which coilovers to choose

[coupe_nasty]

So ive narrowed my selection down to BC coilovers and DGR coilovers. Both are around $1000. Anyone have any input to either of these brands?

 

[TSi Kid]

These mods have restored my faith..

 

[pboglio]

I own K-sports. After 3 years I've had enough. Front and rear struts blown out. Before that, the suspension would bottom out in high speed turns with large depressions, then rebound severely until the rear end nearly went airborne. Also, the stiff suspension vibrated my shifter linkage off the tranny housing.

I've grown to hate driving this car, any bump taller than the thickness of a penny scares me. Driving over a pothole is like dropping into the grand canyon. I'm done, time to do my car a favor and save it from any further damage and upgrade.

I'm going to go to Koni Yellows and H&R OE Sport Springs.

 

[jtmcinder]

I never got a chance to try OE Sports, but I remember that the math said good things. And the drop seems about right, too: http://www.dsmtuners.com/forums/art...s/242876-2g-koni-sports-w-h-r-oe-springs.html Please report back, since this might be what a lot of people are looking for. After all, is adjustability of ride-height really needed if you can buy springs with the right drop, right rates, and clean fit on Konis? (Note to my favorite Hawaiian: that was rhetorical; the answer is No.)

 

[Lofty]

Toby, please stay for a long time again here.

If you didn't have a red name you'd probably be banned for trolling, but nonetheless we love you and your information.


Thread had me rolling, continue on.

 

[Artago]

Toby!

Saw this

No.
And no.

and cracked up laughing. Just got better from there.

This is an epic thread

I think we have a new Defiant

 

[Leonthefaded]

This thread is indeed epic

 

[pboglio]

Yep, I'll report back on the Koni/H&R combo. I started out at 1.75" drop, then 1.5", then went to 1.25". I think a spring that even gives 1.0" drop still makes the car look good and I'll take any extra suspension travel I can get.

I'll also be trying out the RM racing 2g sway bars. Buddy of mine used to run a coilover setup and switched to Bilsteins, softer progressive springs, and stiff sway bars on his EVO 8 and that combo is cush in the straights with great roll resistance in the corners.

The other thing to watch out for with K-sports is the tendancy for the car to hop sideways mid-corner when encountering small bumps. I usually would drive on the inside corner to give the car enough room to land and gain traction.

Also, the K-sport springs have popped their nice powder coating off the springs completely and are now corroding very badly to the point I would not trust a spring any longer. The lower spring perches have also cold welded themselves to the strut body threads and nothing short of a sawzall will remove it. I have the replacement K-sport struts on my shelf and don't care now to replace them, another $200 down the drain.

My entire K-sport kit goes in the garbage as I won't sell this crap to another DSM owner.

 

[jtmcinder]

The other thing to watch out for with K-sports is the tendancy for the car to hop sideways mid-corner when encountering small bumps. I usually would drive on the inside corner to give the car enough room to land and gain traction.

I am quite aware that both technical posts and sarcastic posts can fail to get a point across; I just seem incapable of anything between the two. So let me just repeat (through the magic of the Quote Post button what pboglio said).

What the above quote is talking about goes by a bunch of names, but my favorite is "skitter." There are many causes of this. The most-simple and straight-forward cause is the shock having too much high-speed bump damping. Instead of letting the wheel follow the pavement and moving up when it hits the bump mid-corner, the shock resists the suspension movement and transmits the bump to the chassis. The whole car then hops sideways as lateral grip is lost for a moment. Really bad. This is why I rage against shocks that have too much high-speed bump damping (which is almost anything from Asia). Even adjustable shocks can have this problem because (again, for almost anything from Asia) the adjuster alters rebound and bump at the same time, so, even if you can dial out some high-speed bump (which you often can't because the adjuster only alters low-speed damping), you've lost your rebound damping and there goes the turn-in.

The reason that people love certain shocks (e.g., Bilsteins, Konis, Ohlins, KWs) is that they are highly digressive in bump. Yes, they damp low-speed suspension movements in the same way as all other shocks, so you get your solid feel, good turn-in, and high-speed stability, etc, but, when you hit a bump, the shims inside "blow open" and there's no additional damping. Thus, you get stability without skitter.

That's one of the main issues that those of us who are ragging on Megans, K-Sports, etc, are thinking of. The standard, cheap, Asian design with a two-way adjustable bleeder in the piston head and no foot-valve will never do what you need it to do.

