Hi guys. Time to invest in some suspensions.

I wanted to go for the Tein flex set but a mate who got them for a year now told me the pillow ball mounts are clunking already. And i dońt want that, car has enough clunking funky noises already.

I plan on hard street driving, few trackdays a year, and drifting anytime it rains.

Can anyone tell me what coilovers to look at ? Thanks

 

Ive heard good things about stance, and you get em in your desired spring rate setup Decently priced too at around 1000

In the 1200+ range, i would get some mazdaspeeds

around the 2K mark, i would defo look at öhlins...!

 

Fortune auto coilovers, heard nothing but good stuff about them. I have the 500 series waiting to be installed, quality is really nice.

Oh I paid a little over 1300 shipped with a swift spring upgrade.

 

This is the route I would go. Go with stance/fortune or some coilover with a swift spring upgrade.

 

I have recently got some some BC Gold Coilovers with 10kg / 8kg springs and so far I really like them, much more then the HKS units they replaced.
The height adjustment is independent of the spring-pre load so you always have full stoke on your shocks no matter how low you go.

The ride is so much better now, and my rear end clunking is gone (i had always thought it was my rear pillowball's).
I can take corners much faster than I could before, and they just seem so much more predictable.
I DD my car and currently have the front on 14 clicks from soft, and the rear 15 clicks from soft.

the BC's are well priced and are getting much praise accross the internet in other car circles. I have no experience with stance coilovers but from what I have read the BC's are a better product.
there is a 100+ page thread on them over on a subaru forum where hundreds of sets have been sold and all happy customers.

 

Scraping the bottom of the barrel w/ shock quality with the list above. About the only decent recommendation is the Stance.

You can always combine the Ground Control coilover kit with Konis or Bilsteins, select the spring rates of your choice and re-use the stock upper mounts. That is what I'd recommend for a budget setup.

 

^ BC make coil overs for stance, apexi, HKS and others from what I have read.

 

Thanks for the input guys.

I am not on a particular budget. However, it is my weekend warrior, so i guess 1500$ is the max i would spend. I don't want cheapo stuff, but i don't need Ohlins either. First of all i want the thing to stop dancing all over the place when i hit the brakes hard.

I wanted to go with Stance but Richie hasn't got anything left in stock and nothing coming in the shop for at least couple months. And the child in me doesn't want to wait that long :-)

plus, since i live in France, shipping and customs are to be taken in account and knowing this, i try to purchase european (mostly english) products as much as i can. I have a friend in holiday right now in Portland who could bring the Stance for me but not possible like I said.

Fortune Auto are really appealing but no rubber mounts, and 1200 USD without shipping.

Like many others here on the forum, i stick to what Howard Coleman says : the most important parameter is the spring rate so i don't mind buying a not so well spread brand as long as i don't take a big financial risk

And i may have found what i was looking for : HSD DualTech Coilovers, sold by the crazy drifters at driftworks.com (they are buiding an LS engined AE86 for drifting, man that is seeexy).

They are 10kg/9kg but they will swap the 9kg springs for 8kg for 50 bucks. Total price with new springs and shipping from UK : 1054 USD (converted from GBP), which is, for us Frenchies, pretty much THE bargain.

AND they come with rubber upper mount, which was mandatory for me.

Here is the link : Get your Mazda MX5, RX7 and RX8 - HSD Coilovers^ Dualtech & Monopro - M

The BC Racing are also an actual alternative since they are shipped from UK, but worth 1215 USD.

I think i'm gonna go with the HSD. What do you reckon ?

Cheers

 

BC and similar products from D2 and Megan are made in Taiwan. They have no affiliation with HKS.

Having seen entry level coilovers from D2,BC and Stance they are on par to the entry level/less than $1000 coilvers from other manufactures. However they do not hold a candle to higher end coilovers from Ohlins, HKS, Aragosta, Quantum, Tein Mono Flex and above. Nor should they as those coilovers are out of most peoples budget new. Ride on a set of BC then on a set of Ohlins, the difference is night and day. Think about it logically, there is a reason why BC racing coilovers are only $1000 new, the cost to manufacturer a coilover when using inferior parts and cheap labor is much cheaper. Yes there is a premium to buy coilovers from Ohlins, Quantum, HKS etc but the R&D and the build quality that goes into them is worth the additional price. I have had easily over 80 sets of coilovers come through my hands, I know what lasts and what good quality looks like, the least impressive products always come from Taiwan (think of all the cracked Megan wheels you see).

