6G Celicas Forums

In Europe we also have celica's with Superstrut Suspension.
Thats wy i'm sharing this information!


The ST205 GT-Four uses a system of front suspension design unique to Toyota. It moves away from the MacPherson strut used on all other Celicas and is much more complex. This system is used on the GT-Four, some Japanese spec Corollas and the higher spec Japanese fwd Celicas (SSII and SSIII). It was available in Europe on the Carina GTi and was an option on the ST202 (thanks Dirk for the info).

My understanding of the system is that the geometry does not give the same camber and castor changes during cornering that occur with MacPherson strut. Is it better? Well, it is different. There are reliability problems if maintenance isn't kept up, TTE had continual problems and I believe they swapped the rally cars back to MacPherson strut.

A brief description of MacPherson strut is in order. The Toyota system uses a lower A arm with rubber bushings front and rear. This has only one degree of motion (ie. it rotates on the bushings). At the outer point of the A arm is a balljoint which connects to the steering knuckle and allows for rotation (steering) and pivot (shock compression). The steering knuckle is rigidly bolted to the bottom of the strut. The whole strut turns when steering, twisting in the roller bearing in the top mount. Fairly simple and cheap, used by most manufacturers.

So what is Superstrut suspension? It is a hybrid between normal MacPherson strut and a multilink setup. One of the requirements of the design brief was that the system would fit existing suspension mount locations. Therefore the system can be fitted into export Celicas as well as the Japanese lower spec SSI! The late production cars even share the same subframe.

The photo below shows the lower part of the system. This consists of a front and rear lower arm, connected (by rodends) to a connector plate. The rear arm has a rubber bushing at the inner end (the only rubber bushing at the front except swaybar D-bushings), the front arm has a balljoint. This system allows the arms to pivot as the suspension turns.



The steering knuckle is quite different to that of the MacPherson strut cars. It bolts securely to the connector plate joining the lower arms (see photo below). The top end connects to the strut part way up using a balljoint (see red arrow in left picture and upper arrow in right picture below. The strut mounts to the body in the normal way, but the lower end is secured to the front lower arm using another pivoting arm visible at the right in the photo above. This arm is near vertical in the photos, it is actually about 150mm long and pivots at each end.



The photo of the assembled suspension below shows that the strut rotates minimally when steering ( the same amount as the front lower arm as it is rigidly connected). The steering knuckle moves instead. While the outboard strut moves rearwards slightly when the car turns in (turning left in the photo), it can be seen that the hub moves forward. But because of the strut movement the actual movement at the wheel is minimised.

The second photo shows the mounting points for the lower arms on the subframe.



All the info from: gtfour.supras.org.nz

My GT was 94 from Switzerland - with SSS.

our biggest nightmare

Superstrut can be expensive to maintain but a celica with superstrut in combo with a diff handles so much better than one without that its worth it if you can afford it, heck its worth it even if you cant afford it.

If you are wanting to change to coilovers, then take a look at importing a set of used TRD coilovers from the japanese yahoo auctions, sets come up quite often but you'll need to use a third party to import them for you as you cant buy from japan yahoo if your outside japan.

Hey guys hows it going does anyone have a problem with loweer arm? mine lossen alot even with thread lock does anyone have any info for this problem or has the same problem.

anyone have part numbers for the various pieces i know i'll need to replace most if not all the joints on mine

Thats normal Mcpherson Struts. Not SS struts.

Superstrut is a great suspension type, in paper that is. But it never actually worked as well as it was planned. Toyotas world rally team actually used it in 2(!) rallies, and then went back to original Macpherson.
And the great cheat-Turbo in ST205 GT4

The superstrut suspension feels heaps better than the macphearson on the celica. I know because I have owned both and driven both.

Once you replace the figure8s etc, it will last you quite a while.

Superstrut with all the part numbers


Macpherson with all the part numbers

Sorry for hijacking this post.

But

Can anyone tell me if the breaks from a GT4 st205 will fit on the Macpherson setup above,

yes because of reliability issues, rally situation being very different to a road type, that fact they tried to use it says enough, theres nothign to suggest it was inferior, just wasnt suited to rally situation which is pretty extreme.

as for number of cars using similar setups to superstrut you'd be amazed, its classed as a multilink suspension setup, and although many dont share the exact same design, the goal and result is the same, and you will continue to see more, under various different names, its really all the same thing, toyota were about 10 years ahead of the game

This post has been edited by Edophus: Jul 11, 2008 - 6:10 PM

Not without modification. The way the caliper bolts up to the spindle is slightly different as well as the offsets of the rotor brackets.

The first thing I noticed going from SS-I to SS-III is that I could gas it around corners in the wet aggressively without sliding, Impossible in the One.

I can't believe I got all this good stuff -- LSD, Superslut, 2pot brakes, 3S-GE, 16" Toyota alloys 215/50R16


I am so stoked, Hey Rusty I'll show u how a real Celi handles if you come up to Auckland

I bought a rack with auction!

I bought from japan

KYB we have not appreciated! Rapidly destroyed!

most of you were using inserts yes? and not the super special f street?

i wasnt keen to fnck around with inserts, spend the $$ and buy the top of the range, you get what u pay for
a few of my mates are using kyb in their gtfours and they cant rate them highly enough.

This post has been edited by Cuts_the_Pilot: Jul 29, 2008 - 5:47 PM

without going and reading all the replies, my car with the previous owner removed the useless superstrut set up, go onto any gt4 forum and thats all you'll hear of the members there crying about (its failure and the cost of repair with genuine parts and look at the price of coilovers compared to any other car), its a curse and i'm glad its been removed on mines and fitted with a ST202 set up (Macpherson) including subframe, the initial plan was for set it up with a ST185 set up but the ST202 is supposively very similar with less fabrication. Anyone who i know who has done this has smiled from ear to ear with better handling and less failures and i think that TTE is agreeing with me or i'm agreeing with them more like as the TTE ST205 WRC had the similar Macpherson setup.

i duno about it being better handling man, compared to a shagged ss setup i would agree, but superstrut in its full working potential is a better strut type. Multi links in general are superior, just the extra cost and a bit of weight and complexity sometimes doesnt get outweighed by the benefits.

202/204 and 205 use all the same suspension attachment points so its simply a matter of swapping it over. That was a stipulation toyota put on the engineers when they designed the 6th gen.

what did you do for your stoppers? custom brackets for the calipers? did you sacrifice 10-15mm of rotor diameter like most do when they do a 185/202/204 to 205 brake conversion?

This post has been edited by Cuts_the_Pilot: Jul 29, 2008 - 10:09 PM

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No, we do not use liners! We just sometimes they do restavriruem and harder!