The second reason for shocks-induced skitter is rare, but since it can happen with Konis, it ought to be mentioned. If you have way too much rebound damping for your springs, then the shock doesn't allow the spring to re-extend quickly. Thus, a series of suspension movements in quick succession can cause the suspension to "pack down." I know this sounds something like what Google returns with when you ask it to find you information on Rick Santorum, but it isn't. Instead, packing down is when all of the successive upward (bump) movements in the suspension don't have a chance to be undone, so they pile on top each other and, effectively, pack the spring up tight. (It should probably be called "packing up" and not "packing down" to help people see what it is.) In any event, a pre-packed spring is effectively a much stiffer spring, since, in order to move it some more, you not only need the new force, but you also need to have the equivalent of all the stored force, too. Thus, once packed down, you have rock-hard springs and the car can skitter until the stored force is released.

I bring this up mostly because the adjuster on Koni Sports affected the rebound bleed only and can be dialed to give you a ton of low-speed rebound damping ... easily enough to pack down springs in the range that most people get. So, if you follow our advice and get Koni Sports, sleeves, and some decent-rate springs, be careful about going all the way on the adjuster. It can cause packing-down which is very hard for some people to tell apart from too much compression damping.

A third shock-related cause of skitter came up a few times yesterday, as well. If you don't have coaxial springs and pillowball top, you can end up with a lot of stiction. Stiction mostly acts to keep the shock from starting to move; it doesn't actually have much effect once the piston-head is in motion. Thus, stiction often causes skitter that will never show up on a shock-dyno plot.

 

[NWHTanK]

Bravo

I could read this suff all day. When is the test?

 

[PieEyedPiper]

Why is it that I can't shake the following image: first, I see a large group of horses, all laying on the ground; slowly, it becomes clear that they are all dead - that's why they are lying on their sides and that's why they aren't moving; moments later, somehow, I learn or merely intuit that they have all died of thirst; as if repelled by this, my view-point pulls back and I now can see the wider scene; and that's when I learn that these dead-of-thirst horses are laying on the bank of a pristine river. Fade to black.

Freaky, eh?

Wow.

I use Tokico Illuminas with Eibach Prokit springs (Asian) and I experience this "skitter" on a near daily basis. Even just one click down from full-stiff will make the rear end soggy and as mentioned - there goes your turn in. Much like pboglio, there is a certain stretch of road that I routinely drive hard and if I'm taking a particular corner at anything over 55mph the car will skip to the side, so I too, have to ride the inside shoulder to anticipate where the car will be and get it to where I want it to go.

Illuminas + Prokits, hands down the worst mod I've performed to my car.

 

[jtmcinder]

Certain chemicals can remain lodged and dormant in lumps of phlegm in your lungs for years. And, then, at seemingly random times, a hard cough can release said chemicals. If you have enough stored and then cough hard enough, the result can be a post such as that one.

Whether the statute of limitations applies to when the chemicals were stored in the phlegm or when they enter the bloodstream is something that I ought to look into at some point.

 

[NWHTanK]

Wont a improperly fixed frame wore out suspension and wore out tires or cheap tires wear the belts have seperated all cause skitter?

Along with tracking to a certain degree.

 

[coupe_nasty]

I think after all this confusion, I may just go with Tein. I already have Tein SS on my other car and love them. Also have a friend with Tein basics on a 3G eclipse I installed and he loves them as well. Just thought I would try a new brand.

My other car on Tein SS.

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My friends Eclipse on Tein Basics

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[romeen]

One more anecdote to add to the other's regarding skitter. This is a post of mine from 2007 regarding a switch from Prokit to OE Sports (both with Illuminas).

http://www.dsmtuners.com/forums/151266651-post36.html

Paragraph relevant to this conversation:

One quick story to illustrate. A local highway transition with about a 45* medium radius left with a dip in the middle. At the dip it is slightly banked the wrong way (I think there was unexpected settling of the ground here). With the Prokit the car would wallow through this section and it felt like the entire car wanted to slide sideways, in particular the rear. With the OE Sports there is very little if any wallow and the car feels very stable and is able to maintain it's "composure" much better. In all fairness I have to admit that much if not most of this may be a result of the recent alignment more so than the different characteristics between the springs.

Although my description could be interpreted as over steer I really don't think that's what it was. It was more of the entire car hopping sideways. Doesn't make for a pleasurable driving experience.

 

[Artago]

Yep, I'll report back on the Koni/H&R combo. I started out at 1.75" drop, then 1.5", then went to 1.25". I think a spring that even gives 1.0" drop still makes the car look good and I'll take any extra suspension travel I can get.