The FD is not the type of car where you should be buying budget parts and suspension is certainly not an area where you should be trying to save money.

 

I am not trying to save anything. I think just like you : cheap parts make a cheap car.

BUT : my RX7 is a toy, not a racer in any way. I just want it to feel good to drive, not being able to beat every other car on the street. In that way, Ohlins is way over the top for me. Besides, i can't afford Ohlins products. Later maybe.

My criterias are simple : 10/8 spring rates, independant ride height and pre-load settings, no pillowball mounts. You got anything in store that match my needs ? I'm all ears. And we are not talking about price here.

 

The issue is that very few aftermarket coilovers don't use a pillowball mount. I wouldn't base your decision off the fact you had one friend who said is pillowball mounts were noisy. My guess is the noise was coming from a different source. Think about it, if metal pillowball mounts were THAT noisy, why would anyone run them? Again, the mounts should not be making noise.

If you are open to a pillowball mount we have several options or you can take a set of aftermarket coilovers and use the OEM top mounts which would solve your pillowball mount problem.

 

What i do know is i like my BC coil overs much more then I ever liked my HKS units. I still have my HKS ones. I even had them rebuilt at one point.



Each to their own, im very happy.
edit; im not trying to say BC are better then anything else, I agree the likes of Ohlin's have gotta be better. Just saying BC have a place, and are a well priced solution that actually works very well.

 

I usually agree w/ Howard, but:
Damping is way way WAY more important than spring rate! Softish spring rates on sub-par dampers will ride harsh and feel like crap. But you can run very stiff spring rates on GOOD dampers and it will be like riding on a fricking cloud.

I just went through this with my car. The 9k/7k Tein SS I had were very harsh, practically undriveable on streets with any kind of bumps or potholes. Finally got 11k/11k Ohlins DFV (22%/57% stiffer!) and they ride like a *dream* on the street and at the track. I went from practically parking the car for potholes and bumps and going way out of my way to aviod them to gliding smooovely over them at unabated speed.

Springs are dumb. They are the muscle, that's all. For a given displacement, they apply a fixed restoring force. That is all. The difference between some crap brand 10k spring and the fanciest-pantsiest name brand you can get is pretty much zilch, nada.

Dampers are the BRAINS of the suspension. They are what you feel when you hit a bump, or when you roll into a corner. Basic simple "orifice damping" dampers will feel like absolute crap. They will tend to be soft in low-speed damping (braking, cornering, accelerating) and ROCK HARD in high-speed damping (when you hit a bump or pothole). GOOD dampers will offer good pitch and roll control but will bleed off damping at higher speeds, giving a smoother ride and giving greater traction over rougher surfaces.

The difference between good dampers and not-so-good dampers is PROFOUND. Do not skimp on them!

 

Just wondering why you think Fortune Auto or BC is scraping the bottom of the barrel compared to Stance? They are all basically in the same category and reviews pretty much are the same for each one. Reviews for Stance vs Fortune Auto have been pretty much even, one person said he liked the quality a tad more on the Stance, but the ride feel on the Fortune Autos. Also Fortune Auto has nothing but good reviews online, I don't think I have found much of anything bad on them.

Konis would be good also, but not really sure on the Bilsteins, always heard they were pretty up there.

 

Well i must confirm that also.
Got exactly the same picture on m phone off the hks shock with the BC shock next to it.
I swapped mine 2 weeks ago.
I also had a the same hks hipermax set under my FD. Bought it secondhand with some work.
So made new rings. New uppermounts etc etc.
But not to say hks coilovers are a bad thing but the quality was a disaster.......
And that came from hks.....
and i also had a clucking rear shock....

