My friend has Motons on his GT3 cup car. They are SWEET. Of course, the drivetrain & engine on that car are like $100,000 alone (seriously).

But once again, is it a street car or race car? What size wheels & tires do you plan to run?

For a street car, save your money and buy some Bilstein HD's with H&R springs. Then spend what's left over on toe links, trailing links, Mazda Comp. & Racing Beat sway bar braces, front & rear sway bars, heim joint endlinks for the front bar, and some sticky tires. This will be plenty stiff. It will kick the **** out of 99.999% of street cars, and you can still take the car to the autoX or track and not be embarassed (sp?).

As for coilovers, ride in a car with the set up you are looking at first. I say this just because if you drive over railroad tracks or rough roads on a daily basis or plan to do any long trips, linear rate race springs SUCK. Especially with 17" wheels. Trust me, I know what I'm talking about. Also make sure you will be able to order shocks separately when yours wear out or else you'll have to buy a new kit all over again. Along those lines, make sure all the parts for the kit are available separately as well in case something breaks which can and does happen.

 

http://www.first-inc.co.jp
http://www.superhightechnology.com/
http://www.aj-racing.com/BC-suspension.html

For the other replys:
Well if I knew as much when I bought my JIC's I would prolly have just bought Bilstein dampers and HKS white springs for less money. I don't think the sway bars need to be replaced but the end links and mounts should be.

The benefits of coilovers are: hight can be adjusted to suit your preference or need instead of being limited by spring hight. Dampers are rebuildable and can be valved to match the springs. If you really want to you can lower the car for track and raise it back for street afterwards.

Cool factor? Other then puting it in your sig who would know what damper setup you have? My choice was because of the benefits above and I really belived I was getting a better quality product. My other reason was unlike wheels that you can sepnd the same money on, people don't try to steal your coilovers.

 

I also would definately like to point out the importance of being able to adjust ride heigth for street/track. I have Racingbeat springs and Koni Yellows on my car right now and I'm sick and tired of scraping my god damn underside! I'm sure the performance of the coil-overs will be better than my current setup once I get them, but I'll be much more happy with the ability to drive around the streets and not tear the **** out of my bottom side!

- Great info, great thread!

 

the problem with adjusting ride hight all the time is that it changes your toe (bump steer). So, youll wear your tires pretty fast if your always chaning the ride hight with out getting an alignment.

 

what do people think about the higher level tiens rigged with the cockpit dampening ajuster? rice or practical? seems alot easier than getting under the car.


i know and read a bit about suspension tuning, it's just the actuall brand shopping that hangs me up.

~2k is my price range.

 

excellent point OC, I don't think it would be a problem re-alligning the car before and after each race session...

particleeffect: I just about fell over laughing at that hilarious quote in your sig That's also a beautiful picture, love the trees in the backround, comfy I bet.

 

iv talked with some people about the high leval teins (and they where asian!), and they say there is no problems. Those RA's look pretty nice and are aluminum. HA and JIC's are cheaper steel. The only beef i really have with the teins is that there spring rates, even for there street models seem crazy high. You could always get new springs, but why so high from the factory?

 

Does RE amemiya make their own coilovers? Because they use quantum coilovers on the cars Ive seen.

 

If you or any one reading this post is interested, i am an authorized distributor for JIC and could get the FLTA2 kit which is their top of the line set for around $1600
this is the set i chose for my car and i could pick from just about any set on the market!

 

Well, I just ordered the Tein Flex setup with the EDFC controller - I got the controller for use on the track and AX, if that tells you anything. http://www.tein.com/edfc.html

With my Koni Sports, you never needed to get under the car since the adjuster is at the top of the shock, so you must be talking about double adjustables? The Flex adjusts both compression and rebound together, so if that is what you are looking for you need to keep looking.

OC - the sring rates on the Flex's is about the same as all the other coilover setups out there. I think that unless you have the shocks set for full soft that this will be pretty harsh on the street. We'll see.

