Best Coilovers?

[Turbo Shogun]

You don't know much about suspension, do you.

Tein's DSM stuff is entry-level JUNK.

How so? The Tein SS-P's for 1G AWD have spring rates close to what Toby recommended to Toshiro in another thread (I believe he said 500/300?). They're 16 way adjustable for both rebound and bound, with camber plates (although I heard they bend easily ... ?). Ride height adjustable, too, although I doubt any of us can make adjustments to that every so often. There's alot of rumors about Tein. And alot of rumors about JIC. And Ground Control. And AGX. And Koni's.

It's hard to differentiate the BS from the real, helpful information now. People spread rumors without even trying it out for themselves, they just go off what they hear. And it's rare to have someone come up with concrete evidence to support the rumors. You can't rely on hearsay ...

I'm probably going to order Tein SS-P's in a week or two.

- Edit -

Mind you, I'm not belligerently scoffing at anyone's advice, I found it quite interesting. Although I would like to see some real evidence or testimonials as to the effectiveness of the aforementioned solutions to the DSM suspension dilemma.

 

[njshift]

There's a VFAQ somewhere.

Remember: repeat several times when talking to the guys at GC that you want 8" fronts and 7" rears and that you need rings for Koni Sports. Also, don't be a wuss and get the 450/300 rates that they'll push at you. Up the rears to 375, at least, or just go nuts and get 500/450. Then play stupid and get them to read it back to you. Great stuff for the money, but their ability to screw up an order is equally impressive. (Combine that with all of the silly [but male] giggling that you hear in the background and I have to wonder if they really listened when Nancy told them to "just say no.")

- Jtoby

I think this is the post you mentioned. He didn't recommend 500/300. It seems that he stresses the gc default rear spring rates are inadequate.

 

[njshift]

In this post Jtoby speaks of the tein flex for a 2g not the SS. The SS rates are 500/340 (500/390 for 1g) as opposed to the flex's 560/340. I found his post to contain a wealth of good information.

Here is why TEIN defaults to 10/6 (which is metric for 559/336).

First, standard thinking is that 550 is the minimum for the front to keep the shocks off the bumpstops.

Second, you have to stay below 400 in the rear (especially when your shocks have lots of high-speed compression damping) or the street ride becomes nasty.

Put those together and you get the rates that TEIN sells.

But you can pay a bit extra and get different rates. TEIN will let you add or subtract up to 2 kg to the front or rear springs. So, you can ask for 10/8 (which is 559/ 447), if you wish, or even the rates that I like, which is 9/8 (i.e., the closest to 500/450 that you can get with metrics).

To get at the other half of you question: yes, 10/6 will do nothing to help with the understeer of a DSM and could well make it worse. And this could also be on purpose, for all I know. Why? Because understeer is a lot safer than oversteer. And, after all, it won't do much good for your company's rep if people keep spinning and crashing on your suspension parts. (Note that GC defaults to 450/300.) Let's be honest, most people still reach for the brake when they panic in a corner. It takes a lot of seat time (and a certain kind of direct mental connection to your car) to actually feed in some more gas when the tail starts to step out.

As to your other question: yes, you can run the default springs and try to move some weight transfer to the rear using bars, instead, such as leaving the front bar stock and adding only a SuspTech (1G) or RM (2G) bar in the rear. This isn't such a bad thing to do, given that AWD DSMs have a box of goo in the rear to deal with inside-rear-wheel lift. But I prefer to do most of the work using springs. So I would probably pay the extra $100 and get 10/8 springs if I were to run TEINs. At a minimum, I would up the rears to 7s and maybe drop the fronts to 9s. When the shocks are at full soft (16), this wouldn't be too bad on the street.

But, again, the real problem with TEINs is how the adjuster ups the compression damping at the same time as the rebound. When they are really cranked up, they have too much compression and the car can skitter (while the ride really sucks). This is why I would always start with Koni Sports at the core if I were building a system for around $1500.

- Jtoby

 

[interceptor]

http://www.hopupracing.com/enzefucosusy4.html
sweet

 

[njshift]

http://www.hopupracing.com/enzefucosusy4.html
sweet

If I was forced to spend that type of money I would be getting jics not those. :thumbdown