I'm conflicted on coilovers
 

So I've been surfing the forums for thoughts on coilovers and from what I've seen, the best coils for a good price are the notorious BC racing or megan coilovers. I've found through digging and being nosy is that they make noise and aren't that great. I dont know if this is just the area they are in or bad driving etc, but I would rather see more recent coilover discussions that are after 2014.

I want a pretty good performance oriented coilover but also want some that drop me pretty low without bottoming out on the threads.

The roads here in north texas are pretty terrible but since i live in the suburbs i can easily avoid said roads.


Please bless me with yalls wisdom!

If you're not planning to track the car as I'm assuming you're not if considering bc/megan, I would look into ST coilovers or Tein Flex Z. I had the Teins and had no issues for 10k plus miles with no noise. STs are made by KW as a budget option.

im happy with my Tein Street Flex, good price and good quality..
but they do bottom out especially in the back.
bottomed out thread in the back = 1.5 finger gap tire and fender..

Yeah i need them a little lower but i may look into these, thank you!


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I do plan on tracking the car but not while Im in warranty(5 more years lol) but how long until those tein flex z's bottom out on the threads? like is there a lot of gap or what? I want them to be damn near close to tucking my tyre lol


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If that's what you want don't expect a comfy ride unless you drop big money that doesn't look like you want to spend.

Either raise your ride height goals, get crappy coils and just deal with it, or drop big money to lower and get a good ride.

I reckon for average driving, occasional autoX or track days, there ain't nutten wrong with the suspension that came with the car ...... ;)

Of course, if you want it ride like a hay wagon on steel wheels, have to go around speed bumps and go "ahh shit" when you bottom out on street dips you misjudged ....... just lower the hell out of it .........:thumbsup:


humfrz

Indeed, one can track completely stock toyobaru just fine (much more so then average most other cars, especially in this budget class). Worth changing brake pads & fluid and dial in some neg. camber with crashbolts & lca-s, but even with everything stock it was much fun on track. Don't think that with stock coilovers it's undriveable on track and is must do prior going there. Yes, with grippier tires one will ride on bumpstops more often, but if those are first experiences on track, it will take few sessions for stock car to feel like needing upgrades. Go to track, experience it, and THAN think what (and IF) needs to be upgraded.

Super happy with my Fortune 500s

Edit: I am tucking tire on my fortunes. Still have another 1/2"ish of thread left. Ride is way better than my Stance coils were.

It sounds like your highest priority is dropping the car roughly 2", but you're looking for a solution that won't bottom out? There's no 'free lunch' when choosing suspension options - with few exceptions (and you'll pay dearly for them), if you lower your car substantially you'll face challenges over bottoming out. Our cars have very little travel in the rear to begin with and lowering the car 2" burns up most of what you had to begin with. You have a few options: You can pony up for a premium coilover that can better deal with the short travel, you can run insanely high spring rates which will destroy your car's handling and ride, or you can rethink your desire to run your car that slammed. It all depends on your priorities - if you're a kid and you're all about the stance, go for it, otherwise I'd recommend you rethink things. There are a lot of solutions that will improve looks and performance on a budget, but most of the guys here aren't going to tell you to slam your car - we love the way these cars handle too much to do that!

Oh, by the way...it's just my opinion, but I'd stay away from the BC Racing coilovers.

As other say, the rear damper travel is pretty limited on the FR-S / BRZ.
You can get a suspension system to work with the right springs rate with enough damper travel, but lowering range will be limited.

The MeisterR ZetaCRD+ Coilovers could do what you want if the lowering range meet your requirement.
As we design the rear damper with at least 4" of damper travel, it mean we compromise lowering range.
However, we want a coilovers that actually work so we throw in as much damper travel as we could.

This is a picture of one of our customers car.
From what I know there may be a "little" more lowering possible, but that is pretty close as far as it will reach.

http://www.meisterr.co.uk/Pics/Post/FRS/Review1/5.jpg

If that is low enough, then the ZetaCRD+ can also be a contender.
Great performance, enough drop, and compliancy over uneven road surfaces.

But if you want to go a lot lower, then it will need to be something else.
And at that point, it is probably going to have to be expensive because the only other way I can think of providing more travel is to go to a remote reservoir system; and honestly those are too complex of a design for a road car use.

Jerrick

Stance and Voodoo(?) Make a rear lower control arm with an offset mounting section to give you a static drop without using lower travel shocks or maxing out your threads

This is low enough, in probably going to check these out thank you!


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had for 2 years
 

Have the ST coilovers. Last year I was as low as you could go (2"). The car looked awesome and rode well. Just scraped a lot. This year only dropped 1.1/4 inch because of larger tires and car still looks and rides great with no scraping. Just can't drive onto ferry's tocross rivers.

At that ride height, it's going to handle like crap without lots of geometry correction. You'll need about $2.5k in parts other than the coilovers for it to handle like it should at that low of a ride height.