 

All the reference to shock settings to soften up the ride is actually incorrect. The springs control the stiffness while the dampers control the spring motion. That's why a stiff Eibach spring kit with OEM dampers are so horrible when pushed beyond street duties. If the vavle is closed so much that it becomes part of the spring rate, it can cause jacking down or up and reduce wheel motion - bad. Best is to match the springs to the damper valving. Unfortunately, there will be no universal set (until active suspension comes to road cars) that will suit everyone's requirements.

Also, another misnomer is double-adjustle, triple-adj, 27-way adjust dampers. There should be a max of 4-way adjustments: slow rebound, slow compression, fast rebound, fast compression. Slow is for you typical car motion (left/right/accel/brake - less than 2Hz). Fast is for road bumps. Dampers advertising 27 ways or whatever just means that there are 27 resolutions of adjustment...and most are really single adjustable (like Koni Yellows) which adjust both slow rebound and compression at the same time.

 

Can you get the FLTA2 RS coilovers? How much would they be?

 

This is absolutely correct. And those who are looking to improve ride quality by *upgrading* to a coilover system with MUCH stiffer-than-stock springs are in for a rude awakening. If you are not a regular track racer (auto-x/time trial/club racing), then coilovers are a waste of money. On the street, off-the-shelf Koni Yellows (Sports) will improve the car's transitioning ability just as much as the high dollar coilover systems.

Again, very true. For most racers, triple-adjustable shocks are unnecessary. And that's only to shave a tenth or two off of laptimes! Most people with double-adjustables set bump once and never touch it again. So again, for a street-driven car, all this fancy stuff is unnecessary.

People may speak worlds about Tein's and JIC's and HKS's and A'pexi ...... but if you're not pushing the car like you would on a track, you'll never see the benefit of these high-dollar coilovers. Don't waste your money if you don't need to!

 

Good info about the springs affecting the ride rather than the shocks. I think everyone allready knows that 27 way adjustable means resolutions, atleast I did when I read it. The multi-funtion adjustability sounds nice though, do you know which coilover units offer these? I currently I have Koni yellows but plan to upgrade for the track, would be nice to get a unit that controls fast AND slow compression so they don't get destroyed on bumps while street driving. speaking of which, what exactly is the difference between rebound and compression...how do they control it? Also, how does it relate to ride highth adjustability in coilover systems?

 

You bring up a good point regarding height adjustability in coil-overs. Yes, height adjustability is awesome in that it allows you do do cornering weight to balance out the vehicle. But a set of sleeves like the Ground Control (nice stuff) used in conjunction with a stock height damper (say, Koni Yellows) will compromise suspension travel if lowered too much. This is because the full length of the shock piston travel is not used when you shorten the distance when lowered. (on a side note, I would think pretensioning the spring will play a role in car balance too). A proper coilover that lowers your car should have a shorten damper with matching damper piston rod. Otherwise, you will hit the shocks bump stops in either compression or rebound - causing jacking up or down.

Another thing to consider when lowering is that one needs/wants to keep the fluid displacement "resolution" in the damper. That is, the volume of fluid moved when in compression and rebound. A bigger diameter shock or external reservoir will provide this.

WRT wanting more control via fast compression/rebound...i think that is completely unnecessary until you seriously track the car in various venues. The idea of fast rebound/compression control is to adjust the car to suit the varying undulation of each track. Properly dialing them in will give you a headache (most likely you'll be lost test-n-tuning the dang thing). But if you do want it Moton, Koni 28xx, Penske 82xx, Ohlins TS44, JRZ, etc offers this at a huge premium. I got quoted $2500 per corner for the Ohlins from them directly. The Penske 8100 already feel a ton better for my usage and it's still offers more tuning capabilities than i know how to use them.

Lastly, with regard to compression and rebound...compression is to control the wheel movement going up (the weight transfer of the vehicle) and rebound is to control the spring motion as it releases its stored energy. Check out the Penske site...good info there.

 

I would have to agree with what the experienced track guys are saying.

I recently installed Koni Sports and HKS springs. Like most everyone else, I run them close to full soft on the street and firm them up for track work.

