greyzee

I'm interested in a set of Feal coilovers for a 07 Grand Touring convertible. Not sure what a good spring rate is so any suggestions is appreciated.

MicVelo

That's a pretty open ended question...

A lot depends on how the shocks are valved, how much shock dampening adjustability is present (single, double adjust, degrees of jounce/rebound adjustment, etc.)

But the most important thing to know is the intended use. Street, track, A/X, rally, so on. Anyone can (and many will because someone here said it) say "Use a 500lb spring." But experienced tuners won't say a word until they know what you're expecting out of it.

No, I don't have the answer; just trying to help you have someone with knowledge of these particular units help you.

greyzee

Thank you for the reply. The car is only a nice day on the weekend driver. I just turned over 32k on the clock and figured it's time to replace some of the worn suspension components. I'm content with the stock height but lowering the car an inch is okay. Better handling would be a bonus too. So basically nothing extreme.

MicVelo

[WARNING: Longa$$ and biased MicLecture follows, you are warned. Laff...]
(C'mon people, it's been a while since I've had my turn on the soapbox!)

OK, cool. Let me be honest and frank here - no matter how IMO - but I don't think coilovers, in general are needed here at all. The principle benefit of any coilover shock is its inherent adjustability.

So, number one, if you're not using the vehicle in a manner requiring adjustment to a particular track or AX course or even for a car show stance, there's really no application here.

I know NOTHING about these Feal units but an inherent characteristic of almost any C/O is the degrading of ride quality. For track, this is a minor concern. But in yours and 80+% of the applications seen here in this forum, relative ride comfort IS a concern for the street.

Some C/Os can be livable on some of the higher end systems set to a reasonable setting; but in general, when you start swapping isolating shock mounts and replace with aluminum mounting points or pillow *****, etc., you WILL transfer (and actually generate) a lot of NVH from the road/chassis to the vehicle occupants - the final "damping point" in any vehicle.

Secondly, unless you know your suspension tuning and plan to corner balance and set your jounce/rebound rates EXACTLY, the resulting changes to vehicle dynamics could adversely affect the vehicle's handling OR, at least how it feels to you. Mostly nothing resulting in safety issues but taking out suspension compliance - or the opposite, mismatching the settings to the chassis' abilities to make the ride livable, can result in loss of steering feel, twitchiness, over/understeer, and so forth.

Again, NOT saying these things WILL happen but your wanting to change out stuff at a mere 32k miles tells me these are NOT things you'd want in your Z because you're obviously sensitive to these types of changes.

Instead, I'd offer that a good static set up, e.g., "traditional shocks and springs" would not only be more than adequate for you but will give you a lot more enjoyment down the road.

Why...

- Less expensive buy-in (leaving room for other real improvements). If you are willing to spend the $1300-some on the Feals, consider that if you bought top of the line Bilstein ProKit (Bilstein shocks paired with Eibach springs) at about $900, you can spend the differential on a set of adjustable sway bars, THE most effective handling improvement you can make after good tires.

- Low maintenance. "Set and forget" is something I've advocated for street use for over 40 years. Seriously. Any "shortcomings" of a properly matched static suspension can easily be overcome through driver skill, not mechanical tweaking - IN STREET APPLICATIONS, I have to emphasize again.

Read this thread to see why I'm a big fan of "static for street":

https://my350z.com/forum/brakes-and-...coil-over.html

I admit to being biased. I've had a couple sets of admittedly "lower end" ($1200 price range) C/O setups, both from previous owners of cars I've bought. Hated them so much, despite hours of adjustments down to the softest settings, I dumped one set for a conversion to static and the other, well, went with the car to the scrapyard after it got totaled in front of my house.

There will be others who think I'm being wuss here. And I'm totally fine with that. I know what works, at least for me.

Good luck.

greyzee

Thank you for the advice. A little nvh doesn't bother me or the general harshness of a stiffer chassis as it's a weekend car. My previous DD for 5ish years was a heavily modified Evo MR. We get snow and ice here which is why the Z is the pampered car. But I will definitely take the shock/spring combo into consideration. Less tuning/ hassle sounds like a sure win. May I ask your opinion on a decent CBE for a 350z? I installed Berk HFC a few months back because the stock cats had a rattle. Now I'm getting a rattle around the mid pipe are. Plus it's time for some change. I'm looking for something with a good tone with no drone.

MicVelo

There are about as many opinions on catbacks as there are people on here.

There's a current thread on the "new" Nismo R-Tune here:

https://my350z.com/forum/intake-exha...st-system.html

and

https://my350z.com/forum/intake-exha...100-350sm.html

I'm a big fan of Nissan "OEM" accessory items. For exhaust, S-Tune, R-Tune so I like these but have an old, original S-Tune, not one of these new ones.

Then there's the aftermarket true duals with Motordyne TDX2 at the top of the line (also most $$) and the ever popular Invidia Gemini, lower in price but very highly regarded.

If you want loud and single, Tomei.

But.... there are a thousand exhaust systems out there for the 33 and I suspect that there's NOT a lot of difference between 'em, performance wise. (Not what the mfgrs would have you believe but...)

Drone and rasp, yes, many systems are prone especially with test tubes and even HFCs (not nearly as prone).

I would submit that the above mentioned ones lack that mainly due to the proper matching of pipe size to the engine's flow capacity and specific "extra features" in them to preclude drone/rasp. That would include a balance pipe (X type on Invidia) and/or Heimholtz resonator chambers (MD TDX2). Others may be just as good but these are the two most frequently mentioned and reviewed around here.

Check with our supporting vendors here. They all carry pretty much the gamut of exhaust options.

greyzee

Good to know. Thank you again. Will definitely check those threads out. Listened to some sound clips on You Tube and found Mines and Fujitsubo to be really nice. The R-tune had a nice purr also. I see Z1 has their own house brand. Wonder how the quality is.