Ride quality shouldn't be this bad with my setup - help?

[Woodsy0]

As stated, I can't imagine that my suspension set-up is correct when the ride quality is this bad. Granted, I live in Boston, but even minor cracks and bumps in the road are met with almost no damping at all - it almost seems like I have absolutely no suspension available to dampen the impact of the road. This occurs especially in the rear, more so than the front, but my suspension right now makes the car a pain in the ass to drive.

Don't get me wrong, I'm young and I'm positive I have a fairly high threshold to accept poor ride quality, and I realize a degree of ride quality is sacrificed with a stiffer suspension, but this is just absurd. Can anybody give me some advice on how to increase the ride quality? I mean, the suspension performed better when I first bought this car used, and that was with 10 year old blown struts and old stock bushings. If I can't figure out any remedies, I'll probably go as far as selling my coilovers and looking for something different, and that's almost too much of a counter-productive money waste to bear. Thanks in advance for any advice.

My current set-up (note that I've had a fresh alignment performed just recently):
Front:
16" stock wheels
Tein Basic coil-overs
Tein upper pillow ball mounts
Energy Suspension control arm bushings
ES Sway bar bushings (stock bar)

Rear:
16" stock wheels
Tein Basic coil overs
ES upper strut mounts
Energy Suspension trail arm and upper control arm bushings
(The three ES bushings that attach to the three points on the knuckle have yet to be installed for both left and right rear)
ES Sway bar bushings (stock bar)
Rear toe control arms replaced (new), toe adjusted to spec

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

 

[housegsx]

Solid pillowball mounts and the energy suspension pieces aren't going to help for a plush ride.
Plus the spring rates are twice that of OEM.

 

[RamenPride]

Solid pillowball mounts and the energy suspension pieces aren't going to help for a plush ride.
Plus the spring rates are twice that of OEM.

I concur.

The spring rates of the Teins are (in lbs/inch) 504f/336r, stock is about 265f/162r. You'll feel almost every single road imperfection with poly bushings also. If you want a less bone-jarring ride, get new shocks and put the stock springs back on, or get lowering springs. I think I read somewhere that the Tein coilover springs are tapered, so getting softer spring rates might not be an easy option.

 

[Woodsy0]

Sounds good. I guess I'm just going to grit my teeth and bear it for now...I'm hoping that the ride might feel a little more even when I get the second half of the rear suspension bushings in...The front suspension actually doesn't feel that bad, but it seems like the rear of the car takes bumps three or four times as rough as the front...As they are now, I think that the flimsyness of the stock knuckle bushings are even more apparent, now that the spring rate is higher and the adjacent bushings are all polyurethene now...

Also, would the fact that I have Tein's pillow ball mount up at the front but only ES's upper shock mounts at the rear make any difference in suspension operation, since the front and the rear upper mounts aren't matched?

Thanks,
Scott

 

[Woodsy0]

Another question:

Would there be any adverse effects to simply changing out the existing springs on the Tein Basic setup with some with a lower spring rate? Can someone confirm about Tein's springs being tapered, as RamenPride indicated?

Scott

 

[3literpwr]

Your springs are not what makes the car stiff... The dampenig for put into the shocks to deal with those spring rates is... Just lowering the spring rate may actually make your ride worse as the parts may have so much rebound force that the shock can jack down and sit on the bump stop and leaving you with NO travel at all... How low is you car and how far are you from the bump stops?

LP

 

[Woodsy0]

Since I live in the land of frost heaves and crappy roads, and I'm worried about bottoming out on most anything, and I don't really like the "slammed" look anyways, I tried to adjust the spring perches fairly high up. I don't have a stock height to reference (forgot to measure before installing), but I'd guess I'm not more than 0.5 - 1.0 inch lower than stock.