Which Coil overs to choose?

[AutoRnD]

hahahah time for me to interject some info here as well.
all tanabe coilovers are twin tube last i checked. even thier 2000 dollar dd setup..
the tien he is twin tube as well. but is not discontunied for their super drift setup hahaha..
Also.. megan racing / d2 /k sport etc.. i wouldnt buy em.. Not my style.. they a little crappy.. not much service w/ them. And i don't know but are tanabe's serviceable in us?
another thing to note is jic sucks.. their customer service blows... It gives me migranes trying to work w/ them.
also gp sports are hot
silkroad are hot
and Zeal is the shit.

zeals ride sooo good even for high spring rates. they just tune their coilovers very well/.

[TurDz]

Originally Posted by Ard josh

zeals ride sooo good even for high spring rates. they just tune their coilovers very well/.

That's why I'm impressed by only a few coilovers. Only a few manufacturers really know how to make coilovers built to perform and ride nicely. Zeals and Kei Office's come to mind. dunno about cusco zero2r's though...

[the head]

I like the Tanabe SS 2s (model with helper springs) on my car they ride firm but my car is all heim joints and urethane so I guess it will always be harsh no matter what coilovers I use

[ZK]

It all depends what you want to do with the car... For street use, street suspension is best, it will absorb the bumps and allow you to maintain control.

You start sticking race/drift suspension on street cars and you end up with a very rough ride and it doesn't handle well on anything that isn't smooth.

I like my Tein Type Flex - good ride quality, adjustable ride height, travel, dampening and you can stiffen up decent for track use. If I was going all out track I'd get something more aggressive but for daily driver purposes and weekend track it is awesome.

I've driven Tein HAs and HEs. The HA is rougher riding than the Flex and less adjustability, the HE is too stiff for daily commuting and problems with blown shocks.

[MikeFD3S]

make an educated decision on what you need and why you need it. A lot of people want so many adjustments, but they really have no idea what the true use is, or how to properly set it. Do you know how to properly set preload? Adjust stroke and shock travel? Let alone, properly corner weight a car?

Probably not. Adjustable coilovers are very good for those who properly use them and set them up, but if set incorrectly, you car will probably handle and ride a bit worse than before.

A good suspension will handle nice AND ride well. It's a matter of the internal valving and quality of the shock. Don't look at the number of dampening adjustments which is very misleading...many times something that says "36-way adjustable" has 36 increments over only a very small true dampening force range.

You might actually get more dampening force adjustment out of a shock with 4 clicks than you would with one with 16. It's all marketing hype.

Just because it rides stiff doesn't mean that your car is actually handling any better...it usually just means you have a cheaply made shock.

[Phil St John]

Another thing to keep in mind is most coilovers are made in japan. Japan has much better tracks and roads than we do and in keeping with that the spring rates on their coilovers are usually a bit much for a commute across the land of potholes. White Line is an Aussi company and they have roads that suck ass. I cant remember the spring rate but its twice that of stock and far less than other companies. On the other hand you might like a firm ride and you can more often then not order a specific spring rate from the other guys. Remember if you go with a stiff ride your car might not like it either, chassis fles on old cars is common and is greatly increased with a stiff suspention, be ready to brace your car up, wheeeeeeeeeeeee

Also I forgot to mention that there are only a few companies that sell and adjustable height damper, witch may not sound like much but if you dump you car with out that capabilaty you lose much ot your stroke lenth from your shock/strut somtimes to only an inch of travel, not much fun to ride on your bump stops. Its a wondefull thing to have the correct amount of travel in your chit.

[ZK]

Originally Posted by Phil St John

Another thing to keep in mind is most coilovers are made in japan. Japan has much better tracks and roads than we do and in keeping with that the spring rates on their coilovers are usually a bit much for a commute across the land of potholes.

Japan has some pretty jacked up roads actually. The highways are smooth but besides that it's pretty messed up. I think they just put up with the rough ride with suspension. And just like in the US 99% of cars are bone stock and people just drive them around town. But unlike the US, not very many people drive - its too inconvenient and expensive.