Alternative to ISC top hats
 

Just saw this on Facebook. No affiliation.

Looks like a decent product that competes with ISC top hats. I'd give them a shot if I'd be in the market for top hats. $200 for a set of 4. They are made out of aluminum. I'd put a rubber bushing on the top though.

https://www.facebook.com/twosixmotorsports

https://scontent-b-sjc.xx.fbcdn.net/...67&oe=53FD9DD4

I've been looking into the ISC rears, and it seems that the biggest complaint is that there's no integral centering ring on the spring side, and users have to glue something in place to keep the springs from shifting around. Based on the photo, unfortunately these don't seem to have one either.

Can anyone with ISCs comment on that issue?

That's only if you run no preload on your springs I assume. My current top hats are flat and don't have spring centering rings. They are just fine, but I run a little preload on them.

I have the ISC, and have had absolutely no issues with them.

$200 for 4 vs. $41 each for the ISC. Is the weight savings worth 35 bucks?

I run ISC's as well and I find no issues with the springs moving around that I have noticed.

OK, thanks for the input on them. I was doing some research on tophats in general, and ISC hats specifically, as I'm a n00b when it comes to setting up a suspension. I ran across a thread on M.net, but the author actually sounded intelligent so I figured they may be some truth to it.

Notes on ISC topmount/tophats - MX-5 Miata Forum

That's a simple and easy fix if it is necessary, but perhaps there's not a problem with every application. Maybe it's a function of ride height making a difference there.

springs will shift without an isolator or spring locator in general. its not an ISC specific problem. Preload works well to replace that, but not everyone runs "threaded shocks" (Bilsteins for example).

I think the NB stock showas use a piece of rubber actually (mostly for noise) lol, but once again those have preload.

Alright, then I'm not going to sweat it. It sounded like there was a risk of the spring moving around enough to get in the way of the shock body, but I'll be preloading them and I have some isolators I can glue in place if necessary.

I just picked up Jake's MSM Bilstein/eBay sleeve setup and the rear hats are not tall enough for the shock bodies. Is there any reason why I should go with taller than normal ISCs (which are 1.5") back there? My typical ride height is 4.5f/4.75r, give or take.

Garage Star also has a set if anyone is interested, $55 each, shipped.

Garage Star - Top Hats

Taller hats reduce droop. Why do you suspect the top hats aren't tall enough for the shocks?

Well, they are hitting hard over med-large bumps, like my previous setup did when I had coil bind problems. Jake mentioned that he felt the shock body was hitting the tophat so I didn't look into it any further (msm billies and nb hats). I'm going to have a look at the coils this weekend to see if they are making contact, and I have a set ot 8" springs that cured my bind issue last time that I can install if so.

Do the zip tie test.

Because it's MSM shocks with stock NB hats with coilover sleeves. :party:;)


It NEEDS extended top hats.

Will do that, great suggestion.

Never heard of it. Please elaborate.

Ziptie tight around shock rods, go drive and bottom out, see if they are pushed all the way up against the hat.

At least, that's my guess.

pretty much. if you are bottoming out and the zip-tie isn't touching the bumpstop, then you were stupid for buying these silly things.

How about we take some measurements and see what touches first?

If it's the tire or subframe there's too much bump travel and you need shallower top hats (might as well get that bump travel back as droop instead of limiting the travel of the shock)

If it's the spring then you need longer main springs with less preload or shorter main springs with helpers if you're already at 0 preload

If it's the bumpstop by a large margin that's when you buy the deep top hats to free up some bump travel.

What else can touch? Sway bars with stock endlinks maybe?

Thanks for the list of possibilities, Failure. Looks like a bit of legwork is in order. I'll spend some time with the car in the air tomorrow and figure out what's hitting what.

If math isn't your thing and wrenches are, you can also try taking off the spring and sticking a jack under the wheel so you can raise and lower the wheel. You'd still have to calculate coil bind but that should show you what's going on with everything else.

