I have a 2008 Enthusiast and I use it 50/50 road and track. My track use is 8-10 lapping days but no racing. My stock suspension is currently too soft on the track - the springs are definitely too soft. I have no plans for racing, drifting and even my lapping will top out when my speeds approach the safety limit of the manufacturer safety system (3-point lap belts, no roll cage, air bags, etc.). Any lowering of the car would be done strictly for performance, not looks.

I have read many of the stickies and searched the forum but I still have a few questions for the many experienced and knowledgeable members of the forum.

1. For my needs is there any practical difference between properly matched springs / shocks and a coilover system?

2. How many of you have adjustable shocks / coilovers and make adjustment changes (usually to rebound) between road and track use?

3. If you are making adjustment changes, which systems make the adjustments easiest? I know some adjust with ***** at the top and others with ***** down at the bottom. I'm looking for something that will be quick and easy and not require me to remove the wheels of the car.

4. For my level of use, would I use a coilover system that has more adjustment types such as the KW V. 3's which add adjustable compression?

5. What are reservoirs I see on some of the really high-end coilovers and what do they do?

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

 

1. It depends if you are talking off the shelf springs/shocks or custom valved springs/shocks. If the first, then yes there is a difference. If the later, then not really except some height adjust-ability in many cases.

2.I used to, now the car is more track car and with a FIA bucket seat, lets be real, its never going to be the pinnacle of luxury anymore.

3.Tein with EDFC

4. Honestly I usually steer people away from V3's there are too many adjustment variables and it gets hard to actually tell when you are helping or hurting max performance without back to back testing.

5.those reservoirs offer additional fluid capacity and in many cases the ability to adjust compression.

 

Thanks for your answers. I've seen the Tein EFDC as well as the Tanabe TEAS. I'm wondering how many out there either use these systems or use the manual adjustments when switching from road to track use.

 

After the first year I stopped changing adjustments for road and track. i learned that the softer settings I was using on the street produced better lap times. Stiffer felt better, softer was faster.

 

Most track guys do not use edfc because its almost completely forbidden by most sanctioning bodies. If you are just doing HPDE then hell why not. I really liked it when I had it.

I only adjust for rain now, full soft for rain. 8 clicks and 7 clicks for dry.

 

Very interesting, would you go all the way to buying a non-adjustable kit like the KW V. 1 or Bilstein P14 (PSS) or do you still prefer having had the ability to dial in your own settings even though you no longer change them?

Adjusting for rain, hmm, that is a good point that I hadn't considered.

 

Keep in mind I only do that for the track. Its too much of a pain to do on the street unless you have those previously mentioned edfc systems.

 

For the average person a 1 way damper is just fine. Since you say that your wanting to track a bit, a 1 way will help you fine tune your handling.

 

First, it will depend on your budget.
Having a $1000 budget and a $5000 budget allow very different choices.
More expensive isn't always better, but having a budget will allow you to find the best suspension to suit your need within the price bracket.

1. Coilovers is just springs and damper that are together as one unit.
Technically speaking, there is nothing a coilovers can do that a springs / damper combo cannot do, and vice versa.
The main difference is coilovers allows a lot more freedom of adjustment, and that adjustments allow you to control the car to your preference.

2. Damping adjustments are to do with tires.
Rebound control movement of the cars, compression control how much load are put into the tyres.
In another word, rebound control how the car feels, compression control how much heat and traction the tries make.
A good fast road system should adjust BOTH compression and rebound, because you want to have higher force at the stiffer adjustment for performance at the track, and lower force for compliancy on the road.

3. Tein EDFC for me is a gimmick.
It takes me 2 minute to adjust all the dampers around the car.
You won't be adjusting the damper on the road as really a fast road setup should work on all road surfaces.
Unless you are going on the track where you will give up compliancy for performance and you know the surfaces are going to be flat and controlled, you can't go too stiff on the damping anyways.

4. A 1-way adjustable damping that control both compression and rebound is best for novice.
A 2-way / 3-way is good if and only if it is a controlled environment (track), you know what to adjust on the damper to yield the effect you are after, and you know the force value for all the damping adjustment point.

Because if you don't know how to tune the damper, you probably will end up with a poorer setup that will provide less performance.
And if you are tuning the damper without any data, it is no difference than trying to map a car without a display... you are basically doing it blind.

5. Some high end coilovers have a remote canister so it can have more oil, but more importantly have a 3-way system that can adjust high speed and low speed compression.
Not necessary for a road car, and if anything probably yield less performance if the owners do not know what they are doing.

Hope that helps, just a little info to help out on your decision making process.

 

Thanks Nocturnal for a detailed answer. There was some great learning information in there, especially about the different effects of compression and rebound dampening.

I'm a newbie in many areas of the automotive world. Can you explain how you obtain the force values you reference above? Also, what is mapping a car?

 

To get the force value would require to put the suspension on a dyno.
The cost will far out weight the need for a road car.

Mapping a car is basically tuning the engine.
I just gave that as a metaphor as most people are used to tuning car but not tuning suspension.