zeal owns all in terms of servicability and customer backing in the usa.. and remember most of the company's have no support in the us... other than tein and zeal... last i heard....

 

toobad most people will never realize that since they dont care enough about their car to put quality parts on it.

 

while I agree to a certain extent, I think the pricepoint is what prevents them from becoming the "go to" selection...it is hard to justify that high of a price for a coilover that does not do anything revolutionary for most people. I of course am not talking about the quality - it is second to none, and the price reflects it. But there are several other quality coilovers on the market for these cars, and given what most people's uses for this car seems to be, they accomplish nearly the same things for most people out there

It is too bad they don't offer a more entry level setup for the Z

 

really though, it should be important to people, for the money ive put in my car i could easily have a greddy turbokit, tein flex, and (insert shitty wheel people put on the Z here).
instead i have a limited slip, work wheels that actually make people stalk me just to tell me how nice they are, and suspension ive never been able to complain about...

The Z is a great car, people owe it better then to half *** it.

 

like I said, to a large degree I agree....I shudder to think what I could have bought in the market by simple putting my mod $$ towards a more exclusive car

But for most people with this car, "gets the job done" seems to rule over "best of the best" - if Zeal could somehow develop a more cost effective setup, they could capture alot of the Z marker. But when their lowest price setup is nearly double the cost of the more popular options, that makes it a tough sell

Zeal, are you listening

 

i think cost effectiveness would hurt the quality that makes it worth money to begin with. my only complaint with Zeal is that for non Z APPs they are usually a couple hundred cheaper, im getting Function Ds for another car in the near future and they cost the same as the Zs function V6.

 

thats sort of my point (sorry to clog this thread - we can talk about this in a different arena if you want lol). For a car, like the Evo, most respectable coilovers are in the $2000.00 range. The Zeal's start at around $2200.00. I think its a safe assumption that if someone can afford $2000.00, they can afford $2200.00, so long as they derive a benefit for that relatively small increase in price. But for a Z, whereas the market is still at that ~$2000.00 pricepoint, for a Z its around $2700-$2800. Now, relative to what some people spend on their cars, thats not a huge huge price difference. But for most people, that's a serious bump in price. Yes the quality and serviceability might very well be there, but it's still a big price difference. I dont see the Z coilover being necessarily more complex to engineer than the setups they do for other cars. If they could somehow introduce a setup with a street price in the $2k range, they might run away with the market

Make sense?

 

well see if the price drops overtime I think most Z stuff will become more affordable.
shoot me an AIM if your ever bored at the office, technically were competitiors but no reason we cant become friends.
AIM-Damnthman

 

I think most people only want coilovers to lower their car and have it handle a little better than stock. With that being said, Tein basic will do just fine however; these lower end coilovers will not be sufficient for autocross or track use.

I totally agree with Adam (Z1) that Zeal prices are higher than most of the coilover system on the market but the built and ride quality is unmatched by others. By working in a tuner shop, it allowed me to drive/tested different brands of coilovers. I have ridden in most of the Tein lineup (basic, CS, Flex, RA) and I personally own HKS Hipermax II, Zeal function V6 and Kgmm on my pervious cars. All I can say is I can't be any happier with my current Function V6. My spring rate is 12kg/10kg but it rides better than stock because of the extensive valuing research Zeal does with all their coilovers.
Again, it all goes back to what you want to do with your car...if you want to lower it, Tein basic will be a good choice but if you want something thats well built, great customer support, alot of adjustabilities, and perform well on the street and track, I would recommend Zeal all the way.

Tom

 

I think we are all on the same page If the heads and F Con did not cost me so much, I'd have a set of Zeals on mine as well

 

How would you rate the Zeal V6 coilver against the Unitech/Koni coilover? Both around the same price and both seem to have around the same springrates.

 

i dont think anyones put the two into any sort of testing against eachother

 

unitech is 2 way adjustable and twin tube design, zeal is overall stiffness adjustable and monotube design.
so it'll be hard to compare since the design philosphy is different.

 

hmm... i still wanna see the unitec setup in person ... anyone in norcal w/ that setup ... maybe we can compare =)

 

DaveH from this message forum is having the Unitech setup installed next week...I believe on the 22nd. He's from NorCal, and he's a really nice guy. I'm sure he'd be happy to show them to you. Check that other Unitech thread to PM him...he chimed in on that one...or look for his posts in the Race/AutoX forum.

I'll tell you right now though, they don't look particularly fancy...they're designed to be functional, not to look pretty...and they work very well.

 

I held the production Unitech/Koni's today, and while they don't look fancy, the fact that a real race driver helped in their development means a LOT to me!

I'll post pictures soon........

 

I'd be happy to do a comparo next week. Better yet come on up to the ClubZ track day at thunderhill and we can do a true track test. I'd even be willing to switch my tires to the zeal and/or any other setup and record some lap times. In the name of science of course.

I'm actually curious to ride in a Zeal setup. I've heard good things about them. Here is a good thread from a honda forum that shows the dyno graph of the zeals and few others.

http://honda-tech.com/zerothread?id=1104049

 

Dave,
Do you have a link to the THill event info?

 

http://www.clubz.org/track/

 

Doh...I can't come to NorCal on a Tuesday!