Or maybe that's a terrible idea, I don't know. Use your own judgment.

Played around a bit with this today. The shock body definitely hits the tophat before the upper arm hits the frame, as shown in the photo. If the bumpstop were removed there would be about a 1cm gap above the upper arm when the shock body contacts the isolator under the hat.

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...1&d=1400366023

I know there's some math hiding in here, but without knowing exactly how much taller a 1.5"/4cm ISC hat is than a stock NB hat, I don't see how I can calculate anything. And I can't seem to find that information anywhere online. Best I can do is use this comparison I put together which is as close to scale as possible. NB on the left, NA on the right, 2.5" ID spring for scale.

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...1&d=1400366023

I'm assuming that when a height for a taller hat is noted it refers to the shock rod shoulder cpntact point. It looks like the upper shock rod shoulder is approximately at the same height as the upper spring perch on the NB hat. As noted above, with no bumpstop and the current NB hat, I'd have about a 1cm gap above the upper arm. It seems that with a 1.5"/4cm ISC hat the arm would make contact with about 3cm of dead space above the shock body.

So if I use a bumpstop that's a little thicker (for safety margin) than the 3cm of dead space at full compression, I should be able to use the ISC hats and avoid frame contact with the arm. At that point, it seems that I could figure out spring perch vs spring block height so that I don't bind and have the compression worked out.

Does this sound correct?

So it sounds like your idea is to get a top hat deeper than you need and then block off the part of the travel that would put the A-arm through the chassis? That's not what you want to do. In that case you've gained 1cm of bump travel at the cost of 4cm of droop.

It looks to me like you don't need deeper top hats at all. If you really wanted that last bit, ISC makes them in whatever size you'd like so you could get a 1-2cm deep top hat. I think you're set with what you've got, though.

You should probably measure the distance between those perches and make sure it's greater than your springs' block height while you've got the chance, that looks pretty close to me.

In my case, it was a matter of the shock hitting the bumpstop before the spring (or upper arm) ran out of travel. This was with old style FM springs & NA tophats. Very jarring to hit those stops. Happened nearly every time I drove the car. Note that old FM springs were known to sag, and mine had, quite severely.

Therefore, by getting new springs and ISC tophats, I was able to get more travel before it bottomed out, keeping me off the bumpstops for most of the time. I can still hit the stops over severe bumps, but that is now pretty rare, so the ride is better.

Edit: ^^^ this harsh bottoming out is what I'm trying to avoid. I managed to fix that issue with my old Racelands, but the shocks themselves still sucked lol.

Yeah, once I started thinking about the 1.5"/4cm hats it seemed like overkill to have all that dead space above the top of the shock body. But, I pulled those thin bumpstops off and installed some random ones in the garage that are about 3cm thick to give it a little more cushion, which of course made the space between the arm and frame more like 4cm at initial contact with the shock body. So having a deeper hat would allow me to run a thicker, progressive bumpstop instead of that super thin bandaid of a bumpstop, yes?

I did have a close look at the springs and there are witness marks on two of the coils, but not on every one up the entire height of the spring, so I'm thinking it is not binding. I'm sure it'll be up in the air again soon, so I'll do some measuring then.

That was exactly my problem. I went with cut-down NA bumps, because I'm cheap, but that's the idea. Several places sell softer/progressive stops, which will also help when you do bottom out.

Longer coils, and having another inch or so of travel eliminated all but the worst of it, and I can live with that.

I just went out and bombed my favorite local canyon, looks like the thicker bumpstops cured the hard hits, but it's a little firm out back :giggle: The springs are 6" eBay specials and on the edge of binding. I can probably live with another inch of height, or half inch if I adjust a bit out out, by going with some 7" springs.

This is why bumpstops exist. If anything else runs out of travel before the shock body, you've got serious problems. You might want to also go under your car and make sure your bumpstop is actually what's stopping bumps and not your UCA.

