Coilovers help
 

So today I found out that I have to get my Sti springs and struts off my car and go back to the stock wrx ones.. which i dont want.. So I want coilovers and I wanna order them tomorrow. I have about $1300 at my disposal.. Help me out. I dont know much about suspension..

I can find stuff for my price range. But I dont know what's worth my money and what's not..

Thanks in advance.

Try searching "coilover".

Then save up $300 more and go get some Tein Flexs.

Or buy some used ones for even less.

What would be the ideal spring rate for street IYO?

Or pick up a set of the KW Variant 1's like I did. I like them a lot, but keep in mind that I have nothing to compare them to, except stock WRX springs and then STi takeoffs.

I got mine from Oakos, I had them within 4 days of ordering...
http://www.oakos.com/Merchant2/merch...egory_Code=890

Stock or 42, one of those... :P

Seriously, what is "street"? Some people think the stock ride is too stiff, others think it is too soft for "the street".

Suspension tuning is not just about spring rates, it is about a balanced package that meets the wants/needs of the driver.

If you like a car's ride, but want it to corner flatter, sway bars can help that with minimal effect on highway ride quality.

I guess I should ask a different question. At what spring rate will my wife refuse to ride in my car?

My wants/needs are to drop my car lower while improving performance just enough to not kill my back driving around all day in NV. 99.99993% daily driving.

We have now derailed Austin's thread, but what else is new...

Will she ride in it now?

If your struts are good, pick up a used set of any number of well reviewed lowering springs first.

That may be all you need. Be aware that snow clearance can become an issue with your snow plow.

Sways might be a second step. Only after those would I suggest coils for what you describe as wants/needs.

I already have a front sway. Yes, she rides in it now with no (suspension)complains. The "snow plow" will probably be forced to come off once the car is lowered anyways. Too low for Reno. If Austin didn't want his thread to get derailed he would have said so.

Yeah Reno is not nice to lowered cars. My car isn't slammed but I think it's fairly low and I have to be very careful driving around town (downtown especially).

My advice, based on my own (subjective) experience, is don't go any stiffer than the stock STi setup if this is going to be a daily driver.

My coilovers have 9k/8k springs and although I didn't think it was too bad when they first went on, by the time a year had gone by I wanted to set the car on fire. I ended up buying another car just to avoid driving the STi every day. Now that I hardly drive it anymore, when I do drive it, it doesn't seem too bad again.

Unless the only factor is autocross and track events, I would rather have suspension that was too soft than too stiff.

^That is what I was looking for.

I daily drive on Koni inserts and Crucial Racing springs. It's real nice and the girlfriend says she doesn't think it's too stiff.













:unamused:

Maybe you can give me a ride sometime.

















http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y62...wesomeleft.jpg

I know you didn't ask, but I should be at the meet on Thursday, so if Juice or Gus want to know what the KW Variant 1's feel like on the street just let me know. The spring rates are designed to be a good balance for for the street and still balanced enough for track duty.

:lol: I'll be at the meet.

I wish I was going to be there. I will be in LA with my wife for our 5 year anniversary.

Oh no, I didnt mind it getting derailed. All of this is good info for me. Keep going! And I'll try and be at the meet. If I do come, it'll be a little later around 7 or so. I'm thinking of BC coilovers. I've heard lots of good things about them. Actually to think of it.. I havent read a bad review yet. And Josh at Importimageracing.com recommended them for being on my DD, but still wanting to have fun on mountain roads. Also he said say bars. but that'll have to come next month or so. I'm hoping to order the coilovers tomorrow...err. I mean today.

I just threw up in my mouth a little bit. The word "Tein" has that weird effect on me...

I would too if I got beat by people with them... :P:lol:


I like my Flex's, might be a little stiff for some people daily driving, but doesn't bother me as my commute to work is only 3 miles. I am going to try to make some meets soon if someone wants a ride, or come out to Auto-x.

Say what you want about my Teins... the numbers speak for themselves! :P

http://www.renoscca.org/results/solo...Standings.html



:lol:

+1

I set top PAX in Eric's STI on Tein Flexs a few season back. And set the fastest lap of the weekend at the NORPAC Divisional Championship time trials event on my car w/ Tein SuperRace coilovers.

Yeah, idk how I feel about Tein, I know incidents of the sort are few and far between, but it's a little disconcerting...

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b3...2/P1020849.jpg

That just shows they are easy to clean with the detachable face.

Are those the old style lowers?

Also, by the looks of the brake ducting, and all the dirt, I'm going to guess those have seen a bit more abuse than your average driver puts on a car. Track your modified car long enough, and eventually you get to experience a failure like that.

http://www.seccs.org/forums/attachme...1&d=1220381205



In my case, I had the actual factory control arm fail. I'm not surprised there are pictures of track cars w/ exploded Teins floating about. But without knowing the story behind the picture, I wouldn't consider it a reason not to buy Tein.

As I recall, that photo is very old of a design not in production for many years. I think there was something else hinky about it, but don't recall what. Unfortunately there is no Snopes.com for Forum myths.

Sorry just forget to post the link...

http://www.lancerregister.com/showth...5&pagenumber=1

Yeah, I read that too...I'm not trying to slander Tein, I was just saying that my personal reason for not wanting a set of the Teins, was stuff of that nature. They just weren't my choice of coilover, but you guys have had no issues with them so they can't be too bad. Sorry to seriously derail the thread.