Why wait for warranty to expire before tracking it? Tracking it won't void your warranty.

I'm tucking tire on my 18s and did not need 2500$ in parts. I also autocross it without issue.

I guess they don't care about handling, just the looks ...

Without issue, or with better handling than stock? What geometry correction have you done? How well do your times compare to a bone stock FRS/BRZ on similar tires?

With a 2" drop you'll need pretty substantial geometry correction to not be handling worse than stock.

I'm not suggesting the car will fall apart or explode, but it will definitely handle worse than stock.

I run -3.5 front and -2.5 rear to deal with my tires rolling over. Stock toe. My rear wheels looked off center(front to back) in the wheel well so I got adjustable trailing arms and went to the shortest setting. No one can measure rear caster so I don't know what it's set at. Rear LCA, toe and caster(trailing) arms, front camber bolts. I haven't raced on my Fortunes yet(this weekend) but my Stance coils got me similar times to the other twins with pleb drivers. There is one local who posts some of the best times in the class/all classes in an frs but he races every weekend(track or autocross) and I race 5or 6 times a year. I blame my middle of the road times on being a bad driver, not the car. I did my suspension mods and tires at the same time after a season so I didn't have a good comparison between how it handled stock, and how it handles now. I'm not saying it's better than stock, I'm just saying you don't need $2500 in "other"parts to make it handle decent

Since we're on the subject, how far can you lower before geometry correction becomes necessary? I think I've heard about 30mm somewhere, but wasn't sure how true that was.

That's about right. I think that's just for camber correction though, it's lower before you need toe correction in the rear I think.

I was talking more about bump steer correction. I know after a certain point bump steer correction needs to be made via longer ball joints.

1 inch lower than stock is safe and it sounds like 1.2 inches lower seems to be the limit of what you can get away with before you need to seriously think about bump steer and roll centre correction. I know at 1.5 inches lower that bumpsteer and roll centre correction are highly recommended.

I will also note that it's well known that lowering our cars contributes to premature wear in the CV joints in our axles. Lowering much more than 1 inch and you should look at subframe and diff risers or DSS axles so you aren't killing them constantly.

Bump steer I've never looked into, I can't say I've "felt"it pull when hitting a bump but I'll look into it

Suspension is designed to lower max. 20mm without changing geometry (dynamic alignment). A lowering of 30-35mm is not optimal but OK. Personally, I wouldn't lower more than 15mm.

Reference here: http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showp...5&postcount=11

If you've added camber and coilovers and it handles worse than stock, I think by definition it doesn't handle decently. With the camber alone it should handle better than stock.

That's not geometry correction, that's just alignment. I was talking about bump steer and roll center.

Again, I can't tell you if it handles better or worse because I don't have a good way to make an objective judgement on it. My mistake on the roll center and bump steer. Whiteline offers tie rod ends to correct rollcenter and bump steer for about $250. You could replace every arm and joint on the car and still not hit $2500 though. Unless you only buy Cusco, then it's like LCAs and a sticker for $2500

There are alot of factor when you start working out the vehicle dynamics.
Generally rule of thumb is that the lower control arms cannot be lower than when it is parallel to the ground.

If you get pass this point, that is when the roll centre really start getting out of whack and you start seeing performance reduction.
But if you compare it lap time against lap time to a stock suspension, very often aftermarket suspension still fair better due to increase in roll stiffness from higher springs rate and damping rate.

It is never clear cut black and white.
And what works for one may not work for another.
But these rule of thumb are there for a good reason, and generally they give you a pretty accurate result; but not always.

Jerrick

I don't think the whiteline parts correct enough for a 2" drop, and they only fix the front. For a big drop, you're going to need LCA's all around, plus some other stuff. It'll add up in a big hurry.

LCA 400$, toe arm 250, trailing arm 400, bump steer 250. That's $1300. Pretty sure you can fix rear bump steer for less than $1200 so... not that much. And rear trailing arms are likely optional but I included it for completeness.

You missed fron LCA, and I wouldn't trust $400 rear LCA's if you're going to be driving the car hard. Correcting rear roll center is also more involved than the front. You need to raise the inner rear pivot of both the LCA and UCA. You'll probably want to raise the diff while you're at it to put the axles at less of an angle as well.

I think we can all agree Cusco is a very respectable company with quality parts, no? Rear LCA is just over $500 from ft86SF. Nearly all rear LCAs are in the 400-500$ range. Subframe risers: 100$ if you can do the work yourself. Front LCAs from Cusco are quite spendy at 800$. Add shipping and you are in fact nearing $2500.