So i also bought a BC set.
And what a difference. Very well pleased with it.
And i can understand that they use other parts then hks/tein etc etc.
But for example: the lockrings of the BC set are twice as thick as the hks rings. ( on my hks set the rings where broken) Way to thin.

And offcourse if i had Ohlins money for sure i will buy Ohlins... But for the money the BC's is a really good set.
And here in the Netherlands many people ride on BC's.

Not to start a dicussion but just my 2 cents.

 

I'VE FOUND THEM!!!!

I was looking for the similar as OP---looking so long that I forgot that pillowballs WEREN'T desirable, lol.

came to my senses and eventually found:
TEIN.com: STREET ADVANCEs - PRODUCTS

FD part number: GSM32-2USS2

they come as 10/8
they re-use the OEM rubber upper mount.

on ebay brand new authentic from TEIN for 655$. Estimate about 300 for the mounts so you're under 1,000 with OEM NVH and good dampening!

I am going to pick up some ebayers soon.
Don't understand how the rpice is 200$ cheaper than elsewhere unless I am ripping myself off...
but the auction says new in box authentic from Tein Japan! as well as their 1yr mfr warranty...

 

I also sell these Tein street advance coilovers as well as genuine rubber mounts through my website www.j-auto.net in case you guys want to support forum vendors

 

I have used various coilovers since 2000 and I will say the cheap pillow ball mounts will clunk in months to a year and the very high quality teflon lined ones will clunk in years (like stock FD pillow *****). All pillow ball mounts will transmit more road noise into the cabin.

Still, the rubber mount has poor damping in its small range of motion- so, compared to Ohlins very precise damping and pillow ***** the car has less traction over rough pavement/small bumps with rubber top mounts.

That is exactly what I notice with my Ohlins- amazing traction over rough pavement/small bumps. I drive my other cars now with coilovers or stock suspension and its just frustrating to feel the tire loose grip over imperfect pavement on street driving.

When I get suspension for my RX-8 it will be Ohlins despite costing twice what I paid for the car. I have not driven a car with better matched suspension than my FD with Ohlins to date and they are made for few cars.

They might cost a lot, but remember- these ARE Ohlins entry level sport suspension meant for street cars.

 

we put a set of Ohlins on this years race car, which is a miata, and they are worth every penny. not only does it handle well, but the chassis soaks up bumps with aplomb, as the car magazines would say. the thing just never gets upset.

more? it seems to ride really well (its not a street car, so this is in the pits)

i've been playing with racing cars for more than 10 years, and these Ohlins are amazing.

 

You make good points as usual blue TII but....just can't afford it!
I was just about to give up on coilovers and just save for ohlins...till I found these that retain the OEM mounts.

Considering my rear stock shocks are blown, I think it can't be worse than my current "setup"


Just ordered new rubber mounts from Ray...but damn it....ohlins.....we'll see...

 

So the Ohlins are really that good? I am in the market for suspension and as of today I was looking into the traditional Koni/Ground Control, but I think I will hold off and get the Ohlins.

 

The Ohlins DFV are unbelievably smooth-riding over potholes, speedbumps, road irregularities. It is uncanny. Almost *too* smooth! On the old 9k/7k Tein SS coilovers I had before I would practically have to park the car for minor road imperfections that I now just glide smoothly over

The 11/11 springs might be a little on the firm side for a street car, and to balance out the wheel rates you really want stiffer springs up front. I would get 8 or 9 kg/mm springs for the rear and keep the 11s up front for a street car. On my street/track car, I went 13F/11R after trying 11/11.

 

How do you like it so far?
I am about to get one of those.

 

After doing more reading/research, I opted out.

They used to be ~900 bucks, and are now ~600 bucks. TEIN claims they did this to make them more competitive, which is true, but I am skeptical -- I'd wager some quality was lost.

Decided on good ol Konis + Springs. No adjustability, but a proven record of goodness.

Found a set of four koni's for 520 shipped online, and 6 months to pay with 0 interest from paypal.

After much deliberation, i'd rather go with tried and true. Ohlins will be next.

 

$520 shipped for koni's? Damn, that's a good price...can you give me the link where you bought them?