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Suspension | Chassis | Brakes -- Sponsored by 949 Racing Relating to suspension, chassis, and brakes. Sponsored by 949 Racing.


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Old 11-10-2018, 08:36 AM   #57
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A couple of questions come to mind.

Spring rates: I have not seen any info on that.

Front top hats: Do these have a rolling element thrust bearing? Or does it use a spherical ball for angular changes (as the strut compresses) and rotational changes (when you turn the steering L/R)?
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Old 11-16-2018, 10:46 AM   #58
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Quote:
Originally Posted by gutbuster View Post
A couple of questions come to mind.

Spring rates: I have not seen any info on that.

Front top hats: Do these have a rolling element thrust bearing? Or does it use a spherical ball for angular changes (as the strut compresses) and rotational changes (when you turn the steering L/R)?
6 kg/mm front and rear.

Top hats use a spherical bearing that's sealed on the bottom end. Mine are nice and quiet even in the city. Doesn't "feel" like a camber plate 99% of the time. The only time I've noticed them is going over one of those very narrow and sharp speedbumps (the kind you have to crawl over).

- Andrew
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Old 11-17-2018, 12:24 PM   #59
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336 lb/in not including motion ratios.

So a bit higher than the rear spring rate used on the ST XTA (6/5 F/R kg/mm) from which these are derived. And some tweaking to the valving.

Very nice price point especially with the front top hats. These are on my short list based on my car being a DD in NY with some occasional autocross.
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Old 12-22-2018, 09:49 AM   #60
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I installed these coilovers yesterday.

The adjustability is nice and I was able to dial in more camber in the front and rear. The handling is definitely improved. I can feel the reduction in body roll and the increased turn-in capability on the on and offramps. I will have to take it to the track to form a more solid opinion, but since it is the winter, that will be a few months.

The ride is firm but not punishing. I was pleasantly surprised at how comfortable the ride is actually. I have it set in the middle from soft to hard and while I may tweak it later, the middle is a good compromise between comfort and handling. It is much better than the stock performance package suspension in that regard. I am very happy with the product.

Thanks RCE for a high quality part.

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Old 12-22-2018, 12:53 PM   #61
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I installed these coilovers yesterday.

The adjustability is nice and I was able to dial in more camber in the front and rear. The handling is definitely improved. I can feel the reduction in body roll and the increased turn-in capability on the on and offramps. I will have to take it to the track to form a more solid opinion, but since it is the winter, that will be a few months.

The ride is firm but not punishing. I was pleasantly surprised at how comfortable the ride is actually. I have it set in the middle from soft to hard and while I may tweak it later, the middle is a good compromise between comfort and handling. It is much better than the stock performance package suspension in that regard. I am very happy with the product.

Thanks RCE for a high quality part.

These are in my to-do list. Wish they were available back when I bought my RCE yellows. Is your height set to the recommended specs, or did you go lower?
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Old 12-22-2018, 02:42 PM   #62
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I can't be sure how much lower it is, I was trying to avoid going too low but I think the additional negative camber may have contributed to being even lower than I intended.

Here is a stock suspension photo so you can judge for yourself.

Stock


vs.
RCE SS1


vs

Stock (lower camera angle) but worse picture

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Old 12-23-2018, 11:30 AM   #63
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I'm working on a very thorough guide on damper/alignment/height settings. You're looking pretty good the way you have it set up now.

Real quick for the damper settings, you can turn them down pretty low and it won't be bouncy with the way adjuster works. Turned up higher, they'll be firm but not incredibly harsh. Most of the difference is felt during low and mid piston speed reactions by design. I've got mine set around 14 from full stiff front and 16 rear for the bombed out city streets I drive on daily. I'm on winter tires now so though.

- Andrew
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Old 12-23-2018, 12:15 PM   #64
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Bombed out is a very good description of the roads near here as well. I think NYC, and Brooklyn, especially, have given up totally on the idea of paved roads.

I look forward to the information contained in the guide.
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Old 12-23-2018, 12:54 PM   #65
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I see that finally USA gets same roads USSR had all the time. That's globalization and common worldwide standards for you!
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Old 01-04-2019, 12:28 PM   #66
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We're coming to the end of our intro phase for these coilovers and we're beginning to get more of the SS1s out in the wild. A few people have asked me to post more detailed thoughts on the coilovers after having them on my car for a couple months. I work for RCE (duh) but I try to be as honest as possible. There's a limitations section at the end. I'm almost always available to give a ride in my car if you want some first hand impressions as well.

General component thoughts
These use a lowering camber plate that adds a lot of bump travel. The pillowball is sealed from below and to be honest I haven't heard a quieter camber plate. They're high quality camber plates with minimal day-to-day NVH increase, which is not always common.

These use the KW "race" coilover springs and helpers front and rear.

Dust boots, locking spring perches, bumpstops, etc. all are the usual good KW quality.

The finish is shiny. They clean up easily. I'm not too concerned about salt, but will keep em clean and wipe em down after snowstorms.

