Fortune Auto North America

New product release - 510 Series Generation 3

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 02:00:00 +0000

Press Release:

Ever wanted suspension that performed and rode like a $3000-$6000 high end European system for a fraction of the cost? Well here is your solution. Featuring a new "Ultra" Double Digressive piston with revised shim stacks, this "Ultra" Digressive piston allows for gobs of low speed rebound force that helps with driver inputs such as dive, pitch and roll.

Furthermore, the rebound force greatly tapers off to provide the driver with a supple and compliant ride while maintaining superior mechanical grip over rough surfaces. After countless hours on the shock dyno and testing on the track, we are proud to offer these high performance coilovers for immediate sale for the price of $1499!

High Res photos of our Unlimited Time Attack Evo (featured in this month's issue of Dsport Magazine)

Sun, 22 Jan 2012 03:30:00 +0000

Huge thanks to Faiz Rahman for this great shoot of the Fortune Auto Unlimited Evo. We would also like to thank Whit Staples for his amazing driving talent and car! Lastly big thanks to the crew at Atlantic Motorsports!

Here are the high res photos!

Click here for high resolution desktop quality images - Faiz Rahman Photographer Flickr

Sneak Peek of the new "Ultra" Double Digressive Piston that will be standard on our Gen 2 - 510 Series coilovers!

Sun, 08 Jan 2012 03:00:00 +0000

First blog post of the New Year!

Hope Everyone is enjoying it. We have an exciting announcement!

Here is a sneak peek of the new 510 series that will be available shortly! Ever wanted suspension that performed and rode like a $3000-$6000 high end European system for a fraction of the cost? Well here is your solution. Featuring a new "Ultra" Double Digressive piston with revised shim stacks, this "Ultra" Digressive piston allows for gobs of low speed rebound force that helps with driver inputs such as dive, pitch and roll.

Comparison graph of the "old" vs "new" 510 Series shocks.

510 Series Generation 2 Sweep Dyno Graph

Our Time Attack Driver Todd Reid: Interviewed by Moto IQ

Fri, 30 Dec 2011 05:40:00 +0000

Great interview by MotoIQ of Todd Reid Driver of our Street tire AWD and Unlimited FWD Time Attack cars!

Please click the link below!

January 2012 DSPORT Magazine Feature Coverage!

Mon, 28 Nov 2011 00:30:00 +0000

This feature has been a long time in the making. The car was actually photographed last year! DSPORT was basically looking for a good time to release it and Richard Fong of DSPORT thought the PRI issue would be a good issue.

If you have seen any of our magazine ads you will see the Fortune Modified Time Attack Evo on them. The action shot that of the car was actually taken at the Redline Time Attack Event at Sebring last year. The very talented Faiz Rahman of www.FaizRahmanPhotography.com took the picture and subsequently shot the car for DSPORT magazine.

Article is a very good read and shows how Whit Staples progressed the car and himself over the years.

As with most articles there are a few inaccuracies but this one seemed to be pretty accurate. Only thing we caught was that it stated the car was running Titan Double Way coilovers. In fact the car was running off the shelf 500 series coilovers. Yup that's right plain Jane 500 series shocks! You may ask why would we do that on a car that is so capable. We basically wanted to prove how good a 500 series shock actually is, and with multiple podiums and wins and I think we suceeded in how awesome the 500 series line of shocks are.

Next year will be running a new 2 way shock on the car that we have been working on.

Big thanks to Atlantic Motorsports for making this car happen!

Well enough rambling and enjoy the article!

Here is the video of a behind the scenes look of the photoshoot!

http://vimeo.com/19104640

Shock Tech: Understanding Shock Dyno's - Suspension Performance & Consistency

Mon, 21 Nov 2011 01:50:00 +0000

Hello all! Decided to make a tech article about shocks and shock dynoes. Also wanted to show case some of our shocks

and how they compare to the competition:

Shock Dynos:

There is tons and tons of mis-information on the Internet and forums in regards to shock dynos.

First we must understand that a shock dyno is not the end all be all of ride quality and performance.

A Shock dyno is only a tool to help determine how good a shock is in theory. Real world testing is also necessary in helping dial in how a shock rides and performs.

Shock dynoes primarily aid in determining hysteresis & cavitation. We also use a shock dyno for shock matching, durability tests and confirming damper adjustments.

At Fortune Auto North America we use a shock dyno in day to day operations for all of these tests. This helps us offer the end user a consistent and well tested product.