It's immediately apparent that the Koni's cannot fully control the springs on the soft setting but it still handles well on the street and corners flatter than the stock setup. The HKS are progressive but have higher spring rates than Eibach and H&R springs.

So far, I've only run one auto-x and one road circuit (Buttonwillow) on the setup. For the auto-x, I was just trying to figure things out and the car wasn't even aligned yet. For Buttonwillow, the car felt very good. Body roll was still present but minimal and the car felt very neutral. The car didn't really understeer and when too much power was applied exiting a corner, the rear end was easily reeled back in. With this setup, it will be quite a while until I can out drive the car, maybe never....

Meanwhile, I KNOW there's several people running coil-overs but I didn't see any of them at Buttonwillow. In fact, I was the only FD (or RX-7 for that matter), despite the VERY well ran event by Speed Ventures. People need to quit worrying about the status of their upgrades and get out and do what these cars were meant to do....

 

Can you get the FLTA2 RS coilovers? How much would they be?

i will have to check on it tuesday. i need to know what how you need them set up. if you are not drag racing or seriously auto crossing, i dont see the point. The RS is basically the same shock but custom talored to your needs. The FLTA2 set is great for moderate track and street use. They are adjustable remember!
rich

 

http://splparts.com/Z32/Suspension/Coilover.asp

 

Great link GoRacer, I'm sure everyone looking to mod their Fairlady is grateful

Hey Rynberg, can you make it out to Buttonwillow October 18th? I'm getting a bunch of people together, possibly including the owner of a crazy 2250lb 20B FULL RACE FD who I met at the autocross in San Diego. Silkworm will be there too with his FC.

 

Well, on Buttonwillow's calendar, it says that those days are "open track/NASA" days. How are those days organized and would I have to join NASA?

I went with Speed Ventures last weekend and they put together a very nice event. Low prices and no "join the club" fees either.

 

Talk to PaulC, read the info on the bottom of this thread:
https://www.rx7club.com/forum/showth...hreadid=200763

Hope to see you there!

 

I'm following this topic as an interested bystander and truthfully, it's very informative.

I've been selling some coilover kits here in europe the last few years (Brand: KW-suspensions, mainly VW,Audi.BMW, etc european cars)
They ae moving into the USa as we speak, but that's on a sidenote

Anyhow... They are using the Koni Yellow shocks in their Variant II (height and hardness adjustable). I had them on my previous car and was really excited.
They also use double psrings per suspension leg to improve the progressiveness of the springs.

Unfortunately they are not making a coilover kit for the FD so i went out looking for an alternative, keeping in mind that it would be KOni Yellows anyway as they are widely known in Europe and parts are easily available.

So like a threath above says.. I was thinking of combining the Koni Yellows with the ground Controls sleeve coiliver kit and the Eibach springs. Car is a weekend driver an mainly the streets are pretty smooth.
Reason to go coilover... I'm interested in wheels that will be pretty"tight" so height adjustment will come in handy and Koni Yellows neve let me down and feel about good enough for my type of driving (No autoX, no track,just street)

Sorry to fall into this threath, but I can see you all know what you're talking about so I guess I better get some advise from experienced people

 

I was reading in Grass Roots Motorsport Magazine sometime ago & they had a comparison with shocks from $ to $$$$$$ & the difference was not that great!! It blew me away. I mean the editors spent the whole day out there writing of the temp they tested in , changed out shocks, ect & in the end the difference was MINIMAL!!! Like a second or two between the adjustable $600 shocks & the fully "hyduralic" $5000. Now I don't know about you but spending 5 large and getting that little in return is not good. I'll try to find the article. But I'd call Ground Control & you can get a custom one with YOUR spring rate ect for a GREAT price from them. For my FC they quoted like $900 for all four.

 

I see your point for a street driven vehicle but a second or two per lap could mean the difference of being a winner or being DFL in a race.

 

That's because the double-adjustable shocks with remote reservoirs are for real racers, not street-driving posers.