I've been considering the H&R OE springs for a while. They seem like a reasonable compromise for a daily driver on shitty roads. I just don't know which shocks to get.

@ jtmcinder: What do you think of the H&R OE's for a DD?
What shocks would you match them with if you decided to get them? Koni's?

Thus, a series of suspension movements in quick succession can cause the suspension to "pack down." I know this sounds something like what Google returns with when you ask it to find you information on Rick Santorum, but it isn't.

Zing

 

[jtmcinder]

As I said above, I never got a chance to drive on H&R OE Sports in anger, but the other half of the question is easy: yes, Koni Sports. There's really no other option for a stand-alone shock for a 2G until you get to good coilovers.

ps. Please - I beg you - do not pass along any of my easily-misunderstood jokes to the guys at VCMC; and, out of curiosity: are they still calling the Susquehanna Launch Light a "Toby Light"? The framed photo that Farzan made for me still hangs in my office at work.

 

[BayState300GT]

I recommend the BC coilovers. I had a set in my 240sx and they rode like a dream. I highly recommend them. They are a good deal for the money you pay.

 

[Leonthefaded]

Have any of you heard of hotbits. They make rally spec coilover suspension for awd. 1g and 2g

 

[coupe_nasty]

well after all the confusion of trying a new brand, i just ordered tein basic coilovers tonight. Im happy with tein on my other car so i just figured id stick with them.

 

[jtmcinder]

Not to pick on you and BayState too much, but you need to be careful about inferring that the stuff from Company X will be good on Car A because the stuff from Company X is good on Car B.

Let me give an example (that I learned when I was rightfully smacked down on an Evo-related site). We know that ProKits are crud for 2G DSMs. They are waaaaaay too soft for the drop. Well, on the assumption that a mistake like this for 2G DSMs would mean that Eibach would make this mistake for Evo Xs, I argued against ProKits for an Evo X. Well, it turns out that ProKits for Evo Xs have an excellent springrate. Highly progressive, starting around stock and jumping up to near 5 kg after about two inches. Brilliant.

See the point? A company can get one car correct and completely boot it on another.

 

[jcart953]

I have a set of K sport coilovers, use them daily on my wifes EK. They are perfection.

Opinions=/Fact

 

[Black-Out]

This is awesome...

 

[oxisafox10]

@jtmcinder What is your opinion on the teins? I know you recommend the Koni/GC setup, but what's your input on the tein ss setup?

 

[Ludachris]

One of these days I'll go ahead and come up with a standard reply to these "which coilovers should I buy" threads and sticky them. I don't understand why people put so much effort into trying to find the better of the shitty options when it comes to coilovers.

For the 100th time - Konis and lowering springs would probably be cheaper and better than any coilover on the market in the sub $2k range for a DSM. A Koni/Ground Control combo with Dennis Grant's upper pillowball mount design will be better, hands down, than anything under $2k - problem is you have to piece that together. But it's worth the effort.

If your budget is $1k it's easy, buy as set of Konis and lowering springs (temporarily). Sell your lowering springs later when you have the necessary cash to buy the Ground Control kit and have the upper pillowball mounts made. Don't spend money on inferior coilovers. Or, wait until you can save up more, increase your budget and get a decent set of coilovers like some Muellerized JICs, some Robispec KWs, or some Hotbits coilovers. I'm pretty sure all of those kits will come with the upper pillowball mounts that ALL of the cheap coilovers lack - correct me if I'm wrong though, I'm a 1G guy.

The cheapest and best 2g coilover solution available right now is to go with the Dennis Grant design, using Konis and his parts list. You'll simply need to find a fabricator to have the pillowball mounts made using Dennis' specs. Slightly more expensive than the Ksport, BC, Tein, Megan, etc, options, but cheaper than some of the good stuff. And it uses the correct design for a 2g, where the cheaper options do not.

 

[Ludachris]

I recommend the BC coilovers. I had a set in my 240sx and they rode like a dream. I highly recommend them. They are a good deal for the money you pay.

And they were probably designed correctly in your 240. In a 2g, like all the other coilovers in that price range (sub $2k), they lack the upper pillowball mount, which is an inferior design. Without even getting into the performance of the shock itself, the lack of a front upper pillowball mount should automatically cross the option off the list if you want something that is supposed to handle well. If you just want a low car with 100 adjustments, by all means, pick whatever set looks prettiest.