Many manufacturers shy away from displaying shock dynoes because they (a) do not have one or (b) are trying to hide their shocks characteristics. When we build all of our shocks we use a CVP graph to confirm if the shock was built properly. At Fortune Auto you can request a shock dyno when purchasing your shocks for an additional $100. We supply you with a PVP sweep graph. We normally do not provide this service free of charge because it takes about 45 minutes per shock to conduct a PVP sweep graph.

CVP shock dyno plot.

This plot helps a shock builder or manufacturer determine if a newly assembled shock is performing within its defined parameters.

Its also helps determine if there is excess cavitation (usually due to lack of nitrogen pressure) and more importantly hysteresis.

Hysteresis is shown by the separation of the 2 lines in the graph. Hysteresis is due to seal drag.

Generally a shock with extremely low seal drag (a good thing for performance) has a lower life span and will need to be rebuilt more often.

A shock with high seal drag (think oem strut) can go longer with out rebuilds. Its important to find a balance between the two.

A shock exhibiting a good balance between low hysteresis & seal drag does not need to be rebuild every few months or year.

The graph below is of a Fortune 500 series shock. The minimal gap between the 2 lines shows fairly low hysteresis. This test was conducted at 250 degrees..max heat that would be seen on a race or drift car.

The graph below is of a competitors shock that is similarly priced to ours.

This really exhibits poor shock operation and is unacceptable in terms of hysteresis. Its actually worse then a oem shock. This shock was also tested at 250 degrees.

PVP shock dyno plot:

At Fortune Auto we like to use the PVP plot in determining the ride quality and ride performance of a shock.

It also helps determine how linear or digressive a shock is.

Below is a graph of a 500 series shock. The graph is separated into 4 quadrants. The top of the graph displays compression force and the bottom the graph displays rebound force.

The left side of the graph represents low speed speed and the right side represents high shaft speed. A common misconception of Low Speed and High Speed is that it is referring to the speed of the car.

Low speed represents driver inputs such as roll, pitch, squat and dive. High speed represents bumps, pot holes, rumble strips etc.

High speed usually will give you and idea how comfortable a shock is and low speed force helps give driver confidence. A linear shock has very little low speed force will not handle roll, pitch, squat and dive situations as good as a digressive shock that has much more lower speed force.

Generally everything over 2-3 inches per second is considered low speed and anything over 2-3 inches per second is considered high speed.

The graph below is of a linear shock. Again this shock is a competitors and very popular in the 240sx community.

As you can see there is very little low speed force.

The graph below is of a 500 series shock. As you can see the graph has a knee in it. The shock exhibits much lower force...again more control in roll and dive/squat situations.

Fortune Auto Shock dyno graphs:

All Fortune Auto shocks have the same valving from our 500 series to our dreadnnoughts.

Below is a sweep PVP graph of one of our shocks from full soft to full hard. You can notice nice consistent damping changes. Many lesser shocks make little to know damping changes when the knob is turned.

Below is a sweep PVP graph of a race shock that a customer requested to build for their time attack car.

As you can see the shock forces are higher so they can cope with higher spring rates. In this case 15k and 12k.

Many entry level shock manufacturers use the one size fits all mentality. This results in a improper ride and even worse performance.

Consistency and Repeatability:

It is important that a shock is tested, tested and then tested some more.

When we dyno a shock we dyno all of them at 90 degrees. This makes all of our tests consistent for comparison sakes.

However race/drift conditions can actually get a shock extremely hot. We have seen temps as high as 220 degrees on our race cars after 40 minute wheel to wheel races.

Usually a shocks characterises will drastically change when it sees high temps. This is due to small piston sizes, low quality shim stacks and non synthetic shock oils that cavitate-.

We are proud to announce that our shocks are extremely temperature resistant.

The graph below shows our shocks running through some extreme temperatures.

The graph shows how resilient our shocks are to massive temp changes.

Considering that it takes 160 degrees to fry an egg it is pretty impressive that our shocks perform virtually the same at 90 degrees to 350 degrees.

This is accomplished by running oversizes shock bodies (that hold more shock oil), high quality shims and synthetic oil.

Hope everyone enjoyed this little tech article. Hit us up if you have any other questions!

Fortune Auto North America Facility Tour! Part 1

Wed, 16 Nov 2011 04:35:00 +0000

We have been meaning to post this up for some time now but it has been so busy around the shop lately.

