higher levels in comparison to the front rates or just in general stiffer rates?

It makes sense that it would lower grip and cause oversteer.

have you gotten to personally test alot of these coilovers or are you using the spec sheets to grab data on them?

since I got your attention, what do you generally think of dampening characteristics? do alot of manufacturers have a stiffer rebound than bound or vice versa?

and what about stroke? any better than the others? does the Z like a short stroke and stiffer springs or more travel?

 

I know, i was feeling a bit cranky yesterday. Must be that time of the month

To be honest i think the best bet as far as comfort goes is the TEIN Comforts. Plus the new ones look real good is black and gold!

 

Tein CS work well There are units out there that work equally well such as the Bilsteins and KW V2.

 

Never tried the Bilsteins, but i had KW on my last car and i must say wasn't very impressed. Quality was great, but a very harsh ride i believe they where also the V2's. But maybe it's different for the Z.

 

I have ridden in Z/G with the V2 and V3 KWs (both purchased from Z-1 I believe) and they were very compliant.. much better than the tein flex. they were stiff, but at crusing and higher speed the dampening was much better to absorb the bumps and ruts in NJ. but the V3s are complicated as hell to adjust.

 

Definitely don't get caught in the rut of brand loyalty across platforms. That's one thing I learned a long time ago. When it comes to the larger firms out there, you'll always get a scenario where their product works well on one car and not always so great on another. It's just like tires in that regard. You really have to limit your research to discussions about a specific platform in order to compare apples to apples. Remember, an often overlooked, but absolutely essential aspect of day to day civility is the tire. Purely annecdotal, but bears repeating. I've had HKS RS coilovers on my own car for several years. When I had them with Toyo T1's, they were great around our crappy local roads. I switched out the Toyo for S03's, due to all the rave reviews my customers gave them on other cars. Single handedly the WORST change I've ever done to any car I've ever owned! Sure I had more dry weather grip, but it was not worth the trade off of the absolutely **** poor day to day street manners the car had. No amount of adjustment, via height, preload, tire pressure or dampening cured it. I hated driving the car on anything but completely smooth roads. I didn't stick with the S03 very long before I swapped them out for RT615 - ahh..there was my day to day comfort back! While my S03 had no signs of wear, I literally tossed em in the trash. Now, that didn't turn me off to Bridgetone (I run RE050A now, in 19 inch, on the same coilovers and the ride is WAY better than it ever was on S03's) So it's always that balancing act. That being said there are some units out there that no matter what tire you pair them with, will never give good street manners on rougher roads. Sure you'll get the person who says "I don't care what it rides like, I want good handling" - whatever "good handling" means is really subjective, and why it has to come at the expense of day to day civility makes no sense. You can have both if you take the time to put together a well thought out setup. Afterall, we're still building, for the most part, street cars. You're not running Hoosiers day to day, you're not running tire warmers, or some ungodly amount of camber and tweaking every last adjustment before you take a run in the car on a sunny day.

The V3 are not complicated to setup, but definitely does require a bit of suspension know how to dial in properly (otherwise you end up just adjusting stuff for the sake of adjusting!) since it allows for independant compression and rebound

 

^that is more what I meant... most people will just end up messing something up with all the *****.

my one friend didn't even know where the 3rd adjuster was (under a collar I think?) lol!!

 

Speaking about the setup I have now, if I increase my spring rates, my minimum level of compression dampning will be too high and the total amount of rebound control not be enough. In the rear I would want to upgrade to phase IV shocks and their to the situation would be the same, too much compression not enough rebound.

I have been collecting data on aftermarkt products since 2003, I've tested a few setup's, and quite a few different spring rate combo's. I also enjoy conversation's with a few members here that see things like I do, guy's that like myself aren't corrupted by sponcerships or having to sell the stuff, though one person has earned my trust as a sponcer, Adam at Z1auto.

Most common theme is underdampned and over sprung Far too many here run setups that are poorly valved and masked with light hearted rebound settings done for the sake of so called ride quality, pushed on them by others that don't know themselves or worse vendors after a buck. Shame is they don't understand how thing aren't the way they are supposed to be or how much better things are when the dampning is done right. I would love to see us start to send some of these products out to have shock dyno's done and to post the results, course we would need a qualified person to read them, someone that isn't tied to a vendor or manufactuer.

Shock stroke is a issue with oem based shocks when we lower the car. No one makes a shock with shortened cases or piston rod lengths, except the Truechoice phase IV shocks. That's another area that many here don't know about, that being into their bumpstops much more often isn't a good thing. One advantage with coilovers with full height adjustablity of course is maintaining piston stroke, not to mention being able to use the min amout of preload.

 

you have any comments on the Stance? very high spring rates.


and I also see alot of compensation with swaybars for bad spring rates.

 

Their is another vendor that is not a sponcer here, that did a post on another board. He was talking about how he pulled his Stance setup and installed KW Varient 3, he made a comment that in comparison "the Stance setup, like most cheap coilovers are underdampned and oversprung".

Before I got the setup I have now, I considered the Stance setup. But after being given the Megan setup for testing and not really liking it, I wasn't interested in rolling the dice with my money, even though lot's of positive review's have been done at that time.

I do not believe in high bar rates, set the car with spring rates first and then fine tune at the limit behavior with adjustable bars, I don't see reason push the envelope on ditiching the independent nature of the suspension. Being in a sanctioned form of racing where that's your only option, that's TOTALLY different.

 

I did like the V2/3 but have never seen a set of the stances. they do offer the setup in non 'true' coilover rear. the really high spring rates turn me off though.

drat we are talking about a 1k price difference or so. pay to play I guess.

 

What I don't like about the KW is the progressive rear springs with a high rate spread. I'd rather have a different choice that also offers full height adjustablity and maybe picks up some other things like shop services (ability to revalve).

The worse a given setup does it's valving, the worse higher spring rates tend to work.

 

Not that they're cheap, but couldn't most JDM coilovers be considered underdamped and oversprung?

 

I don't know that I'd go that far, I think their is a certain class that fall's into that description. What I was told by a couple of people that I trust is that in thier opinion most JDM coilover products do things valving wise that they don't care for, things that they can read on the shock dyno. Which is why I'm either going to kick my current setup up a notch or invest in Ohins DFV.

 

I dont like the idea of progressive spring rates. I keep running into a problem though where I can't compare a rear spring rate since without a progressive rate they seem to be substantially lower.

my budget is limited so those high dollar coilovers are out. Stance seems like a decent risk. Adam could've simply gotten a set where the end user thoroughly messed up the settings. with highly adjustable coilovers a person can easily get lost. ride height adjustment... lots of ways. the sways could have been set wrong, tire profies... or they could simply suck

I just see so many possibilities to where the problem was. do you have access to test shocks? If I get a set of stances I could mail one out probably if you can turn it around quickly.

 

why ohlins? the brand has a great reputation, but I can't think of more than one person I have seen running them. maybe two.

experiences with them?

 

i understand that a progressive spring rate might not be good on a track, but for a daily driven car i think it makes a lot of sense. can anybody chime in on the PROs and CONs of a progresive spring rate? i am looking to sell my tein flex and get a set of PSS9's. thanks.