Swift BRZ springs: too low for stock struts

[norcalpb]

Originally Posted by ZDan

Totally agree that there is potential for ugliness... Question is, how ugly and how soon. Probably not worth the experiment...

For sure not worth the experiment. The spherical bearing is meant to take vertical loads, not to allow the spring to rotate independently of the camber plate.

Plus that would be like the 3rd critical suspension piece that you modified in order to compensate for the problem being created by having travel removing camber plates.

[86league]

Installed a friends RCE Superstreet-1s last weekend - replacing a setup very similar to yours (unexpectedly close).

We thought the car had swift spec-R springs (1.1F/1.0R lowering), with Koni Yellow dampers, and RCE street camber plates up front. The springs/dampers were bought used from a mutual track friend when he moved to a JRZ Pro setup, and installed by a shop.

We always wondered how the 1.1/1.0" lowering specified by the Swifts were SO much lower than my car which had RCE yellow springs/stock dampers/Velox camber plates. It got to where ride quality was just unacceptable for her car - Did OK on track (or smooth surfaces) but any minor bump/etc was really crashed over and just horrible. Thus the purchase of the RCE SS-1s.

Turns out when taking the old coilover stack apart after the superstreet-1 install to maybe sell the parts off - I found that the shop that installed it didn't use the stock spring perch as directed by the RCE street camber plate install instructions. They had used raceseng perches in combination with the RCE camber plates. I'm assuming the used konis/swifts included raceseng perches from the old setup and they used those vs. the stock perches. The perches were beat up on top between the perch and camber plate, but the plates don't show the same damage - didn't notice body/frame damage, but didn't look either - might have been there from the previous install, I can't say.

Remembered this thread and thought I'd share my observations in case it might help someone.

In my mind after reading your tale and what I say on my friends car - it is confirmed that use of the raceseng spring perches lowers the car and reduced available bump travel. Lowering springs + raceseng spring perches are not a good combination IMO.

Originally Posted by ZDan

Installed Swift BRZ Sport lowering springs along with Raceseng camber plates a couple of months ago. I chose these springs based primarily on the rates being about what I wanted to go with the stock Sachs dampers, 34% stiffer front and 43% stiffer rear versus stock. Didn't want to go more than +50% stiffer and didn't want to increase front stiffness bias. And 1.1" lower front, 1" lower rear seemed like it would be a good place to be for street/track.

Initial install was with unmodified stock bump stops. Ride was intolerable due to the car sitting *hard* on the stops. After cutting all four bump stops in half, the the fronts still seemed to be fully locked-up over any bump, however small. I cut the front bump stops down another ~8-10mm, to about 1/3 their original height. Moderate improvement, but still, any bump bottomed the fronts *hard*. Ouch... At this point ride heights were 1.5" lower in front and 1.25" lower rear vs. stock, quite a bit lower than 1.1" front 1" rear advertised, particularly up front.

Last resort: To gain some desperately needed front bump travel, I had a couple of 1/4" aluminum spacers machined up to go between the front camber plate spring perches and springs. Honestly this worked better than expected, the car now goes over modest bumps normally. But still, any bumps bigger than maybe 3/4" to an inch => BAM!!! But at least these are the kind of bumps that are encountered maybe once every few miles as opposed to every 150 feet or so!

The good news is the car is fine at the track, I'm holding my own in time trials competition, so they're not all bad! And I have to say the car looks GREAT at this ride height! But I wish I'd gotten RCE yellows instead (0.8" lower than stock and come with their own bump stops)...

[ett808]

I have Swift SPEC R's with stock 2017 shocks and it don't have any problems at all. Actually rides very well and am happy with it, though I could see getting Koni's or something else if/when these wear out.

[86league]

Originally Posted by ett808

I have Swift SPEC R's with stock 2017 shocks and it don't have any problems at all. Actually rides very well and am happy with it, though I could see getting Koni's or something else if/when these wear out.

This setup was an unholy hybrid of parts from 2 different companies for the spring perch and camber plate (raceseng + RCE). I think the combination of of parts that were not designed to work together resulted in basically no bump travel at all.

I don't think there is any blame on the Swifts or Koni's here ...