, generally around the 80% to 100% critical damping. As the damping force are designed to the paired springs rate, and the springs rate are designed base on the car, the entire suspension system work together. So now you know what springs rate you have, what is the maximum rebound force you can run with that springs rate, and then you can pair the compression force to that rebound force. Compression force is the force that put load onto the tyres, they are what give you that sharp turn in that you want, or that compliancy that you want over uneven roads. That have a lot to do with the "cracking pressure", which is the point where the first shims inside the damper "crack" open. A good fast road & track adjustable suspension wants the follwoing: 1. High cracking pressure for track use, because this put force on to the tyres giving sharper turn in as well as traction. 2. Lower and more progressive cracking pressure for fast road use, because this allows the suspension to move to those uneven surfaces providing better comfort and better traction on uneven road surfaces. All of the above are something you can calculate with some basic info on the car, if you have the software as well as the technical know how to do so. But as you can see, the damper don't really care about the sprung or unsprung weight of the car, because all the damper really see is the springs that it is paired with. The springs however do care about the weight of the car, and that is something that should be calculated in the first stage of suspension design. The above procedure is the same for a Nissan 350Z, a Mazda Miata, or a Ferrari 458. The car changes, the number change, but in the end the wheel frequency is a level playing ground that can be calculated and compared. There are some changes and fine details here and there, but on the whole that is how you work out the vehicle dynamics of a car. So in conclusion: That damping ratio works for ANY car. For your concern of weight, that is calculated and incorporated into the springs rate choice. Jerrick

The reason we don't offer double adjustable dampers is because we feel most owners will obtain better performance with a single adjustable damper. All MeisterR dampers are compression & rebound combined adjustable mono-tube dampers. What that mean is that the compression force adjust along with the rebound force, there is no need to have a separate adjustment to adjust the compression force. Most Twin-tube dampers are rebound only adjustment as a single adjustable setup (KW V2, Koni Yellow Sport, etc). That is why they need to add in an additional adjustment in order to control the compression force. As the damping ratio are pre-designed within the adjustment with the MeisterR, this makes damping adjustment easier and eliminate the possibility of incorrect adjustments. If an owner was not sure on how to adjust a 2-way damper, they could easily end up with a 1:5 compression to rebound ratio, and that will not be very good for performance. This will not happen if the owners is using a compression & rebound combined adjustable damper. We can to separate adjustable dampers, and it is in the plan. This is more for race car and we will go straight to a 3-way adjustable with an external reservoir. Because if any car require more than the GT1, then a 3-way with a high speed compression blow off will provide much better performance. Here is a plot of the adjustment, taken at 140mm/s. The line is full stiff, -5 clicks, -10 clicks, -15 clicks, -20 clicks, full soft. We take the adjustments this way because 140mm/s is our "stick in the mud" point for vehicle dynamic analysis. The same stick that Bilstein had been using since the 1970's, so most have been using this speed for vehicle dynamic ever since. But you can see how the ratio changes as well as the cracking pressure (bleed), which is all the important thing we need to know in order to see how the damper will work on the vehicle dynamically. Jerrick

I have probably put out a fair bit of information about MeisterR. The thing is when someone say MeisterR is the same as everything else on the market bar a different colour and a stickers. That is simply not true. We spend about 3 years developing the GT1 from start to finish. End up merging company, merging operation, and end up with 3 CNC machine in the workshop. We spend a good part of 12 months using data off the back of the GT1 to develop the ZetaCRD. From developing the damper valving, engineering the unique collars, and putting everything into production. We have masses of data to back up what we have done, and that is why I do feel the best way to show that we are different is to show the work we have done. Because that is the only way to prove that we are different, and that is work that no other suspension brands can show. Jerrick

Suspension is a personal preference, therefore one may prefer a brand to another. As far as I am concern, I am happy with that the long as the customers are happy with what they have. One thing I will however point out is that MeisterR are not cheap Chinese stuff with a different colour and a nice stickers, because we are one of the few brand that actually have our own workshop, research & development, and manufacturing capability in the UK. Even for the entry level ZetaCRD, the internal valving specification are designed by us. We engineered the internal valving specification in house at our workshop in Essex along with our in-house technical partner Black Art Design (BAD). The internal valving are unique to MeisterR, all information disclosed to our production are protected under a non-disclosure agreement. What that mean is even the factory's own product could not use our data, and therefore you will not find another suspension on the market with the same specs as MeisterR. The ZetaCRD use thicker damper Shafter compare to most dampers on the market, and thus create a stronger damper unit. Even something as simple as our locking collars were engineered by us and is currently under a UK patent pending status. As far as the GT1 goes, we use a lot of CNC internal parts that are engineered and machined in house. The CNC damper shaft seal we use on the GT1 are rated to 400 bars of pressure (a typical damper would not exceed 40 bars). You can call up AST, Nitron, Penske, Moton, and see who actually use such high quality CNC shaft seals, and I can say most of them won't. The only company I can think of that use CNC shaft seal is some of the top end rally suspension such as Reiger. The GT1 also comes with a custom made progressive rate bump stop. This bump stop are designed to mechanically crush and then materially crush. The starting rate is 6lbf and goes up to 400lbf over 70% of it's crush travel; that mean you can engage your bump stop and not even know it. All this is to create a better ride quality and vehicle dynamics over other suspension. While I do understand that there have been MANY suspension brands on the market that honestly have no clue about suspension, as they just buy what is available from a factory and put a sticker on with pretty colour. MeisterR is an exception to that rule, because we actually design our specification and get factory to manufacture what we engineered. Many suspension can look similar to MeisterR on the outside, but the inside as well as the performance is guarantee to be different. Just thought I put up some info to clear the cloud, as we put in a lot more work to our suspension than just pick a pretty colour and print a nice looking sticker. Jerrick

I'll answer your PM, but I'll answer here as I think people may have the same questions. One of the best feature of the GT1 is the way it respond to high frequency vibration. The GT1 damper runs a zero bleed piston, what you generally find in motorsport dampers. What it does inside is that the way the shims are setup inside, there is an initialisation to the damping if that makes sense. What this initialisation does is it allow small amount of movement before the "main" forces comes in. And this have two effect on a fast road & track car. 1. It provide a little give to the tyres and allows it to find "grip" before the suspension throws weight on it in a corner. What this mean is the tyres actually get a progressive load and actually makes more traction at the turn in point where you are vehicle dynamically loading the tyres. 2. It allows the suspension to move to small vibration movement. What this mean is the suspension will move to those high frequency vibration, such as small bumps you find on the motorway. This mean the ride is much more comfortable for long journey, and also give better compliancy during those bumpy road you get on country road surfaces. Regarding responding to SPL bushings, the GT1 are good at responding to NVH (Noise Vibration Harshness). But of course, there are limit because a lot of NVH from spherical bearing don't actually comes through the dampers but through the car chassis itself. These will be the same for any dampers, and the GT1 would be one of the best damper on the market I would say in dealing with NVH. Hope that helps. Jerrick