Ride
The ride is really good. The comparison to stock is always tricky, but IMO they ride better than early cars and close to stock for the later cars. It's not a coilover that makes you want to apologize to your passengers. At low drops (1.5 inches or more), you'll feel some bigger bumps in city driving but it's well within daily driveable and easily passes both the mom and the not-a-car-loving girlfriend test. At a 1 inch drop, it's just plain great with boat loads of travel to spare.

Overall, it's very impressive and compares favorably with more expensive coilovers. No bounce, and no crashiness. Controlled and settled in a way that's difficult to get with just lowering springs. The adjuster works really well and is IMO one of the most impressive parts of the shock in this price range.

Handling
With a good alignment and good tires, the car is so much fun and fast. The spring rates were chosen to match well with tires ranging from OEM to Michelin Pilot Sport 4S to GT Radial SX2 and Hankook RS4. More tire grip will require more camber to make the most of the suspension, and those on R comps may want to consider adding larger swaybars. Obviously we see lower lap times in our testing with a skilled driver, but we also saw very consistent lap times and improved driver confidence with a less experienced driver. That's something that's important to us...we want these coilovers to open up the potential of both the car and the driver.

Also, it's a lot of fun. The ability to kick the back end out is still easily accessible, but not in a way that will catch you off guard.

Other damping related thoughts
The damping is a level above what you would expect at the price point, and that includes the adjuster. One of my big gripes with some coilovers is the adjuster isn't very useful. For too many coilovers, the stiffer settings give you astronomical and almost unusable forces from low to high piston speeds. Yes, it's digressive, but it's an insane amount of nose force and then still way too much high speed. At softer damper settings for some coilovers, there's so little force anywhere and the car is just bouncy. Somewhere in the middle it's OKAY, but not great, because really it's just the high speed that's okay but it's really progressive and soft up to that point. So they end up not great on the street OR the track. The SS1s are different...by focusing what the adjuster changes to the low and mid piston speed, you end up with a more usable range of adjustment.

Limitations
While you can certainly track these if you run R compound tires and they'll do well, that level of grip is better suited to a stiffer set up. Also true if you run real aerodynamics. There are other coilovers out there (more expensive) that will fit the bill nicely for those users.

There's a lot of travel and these can get pretty darn low (2 inches) but they weren't really designed to be slammed.

Also, you probably shouldn't rally-x these...

--------------------------

So, we've been around for more than 15 years and have had multiple opportunities to release a "cheap" coilover. But there were always compromises we just couldn't let ourselves make...namely we didn't want them to suck. So we're pretty excited to finally offer a relatively inexpensive streetable and trackable coilover that checks all the boxes for our users. It's a pretty great coilover with some cool features that just happens to be relatively inexpensive.

- Andrew
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Old 01-04-2019, 12:32 PM   #67
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Also, I'm finalizing the set up guide document but thought I'd post some quick tips here:

Camber plate
You should be able to get around -2 degrees of camber with an extra set of the OEM camber bolts while leaving the camber plate in the middle (as it is from the factory). I recommend maxing out the slotted lower mount first before adjusting the camber plates. The camber plates should be set even side to side.

Ride height
If you set the front spring perch at 50 mm from bottom and the rear perch 90 mm from bottom, you should be near a 25 mm (or 1 inch) drop. All cars are different and also the drivers rear is usually a little lower, so it will take some fine tuning. A 1 to 1.5 inch drop is the recommended starting point. However, there is a lot of travel and we've run these lower with good results. A little bit of forward rake can also be helpful for some users.

Damper settings
These coilovers adjust rebound damping with minimal crosstalk to compression. Rebound damping can be thought of as the force the damper exerts to resist shock extension. For these shocks, the rebound adjustment mostly alters the low and mid-speed part of the rebound curve with some effect on high speed. High speed rebound remains digressive at both softer and stiffer settings, so the ride should never be punishing.

Recommended street settings:
14 clicks from stiff front
16 clicks from stiff rear

Recommended track/autocross settings:
8 clicks from stiff front
10 clicks from stiff rear

These settings are guidelines. You may find a firmer or softer street setting to work better for you. Some may like firmer track settings for even sharper response. Those with stiffer swaybars may also want to add a click or two or rebound for the track. Handling characteristics can be altered with the adjuster, but large changes in set up should be undertaken through other means (alignment, tire pressures, ride height, spring rate, etc.). The damper adjustment is a good way to control ride and handling transitions such as corner entry and exit, but they are not for controlling overall mid-corner balance. Think about when each shock is extending, and how changing those forces will change how each tire reacts through a corner.

Maintenance
If your roads are salted in the winter, a simple wipe down in the spring should keep everything fresh for a long time.

Last edited by Racecomp Engineering; 01-29-2020 at 01:25 PM.
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Old 01-04-2019, 01:12 PM   #68
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Also, since these come with front camber plates, we do have an option for including OEM rear mounts for a little extra to make them plug and play. Makes life a lot easier.

- Andrew
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Old 01-04-2019, 03:50 PM   #69
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RCE, does this mean that you still have SS1s in stock for the 86 platform? Your website shows them as out of stock.
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Old 01-05-2019, 08:56 AM   #70
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Is there a warranty associated with these coilovers? Strongly considering these for jumping into stx for autox.
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