Fortune Auto is a boutique suspension company, we are not set up for mass production. All shocks are built to order by hand by one technician from beginning to end. This helps us maintain quality and track back possible problems in the assembly process.

Fortune Auto is one of the few Asian based suspension companies that actually inspects, builds and services shocks in the USA. We are the only company that offers this on height/damping adjustable coilovers at the price point that we sell them for. Our shock assembly and service center uses a state of the art Roehrig 2VS shock dyno that helps us calibrate and match new shocks. We also use the dyno for testing and developing new products.

We also have the ability to prototype and test new applications and products before they go into production!

This is part 1 of the tour. In part 2 we will go over assembly and production.

Enough of rambling...on to the pictures!

Main foyer to Fortune Auto North America and the prototype and service division (FAST)

Showroom and reception area that has our full line of suspension on display.

Some of our trophies earned on the race track!

Our sales, tech support and wholesale reps. When you call Fortune Auto North America you ACTUALLY get to talk to a real live person! Don't you wish all companies operated this way?

Our piston assembly and dyno station. Pistons get assembled here and dynoed to determine proper operation. This is a very stringent process that we take very seriously. Once a batch of pistons are built they are "matched" to each other so that a set of pistons are all within spec and acceptable parameters.

Assembly of a 500 series piston

A 500 series shock getting tested on the Roehrig shock dyno. Once the shock passes this test it heads over to the coilover assembly station where the mounts, top hats and springs are installed.

In the assembly station parts go over one last quality control check before assembly.

Coilover assembly station. All accessories are added to the piston and final stickers and serial numbers are applied here.

Once assembly is completed the coilovers are sent to our shipping department where they get packaged for shipping to the end user!

Right next to our offices and assembly center is our service division (Fortune Auto Service and Tuning) All prototyping, fabrication, race car maintance of our Time Attack cars happens here. We also provide customers with services from suspension installs to race car builds and custom fabrication!

Thanks for looking and stay tuned for Part 2 of this tour!

Fortune Auto's NEW Demo Car: 2JZ-GTE Powered FD RX-7

Thu, 27 Oct 2011 04:25:00 +0000

Fortune Auto is proud to introduce our new demo vehicle! This car is owned by the VP of Fortune Auto, Jen Jar.

It has been a long hard road to get the car where its currently at...2 years to be exact. Several man hours, several shops that had no idea what the heck they were doing and several thousands of dollars later. In the end was it all worth it? After looking at this beauty we sure do think so! There has been a lot of drama surrounding this car since its inception. Several shops and companies that make "kits" for this swap had no business being in business, honestly. We will not name names, but it's been a long rocky road.

Finally we had to take matters in our own hands and set things straight. FAST (Fortune Auto Service and Tuning) has just opened up its doors this year and Matt Purvis had to go back and fix many many mistakes. Once the car was ready to start over we realized the wiring harness that was included with the swap "kit" was also a sham. So we enlisted the professional services of Ben Freed of FREED Engineering. Ben wired the car up and tied up all the loose ends. Ben finally got the engine roaring to life!

Once the meat and potatoes where taken care of, Jen focused on aesthetics. Fortune Auto 500 series coilovers where installed. The interior was then restored. A Nardi deep corn wheel, custom suede seats, Fortune titanium shift knob and turbosmart gauges were carefully installed by Matt at FAST. Lastly the original paint was buffed and shined to perfection. JDM tail lights, FEED side skirts, CATZ turn signals and 99 spec front lip was fitted. Dan over at CCW was kind enough to send over sample wheels and tires to nail the fitment and style spot on. Once the details of the wheels and tires were ironed out CCW made a set of custom LM20 wheels in brushed gold with polished lips. The wheel and tire sizes are a beefy 18x9.5 up front and 18x11 out back. Tires are 245 width up front and 285 out rear.

When its all said and done Fortune Auto is very happy with its new demo car....as you can imagine Jen is even happier!

New S-Chassis Ruca's Finally on sale!!

Tue, 25 Oct 2011 22:35:00 +0000

Ruca's for the s13, s14 and s15 now on sale.

Here are the finalized pics of these beautys! 3 year warranty!

2011 Fortune Auto Open House - Event Pictures

Fri, 14 Oct 2011 17:05:00 +0000

Huge thanks to everyone that came out and attended our open house. We were very excited with the amount of people that showed up to this event. Can not wait for next years event!!