So this bump stop is 30mm long fully compressed? That doesn't sound right. How long is it with no load? If it's engaged when the car is at rest, you basically just put 100-200# stiffer springs on your car.

Just multiply the number of coils by the wire diameter. As long as the distance between the upper and lower perches never goes below that, you're golden.

1" longer spring and 1" lower perch won't change the ride height as all.

The bumpstop is 3cm-ish free length, maybe a touch longer. It is not engaged when at rest. That drive I took has some seriously deep bumps and I didn't have any hard hits despite my best try at pissing it off. I wonder though if some of the new firmness is due to the bumpstop being engaged quickly.

Probably not, 30mm is a very small bumpstop. What was the free length of the old bumpstop? Was OEM?

Well, this is an NB Bilstein/eBay sleeve setup shoved under an NA, with that super thin bumpstop bandaid on top. So the original bumpstop is long gone.

So that picture was with no load on the bumpstop? I think it's safe to say that not having functional bumpstops was the cause of most of your problems. You still don't want a top hat deeper than 1-2mm though, even with a real bumpstop.

Also, you might want to come up that 1/2" with the longer springs. I just raised my car recently, and dear god it rides like a caddy compared to before and handles way better through the rough corners on some of the backroads around here.

I think i'm around 12.75f 13r or so if you do the hub/fender measurement. My pinch welds aren't the straightest so it's hard to measure there.

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1400418501

that doesn't make sense; adding tophats would make the springs bottom out quicker. You want the shock to stop on the bumpstop, you dont want the shock to stop because the coils have binded; that will break shit.

oh you got new springs, n/m.

That pic was the skinny bandaid bumpstop, uncompressed, at about 1cm thickness, not the 3cm one I installed in a compressed state. So you can imagine how harsh it was when compressed! It is like night and day with the thicker ones in place. And yeah to the tophat, I may just have some 2cm ones made for the rear and try that out.

You know, I woke up thinking that lol. I really liked the way the 250# spring felt out back on the last setup, so I think going with that 7"/250# and raising up a half inch will be fine. Fender to hub I think I'm at about 12.5f/12.75R right now, and it's not like the roads around here are getting any better.

Exact same situation here as you can imagine. I know there were a few turns I could never "hit" even quickly, as the roughness of the road would cause my rear end to lose traction mid corner and toss me into a slide.

Now with the higher ride height i can hit those same corners much faster with ease, and roll on the throttle to slide out of them if i so choose, which is much better :rofl:

I basically adjusted the ride height so that with the car on the ground the front a arms are parallel to the ground, instead of having to slant slightly upward from the subframe to the hub. I think the suspension is working better at this geometry now.

That makes sense. I just picked up some Eibachs on fleabay, hopefully will have some hats made or ordered in the next couple of weeks.

These seems like they would be terrible. The fact that they're aluminum means the bolt isn't tack welded to the bottom side, so tightening shock mounts will be a two-man job. Fuck that.

I don't have any complaints about my ISCs other than the fact that they used standard hardware instead of metric. If the garage stars use a tack-welded metric bolt, I think they're about as good as it's gonna get.

These are the prototype test parts, the production parts will have 8mm press in studs same as the factory top hats.

I've played with different types of top hats, and one consideration is the width of the shock tube. There probably won't be any problems with thinner body shocks like Koni, but I've found that Bilstein's can top out on the top hat tube corner.

I HAVE NOT TRIED THESE UNITS OR THE ISC's. Checking for marks on the shock and top hat will confirm, but if the top hat tube is a smaller I.D. than the shock O.D., there could be issues.

Thanks for pointing that out, I have thought about similar issues with a lot of these extended hats.

They are working well on the cars we have installed them on. No issues with shock body hitting the aluminum. The tallest ones are being used with the long MSM body bilstein. We've been using them for over a year now making design changes as needed.