Drift Tengoku Article: Coilover Shootout

[MrMigs]

From the January 2010 issue of Drift Tengoku.
The coilovers reviewed are the Parts Shop MAX, HKS Hipermax Nobuteru Taniguchi Special, D-MAX, and RG (Racing Gear) JTC-N1.

Only problem is... it's all in Japanese. Anyone care to translate? LoL

[MisawaJason]

Dmax is the first place winnar

[drift freaq]

well judging by the last page D Max won that shoot out.

[udon!]

MAX
located in fujieda city
Yokoi from mind control recommends this because he's been doing good in D1SL with it
Normally they come with 10 - 8 but since Yokoi runs 8/6 thats how they tested it.
side note 6 kg is only in black
A very unique thing about these is that the pillowball uppers for both front and rear both have a spring top had that allows unrestricted pillowball movement.

They liked how most of the construction is aluminum so the whole set weighs 19 kg which is the lightest of all types tested. This is a good mix of Japanese and overseas parts to give you a great suspension for $1000
(they started out on click 4 front and 4 rear out of 8 )
First impression is that it felt stiff and they wonder why because the spring rate is lower than the standard rates. They noticed that the front end of the car feels amazing, and responsive so he could see the difference between this one and his previous suspension. He likes the way it feels when the car gets up on the track curb. The rear felt bouncy so they put the rear on full soft and afterwards it felt better. Funky says with this change the rear feels good and the front has massive traction so when you kick the back out hard, the car has a feeling of control. One important thing to know about how Parts Shop MAX is different from other stiff coilovers is that typically when a car is set up really stiff, its usually it is prone to spinouts, but the opposite was true of p.s.MAX - it had great control.

Racing gear JTC/N1
This suspension was on the car for the last three years but the shock was not blown. The bottom mount bushing was worn. The spring was switched to Eiback 8KG in the front and swift 6KG in the rear. The tester knew right away it was his suspension. He knows this suspension really well, it is easy to kick out the tail but once it starts sliding its hard to stop. Single runs he can drive this suspension bcause he knows it, but the rear is too unpredictable to follow someone well or get consistancy in back to back runs.

HKS Hypermax-D NOB spec
They talk about how it comes with many tools for special adjustments. The front has a 2 way adjuster for camber and caster. Rear has a helper spring. Super high quality and beautiful. Has a 1 year warranty. They say it felt great just driving down the paddock, soft. There is no special characteristics to the drift feeling, it was just straight forward feeling, so they tried to see how it feels by clicking the damping one click and that is impossible, it just feels the same, they had to click it 14 times just to tell the difference. There is no extreme characteristics, so it hay be good for a beginner, but for the drivers taste he would prefer something more "edgy".

D-MAX
The tester was really interested in finding out about this suspension because the D1SL was won three times on it. Quality is good, and comes with all the little accessories so thay are impressed with what you get for the price. Started out with 16 out of 32 clicks. He likes this the best for overall balance. This suspension matches the S13 well. Trying the rear softer, there is major understeer so he was like OH Shit and so he tried front and rear full soft and didnt like it either so he put it back to where it was before. Says it is good because the adjustments actually work for dialing in you type of car.






Summary:

Best Cost effectiveness - DMAX

Best Comfort - HKS

Best Purchase ability and steering response - Parts Shop MAX

Unique things about each one:
Dmax has a slotted lower for more camber and a fitting so it wont come loose
Hypermax-D the most positive camber setting could only get it to negative three, so this in in line with more modern camber settigs used with knuckle mods.
Parts Shop MAX - The huge difference in weight of the aluminum brackets - the coarse thread makes it easy to adjust - the issue with the rear balance that they did not have time to fine tune could be dialed in on your car to get the perfect balance with the fantastic front feeling during testing.


EDIT: translation by Martin @ PSM

[stinky_180]

http://zilvia.net/f/suspension/30293...rs-thread.html

[Matej]

They did not test maximum lowness, the most important aspect to 80% of coilover buyers.

[stinky_180]

Originally Posted by Matej

They did not test maximum lowness, the most important aspect to 80% of ZILVIA coilover buyers.

corrected for you

[tricky_ab]

I believe that Drift Tengoku usually does coilover shootouts in the early publishing months. Anyways I'm still trying to decide on Dmax or PBM...

[Mister.E]

I've had D-Max coils on my old 180. i really liked them a lot. the adjustable dampening actually works. on the softest setting they are really decent for daily driving, but when you start to get into the mid to high range they get really stiff. they did have some issues with understeering, but that's probably because i didnt have the settings dialed in correctly.

once i get back to the states im gonna give the PSM coils a shot. everyone that drifts says they love them so i wanna try them out and compare them to the old D-Max's.

[BlitzRPS13]

I have the Racing Gear JTC N1 coilovers... jesus christ it's stiff for street. Mine look way nicer than those in the magazine though.

[MrMigs]

I wonder how Endless/Zeal Function-D compares to any of these coilovers.

[tricky_ab]

Originally Posted by E Double

I've had D-Max coils on my old 180. i really liked them a lot. the adjustable dampening actually works. on the softest setting they are really decent for daily driving, but when you start to get into the mid to high range they get really stiff. they did have some issues with understeering, but that's probably because i didnt have the settings dialed in correctly.

once i get back to the states im gonna give the PSM coils a shot. everyone that drifts says they love them so i wanna try them out and compare them to the old D-Max's.

Thanks for letting me know! This is the type of first hand info that will help me with my purchase!

Cheers!

[Enna]

Goddamn those HKS have a serious pillow ball mount. I want it just for that now lol.

[vboy720]

so even tho they liked the way psm drove, they ranked it 3rd?

[az_240]

I wonder how Stance GR+ would stack up... those seem to be the most popular these days.

[MrMigs]

Originally Posted by vboy720

so even tho they liked the way psm drove, they ranked it 3rd?

Looks like it... I guess they didn't like the fact that the rear damper had to be set to full-soft for it to work the way they wanted.

Originally Posted by az_240

I wonder how Stance GR+ would stack up... those seem to be the most popular these days.

Same here... would have been really nice to see that. But maybe they don't have Stance in Japan? Or maybe not that many people there are using it. I dunno...

[kalypso123]

I <3 this thread. @_@