Hotbits adjustable shocks

[3literpwr]

Just wanted to give you guys a little heads up on some parts i'm currently working on... First a little background. I have been designing, building and tuning shocks for the last 13 years or so, most of which has been directed toward the race and rally markets. In 2005 I stared doing work for an overseas shock company called Hotbits and have had good success with the brand on my on personal rally cars along with countless customers. Back when I bought my first 911, I intended to do a coilover setup for the car, but the car is still in the process of being built and I never had the opportunity to install a set. Recently I purchased a second 911 and decided to install one of our Boge insert sets.

The setup consists of 46mm monotube bearing mounted rears and 40mm monotube front inserts. Both dampers are adjustable for rebound/compression, but as the shock is unchecked most of the adjustment range is on the rebound side. I'm currently making fixtures to dyno the parts and develop some additional valve codes. The parts have extremely large adjustment ranges similar to a JRZ, motor or Protract... The parts are fully rebuildable/tuneable.

I will keep the board updated as I progress with future valve codes and whatnot...







Parts happily lived on my gravel car for 6 years before needing a rebuild.

[BRAIDusa]

These look great. Please PM me with details.

[gumba]

Any plans on making an adjustable front to replace the bilsteins?

[jpnovak]

You have my attention. Please tell us more.

[3literpwr]

We could more then likely do a setup for Bilstein based parts, but I need to verify the housing dims... The set shown below runs about $1200.00... PM me for more info...

Larry

[JohnJL]

I have PMd you a couple of times but no response. Are you still marketing these?

[Driven97]

My Hotbits rears showed up on Monday. After researching a ton of options, I went with Larry because he's local to me, and the area rallycrossers have only good things to say about him:



Larry specced me double adjustables with a remote canister, non-inverted. He didn't think inverted would fit with the hose fitting, and there wasn't enough room for a piggyback style either due to proximity to hot exhaust bits. These went in easily last night with a temporary zip tie of the canister to the rear lower fascia bar.



A couple of notes:
- They're not show parts. Simple steel tube with a coat of paint, crimped rubber hoses. The included bump stop and dust boot was a nice surprise though.
- The shaft and upper mounting threads are a smaller diameter than OE. The shocks come with one large retaining washer which I used on the bottom, I reused the OE on the top, but it didn't quite fit perfectly concentric as the hole is 1mm too large. I'll need to make a trip to Home Depot and get a correct size as I'm nit picky about stuff like that.
- The OE upper mount nut bottoms out and captures the two rubber donuts perfectly. These don't bottom, and I basically have the donuts heavily compressed with the top nut. Perhaps a simple sleeve spacer to work like the OE setup would be a good idea, or maybe replacing the rubber with poly pucks.
- They took a little longer than expected to be delivered, but I guess they were custom made to order, and very reasonably priced, so I have little room to complain.
- No shock dyno sheets. Going to have to adjust by feel.

I only drove around for about 15 minutes yesterday, but my initial impressions to the actual shock performance are extremely positive. Full soft on both adjusters was, well, too soft. Full stiff on both adjusters was rather punishing on large bumps.

But the exciting part for me was I did a few figure 8s and mock slaloms in an empty parking lot at full stiff. The body control out back was something I've been wanting in my car since day 1, an immediate huge improvement over my previous shocks. Response time drastically reduced. And even at full stiff hitting the rough and broken patches of the lot did not throw the car off line or cause the tires to skitter as if they were way overdamped. That seems to indicate that they have a very good digressive cut in their valving.

I'm super pumped to try these out in competition, will update the thread when I do.

[jpnovak]

Did you get rear only or front and rear?

[Driven97]

Rear only. I have Bilstein fronts and his fronts are for Koni or Boge style struts.

Haven't decided on my front strategy yet. My current front valving wasn't as wildly off as the rear was.