Gabe35Coupe

iTrader: (2)

I have had these on for about six months now as I got to test fit them for HKS. I had Hipermax Damper II’s on my last car as well and to no surprise they are sweet. I had the opportunity to visit the HKS factory a couple of years ago and saw how they machine all the parts there. I even saw raw spools of coil being prepped for winding as they do it themselves also. Finished parts are assembled by a bunch of guys wearing white cover-alls in a clean room. It's pretty impressive when you get to see the attention to detail and the huge operation they have as opposed to just seeing a picture on a web site of a finished product. All the parts that make up Hipermax Dampers are made in and assembled in Japan by HKS. Not outsourced in Taiwan or elsewhere.

Anyway, here are the facts. You can see pictures in my link to Sony Image Station (below). They have black damper bodies that are threaded for ride height adjustments. Spanner wrenches are included in the kit to adjust the spring perches should you decide to lower or raise is beyond the HKS factory setting. The factory setting is front =-30mm, rear =-25mm. That's 1.18 and .98 inches for the metrically challenged. Of course there is plenty of adjustment up or down from there. The upper pillow ball mounts are standard and they, as well as the spring perch and stiffness adjustment ***** are anodized in traditional HKS purple. Unlike the non-adjustable Hipermax LS the LS+ has 30 way adjustable stiffness front and back. The adjustment tool for the front is also included in the kit. It looks like a straight Allen wrench with a **** at the top. The fronts are adjusted simply buy sliding the adjustment tool into the top of the shaft that protrudes from your strut tower under the hood. Just pop the hood drop it on and start turning. Each setting clicks into place so you know when you've adjusted it. The rear adjustment as you can see in the pictures is actually located on the lower side of the damper body. You can still adjust them easily, just stick your had through two rim spokes past the brake rotor and turn it. It may be a little easier for me since I have 19” wheels. The springs have spring insulators on them to keep them quiet. It's just an added touch since they are mounted against aluminum upper mounts. You won’t get any clicking or noises from the suspension. The complete kit retails for $2040.00. No mods are necessary as they are a direct replacement for stock.

My impressions: It definitely looks better. It is by no means "slammed" out of the box. Later in my new wheel post you can see the ride height (I will come back and post a link to this thread when I get it up). The ride/stiffness in the "out of the box" setting was not harsh in my opinion but it is DEFINITELY stiffer (with stock wheels and tires). But hey that’s what a performance suspension does; you can’t get better handling with out going stiffer. The back felt noticeably stiffer. It made a huge difference in reducing the under steer that is there from the factory. The cars back end would bite more and rotated around corners much better, almost like it had the Z’s shorter wheel base. The "out of box" setting is somewhere in the middle so keep in mind you can adjust it to your liking with 30 adjustments available. I personally don't mind sacrificing some ride quality for handling benefits, and performance wise this kit is up to par. I like to rip through the industrial park that my work is in and some twisty's by my house, not to mention my occasional delusions of being the drift king here and there LOL. Even on the stiffer settings what I love about the HKS dampers is that they don’t turn little bumps or road imperfections into a jarring feeling. If you hit some repetitive expansion gaps on the highway you will feel it but for the most part it works well. Anyway what I just said almost doesn’t matter at all because of the following.

What I did was drove around for the last few days on the full soft setting to give some feed back since the stiffer setting are harder to describe. It felt very stockish (LS= luxury sport) and rode nice. I hit a stretch of highway on the way home where I know the fast lane has bad undulating expansion gaps. The setting change made a huge difference, it was far from harsh and soaked up most of the bumps, much like stock. KEEP IN MIND unlike my impression of the out of the box setting I tested the soft setting on my new wheel/tire package which have a lower profile with much stiffer side walls which will make the ride fell stiffer. I think if you are concerned about it being really harsh you don’t have to worry, it’s very livable for every day set up this way. This suspension can be adjusted to feel like a “full race” set up and go super stiff so I think you can’ t go wrong. I have even taken some turns in the soft set up and it still handles pretty damn good. I think there is even enough roll stiffness to where I don’t think I will need sway bars. If you are going to do 1 suspension modification I would do this. Sorry for the long post, here is the link to the pictures:
Link To Pictures

___DJK___

iTrader: (2)

Nice post, I think you are pretty much right on. Ive had my LS+ for a few months and think they are great. Ive never adjusted them from the middle setting but it seems to be pretty good for surface streets.