They arent that bad for a budget coilover, and you guys definitely make them work. But they wouldnt be my first choice. Actually I was offered some 40k mile tein flex's straight trade for my MR suspension and passed. They have very small dampening range despite how many "clicks" they say you can turn. Ive had discussions with a few good suspension tuners before and most japanese coilovers, with the exception of Ohlins, have that problem. They are generally valved very stiff, the shock dyno's are all over the place, and they just arent that well constructed.

Trust me, if someone else was driving my car, it would be a different story. This year has been a big learning curve for me, I was on stock suspension last year in Vegas and placing 2nd vs a guy with rcomps. No tire pax down there. Up here, you guys can drive! Give it time, you will all be trading the subys for evo's soon!

For a given spring and corner weight, there should only need to be a small range of damping adjustment, largely to adjust for wear over time. Back in the dark ages, that is what the knob on the top of Koni's were designed for. A click every 10-20,000 miles would keep them in an optimal range for a given application.

A damper only needs a wide range of adjustability if it is designed to work with multiple spring configurations. This is not how most retail coilovers are designed/marketed. They are designed to work with the springs that came on them only or relatively small rate changes higher or lower. In most cases, dampers with a lot of adjustability lack the precision to be ideally tuned. 30 clicks over a 5% range is much more precise than 30 clicks over a 15% range.

And your average driver has little to no clue or the time and controlled environment to properly adjust a suspension. As a manufacturer, the last thing you want is to provide too much adjustability that it creates a negative product perception. Too many people think stiffer is better for handing, or that softer rides better and crank the knob in that direction blindly. Neither of these is really true.

I agree on the Shock Dyno numbers for a lot of the brands. I can't remember the site, but there is a guy who has run most of the major damper vendors stuff and much is crap being inconsistent for a given setting or worse, adjustment going opposite the direction of the knob change over some range.

I don't recall where Tein ranked, but it was better than most "JDM Yo" brands. :)

I want penskes, or I would "settle" for motons....in a perfect world that is!

I was about to pull the trigger on Motons for the race car. Then I found I could get the same size inverted DA dampers, plus springs, caster/camber front top mounts, camber rear top mounts, with independent ride height adjustment for the same price as just the Moton dampers alone by getting the Tein SuperRace coilovers. Plus I wouldn't have to cut holes in the car for the remote reservoirs.

Sure the Motons are pretty slick, but when you start adding in the cost of spring, top mounts, etc... you're looking at around $7,000 for an STi. At which point, just get some Ohlins for that much that come with all the parts. Like Dean mentioned... getting a ton of adjustability usually just makes it easier to screw up the settings unless you've got the time and experience to run a bunch of test days at the track dialing it in.

I just sold some tein flex and put some stock stuts with tein lowering springs. Even the tein lowering springs are too stiff for me(and my family). I think you really should stay away from coilovers unless you are doing a track application. Maybe it has been mentioned but you have to take into consideration getting them rebuilt every so often. especially with rough roads we have in Nevada... I don’t say this to discourage anyone who might want coilovers you just have to take all points into consideration. will $1700 be better spent for other parts for your streetcar-probably. do you want to be slammed every time you hit a crack in the road-probably not. Are you ready to have them rebuilt every so often? (tein charges 100 per coilover for basic rebuild).

Just to be clear, the ability to rebuild is a positive, not a negative!

The stock struts are also COIL springs OVER mcpherson Struts and in all Subaru instances I am aware of, cannot be rebuilt!!! They must be replaced or have the tops cut off and have lower capacity small main shaft inserts installed for much more than $100!!!

All dampers fail over time!!! Inverted mono shocks need to be lubed and/or rebushed occasionally at a much lower cost than rebuild.

+1

$400 to rebuild a set of Teins every 3 years is a hell of a lot cheaper than buying new $1200 struts every three years.

Koni inserts have a lifetime warranty and great customer service to back it up. If one blows, they'll ship you a replacement. I've seen a few reviewers say they've taken advantage of this and the replacements show up in a day or two at the most. Now reinstalling them and the subsequent alignment won't be fun, but I try to support companies with the best warranty/service whenever I can. They get nothing but glowing reviews in the performance department from what I've seen too. I noticed an improved ride compared to the AGX's but I don't know if they improved handling all that much yet.

Koni makes great stuff and as I recall one of the few damper manufacturers that gets high ratings for product consistency and adjustment precision on the shock dyno. I just wish they made a replacement strut rather than an insert for Subarus.

I am annoyed. I can't find any of my suspension tuning bookmarks and searching is not finding what I want. :(

I wish I could figure out the best settings for them. On the AGX's it was easy to tell the difference between the 4 different stiffness settings and 2 (Med-soft) front and rear was by far the best for handling while autoXing (and for comfort every day). With the infinite adjustments and wide range of damping on the Konis, I'm a little lost. I just keep changing them to try to learn them.

Alex had a good method I think I'll try. He said that by looking at the hood and road or out the rearview you can tell how much bounce you're getting in the front vs rear. So I'll start at soft again and slowly stiffen them up again.

Parking lot speed bumps work well for ballpark settings. An external observer is a big help.

Start full soft. Drive over the bump having observer focus on one end of the car. Firm up that end until it catches the vehicle weight on the first bounce and doesn't launch that end on impact with the bump.

Do the other end of the car.

Go back to the first end and see if you can go softer with less launch and still catches the car's weight on the first bounce. Repeat on the other end.

Softer than "feels" best is often faster. Your brain attributes feeling the road with good handling, but that is often over damping the springs in one or both directions. Remember, this is not about driver perception, it is about keeping the tire in contact with the road optimally.

Koni track adj. procedure

Thanks Dean. Maybe we can use a speed bump at Tamarack tonight. I want to be ready for this weekend at RFR. :)