Creating The Alcyon II Ultimate

If you have read my blog about the Ultimate, you would know that it was the last version of the Alcyon, and it had the most advanced suspension of the whole series. I always wondered how the improved suspension would work, so i bought the 5 componenents that i needed to upgrade this car. I have everything except the main chassis, but i prefer the original Alcyon II chassis that uses saddle packs, and i prefer the more centralized and inward weight distribution of this chassis. Since i already have part SX-102 bolt frame set, i bought these parts.
1 . SX-204 Front Shock Stay Ultimate
2. SX-205 Rear shock stay Ultimate
3. SX-59 rear Hub ultimate
4. SX-158 Front C Hub Ultimate
The parts came, and i installed them, but unfortunately the plastic knuckle couldnt go into the C hub, i compared the c hub against a normal Alcyon II c hub, and saw that the Ultimates was lower, so i had to buy SX-57 aluminium knuckle with adjustable roll center. had to wait another week for it to come.
Here are some close ups.






Overall view of the Alcyon II Ultimate. Notice the new C hubs, new shocks towers, rear hubs and camber links that are much longer than ever before on this car, as long as a modern car, and Kawada already thought of this in 2002 !

Excuse my toe !Notice the longer upper link, thanks to the new lower C hub that places the outer link directly on the kingpin vertically like today's cars, giving the longest possible camber links. Notice my own custom design aluminium diff cup and The TOP photom 46mm steel dogbone.



Close up of the shocks and the new shock towers

New rear shock tower, and new rear hub, notice the odd design, that extends the camber link over the tire, and the hole on the shock tower for the inner camber link is placed inside the bulkhead area, to have the longest possible camber links, in fact, previously i was using 20mm turnbuckls, now i have to use 32mm long !

rear shock tower view, notice the shock tower is not so high and uses less material, becuase there is no space to mount the camber links at the old postiion, now they are mounted above the bulkhead.



close up of the new rear hubs shock mounted as straight as possible.Notice the TOP photon bones and also my custom designed diff cups that is longer than the original Kawada diff cup so that i could use the TOP 46mm bones.



another close up of the front upper link and alloy knuckle

Now the question is, what will be the improvement on the handling with these new parts? Keep in mind i already got this car to handle formidabbly with the old suspension pieces, horizontal ball studs and short camber links, the car had a lot of traction and enough steering already. With these new improvements, i expect the car to have even more traction, with the need for less droop, also the car will roll less, and the roll center will change less.  Lets see how it goes this weekend. I still use the same shock oil, pistons, springs and anti roll bars as the last time before the conversion. I am pretty sure it will be an improvement over the old suspension, MNC round 2 here i come !!!