I don't believe hardly any of these parts are necessary to "handle well". Do you want to win the championship? Then maybe you need them. But lowering the car 2 inches will in no way "destroy"the handling, make it unsafe to drive, or anything of the sort. It might not handle AS WELL as a stock height FRS but as mentioned above, the spring rates and dampers will likely make up the difference. For anyone who isn't a SERIOUS racer, the parts necessary to fix your alignment is all you'll need. If your only concern is better lap times you either wouldn't be looking at lowering your car this much or you would already know what you needed

Again, my whole point was simply that if you're going to upgrade it, it should work better than stock. If not, it's not working well. It might not be falling apart, but if it's worse than stock it's not handling well IMO.

If you dont mind me asking why should we stay away from BCr's? Im in the market for coils as well and I was considering the BCr's or the BC RAM's. To be clear my intentions are to keep the car a daily while able to recreationally track/canyon carve. Also what are better alternatives considering my intentions?

Why do you want coilovers? That'll help shape what you should be looking for.

Most cheap coilovers handle worse than stock shocks/springs, or stock shocks with good lowering springs.

increased performance when spirited driving mainly, also to get rid of the wheel gap

BC has a reputation for making a cheap low quality product. ie: won't be as comfortable, perform as well, last as long as more expensive coils. They are good for slamming(extreme drop) due to the way they are valved internally(to my knowledge). But to ride that low without bottoming out they must be very stiff which makes for a rough ride. Back pain and general discomfort can come from this. I just switched from Stance coils to Fortune 500s, which both cost about the same but the ride on the Fortunes is so much smoother(girlfriend approved) because the Stance coils are meant for extreme drops. A few coils have been mentioned in this thread that are excellent choices. I haven't seen the Tein Z flex mentioned yet but I have heard great things about them despite them being one of the cheapest options available. Of course if your only goal is a mild drop, lowering springs can't be beat for cost. A few hundred dollars will get you what you want instead of the $800ish for Teins or $1250 for Fortunes. If you want to be able to pay with damper settings and adjust ride height, then coils are your only choice. If you have lots of money to spend I believe the KW v3 is generally considered the best you can get without getting TOO crazy

The funny thing about people trashing BC (in general), is that BC Racing is an OEM for many, MANY coilovers that we love on the marketplace. There's a handful of companies actually making shocks themselves, and everyone else sources parts from essentially 5 suppliers.

I really need to print out the "coilover made by BC Racing" dyno charts and show what cheap coilover shock dynos look like after 30 minutes of repeated runs.

-alex

false, i am really wanting to find good coilovers with pretty good ride quality


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Here is what I have seen:

1. Cheaper suspension isn't all bad
You CAN make a good suspension within the $1000 mark.
You will have a few design limitation, but it is something that can be over come if you have the right experience.
Just because ONE suspension isn't great at that price range, it doesn't mean ALL suspension is bad at that price bracket.

2. NOT all suspension in the same price bracket are the same.
While some factory do make suspension for multiple brands, OEM supplier can make specific request because it is their unique product.
There will again be limitation as well as increase in production cost, but it is something many do all the time.

These specific request are cover under a non-disclosure agreement.
The details of one customers are not share with anyone else.
What that mean is even if it's the factory own product line, it will not have the specific request of an OEM supplier.
To "steal" the customer request and implement it in any other product is a direct breach of the non-disclosure agreement.

3. Expensive suspension doesn't always mean a better track suspension.
One of the very common questions I get ask is how well MeisterR suspension will work on track.
I get ask this a lot because customers who decide to track their car but purchase twin-tube suspension (Tein / Koni / GAZ / etc) have often experience fade near the end of the session.
That is when the damper get hot enough where the oil inside have change viscosity.
So the overall damper feel "softer", because the thinner oil is providing less resistance.

A good mono-tube damper such as MeisterR will handle a full track session without fade issue.
The mono-tube are able to deal with the heat generated from the damper.
This provide consistent performance during hard usage.

This is one point I try to stress because I seen it time and time again where twin-tube dampers just don't live up to hard track usage.
There are exception, but this is a general over view.

4. Coilovers DOES NOT have to be a hard ride
A common view is that coilovers aren't good for street car because they are design for track and will ride very stiff.
That is wrong as coilovers can be just as comfortable as any OEM dampers.
The difference between a stiff ride or a comfortable ride is how the suspension were designed.

The reason that this get pass around because alot of coilovers provider simply focus on "track use" on their product.
This mean customer buy their product, install onto their road car, and the ride is horrible no matter how you adjust the suspension.

It is always going to be a compromise.
You cannot have a suspension that will work well on a track car using slick tires, that will also do well on a tarmac rally stage.
But you can get a suspension that will work in a tarmac rally stage to work relatively well on the track.
It might not be as hardcore as a pure track setup, but it will work well enough as an all rounder.

That is how we generally valve our fast road suspension.
You want the suspension to do everything well, but you want the suspension to focus on it's main job.
That is to provide good ride quality and compliancy over uneven road surfaces, something we face 90% of the time when we are driving our car.

Hope that is a few point to help out members who are thinking about what to do.


Jerrick