Fortune Auto Air Piston Lift System
 

I know these are fairly new and there isn't a lot of information about these, so i decided to share my experience with Fortune Auto. Hopefully, this post will provide some useful information for people looking into this setup.

I apologize in advance if this sounds like a gripe, as I did run into a lot of problems with this system. This is also my first time installing coil overs so please bear with me.

A friend of mine (@ATESIX) introduced me to the Fortune Auto Air Piston Lift System. After watching a video taken at SEMA, I decided they seemed like a pretty cool option to air bags. Apparently, A lot of the FT86 Hawaii members have regular Fortune Auto Coil overs and are quite happy with them. They told me that they ordered there coil overs through DSG Performance and that Jason hooked them up when it came to shipping cost.

I placed my order through DSG Performance on November 14 2015. The original order was for 4 air cups, coil overs, and tank / hardware. The total cost of the system was just under $3,000. I was contacted a week later from Jason @ DSG and he told me that Fortune Auto had jumped the gun a bit and that only the front air pistons would work on our car. I went ahead with the order anyway because I figured 2 inches of lift in the front would be enough to clear my driveway. Jason apologized for the inconvenience, refunded me the cost of the air cups, he then went out of his way and upgraded me from the 500 series to the DSG Edition 500 series coils.

December 19 2015:
Coil overs have arrived today!
My first impression was that these things are very well packaged and that the actual coil overs look awesome!

http://i649.photobucket.com/albums/u...psijsebszs.jpg

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Unfortunately, thats when I began to run into some problems. When I went to wire the compressor set up I discovered that they didn't provide enough wire. Short of bolting the setup directly onto my battery, that was just not enough wire.

http://i649.photobucket.com/albums/u...psx8ghhesc.jpg

I knew this was an early version and that they might still be working out the kinks. Instead of complaining I just ran to Walmart and picked up a cheap amp wiring kit for under $22.00 after tax.

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Using the amp wiring kit, I ran all the wires down the front passenger side of the vehicle, tucking the wires into the dorm jams. The provided air tank set up looked fairly clean from the factory, so I decided to leave it until I could figure something else out.

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I decided to fire up the compressor and see if I wired everything up correctly. I started the car, compressor clicked on and began filling the tank.Unfortunately, the compressor would not shut off, and Fortune did not provide any specs as to the min / max on the pressure switch. The next day I contacted Fortune and was told that sometimes the sensor gets stuck and to try and air the tank up to 240 psi but do not exceed 250 psi. While that sounded a bit high for me, I did as they asked. Intact I did it 3 times just to make sure.

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I called Fortune back and was told that sometimes the pressure sensor gets banged around during shipping, they told me they would send me a new one. About 3/4 days later another pressor sensor arrived, and that was the source of yet another problem.

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As you can see from the picture above, the new pressure sensor they sent me was much smaller than the original. I decided to move on with the install, I could manually fill the air tank and @ 200 Psi you can air up and down about 5 times.

I started on the rears first, the install was straight forward and everything went pretty well. The rears are much smaller and lighter than the stock struts, at the height in the picture they sat at exactly the same height as the Tein S Tech they replaced. The rears could still go down about an inch and a half, but I decided to leave it at this height until I finished installing the fronts.

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That is when I encountered another problem. After lowering my car I discovered that I now had a FRS SUV as my car now had a 4 inch gap between the front tire. I still had quite a bit more I could go down in the front so I maxed it out and lowered the car again. However, I was still confronted by my FRSUV

http://i649.photobucket.com/albums/u...psed2gacvc.jpg

After surfing the forums for a few hours for possible solutions, I started to call some of the other guys that had the regular Fortune coil overs. 2 days later we were all scratching our head, I then contacted Fortune Auto again and tried a few different things with them. We went so far as to do the opposite of preload something they called "droop".

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After about a week of trouble shooting with Fortune, they admitted to me that my car was actually they first FRS to have these and that they now knew they didn't work on my car. They then offered to either refund me or the would send me the components for a normal coil over setup. I don't think Fortune Auto realized at this point that we had 3 orders for this thing, mine being the first.

I contacted Jason @ DSG and told him what had happened, he told me he would discuss it with his manager and try and come up with a solution. After about a week Jason got back to me and said that Fortune would be using an older air cup design and that they wanted me to send the fronts back to have the cups new / old cups installed. After all the problems I had, I told Jason that I would rather just send the entire system back and just get a refund.

The only reason I stuck it out and went through the pain of trouble shooting the system is because I knew some of the other guys ordered the same system. After giving Jason a list of suggestions, I sent the system back to Fortune Auto.

After receiving my return it toke Fortune Auto a week just to process my return and through out this entire process they never did once thank me for all the time and effort I put into this system. Needless to say I will NEVER do business with Fortune Auto again!

Fortune Auto did take some of my suggestions to heart though, as the next FT86 Hawaii member to get his system had some noticeable upgrades.

http://i649.photobucket.com/albums/u...pssfhonmo8.jpg

As you can see from the new compressor set up, they did provide a but more power wire along with a adjustable pressor señor.

http://i649.photobucket.com/albums/u...ps1gcrwuk1.jpg

The old/new Air Pistons now have the spring going into the air cup.

I was able to get most of the install done and some of the other guys came over to help finish the install. We were able to complete all the wiring, air lines, and coil overs in 8 hours. We could have done the install faster, however, we didn't have all the tools. We had to wait until a few of the guys finished work to get everything we needed. Honestly, I only intended to do the wiring that day but we ended up doing the entire car.

http://i649.photobucket.com/albums/u...psb2hr5rud.jpg

The actual car we installed the system on is in the garage, but the other one is also on Fortune coils and they are sitting at exactly the same height.

Conclusion:

We had to max out the coils to attain the height pictured above. If you remove the locking ring you might be able to get another 1/4 in, but I don't think these were designed to go super low. Granted they are sitting pretty low at this point.

The spring rate on the car above is 7k / 8k. With these spring rates the air pistons will only lift the car an inch max. In order to attain the actual 2 inches you might have to go as low as 4k or 5k.

I asked Jason to have them include a moisture trap in future models, as I did have some trouble with the air piston seizing due to moisture build up. To be fair though we are in Hawaii and probably have excessive moisture. If you do pick up one of these kits I would recommend picking up a moisture trap for $30/$40 as it will save you a lot of headache.

I must give credit where credit is due and these things do ride very well, they are very responsive and they feel very plated. Hawaii has really bad roads and at 5 clicks from full soft they weren't bad at all for daily driving.

Bottom line is I don't think these things are worth the $2600 price tag for only an inch of lift. You can pick up a manual AirLift kit for around $2600 if you need more height adjustment. If you don't need an inch lift I would go with regular coil overs. That is just my 2 cents though, maybe some of the other owners can chime in with their reviews.


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I would like to thank the FT86 Hawaii club for allowing me to experiment on their cars. Also I would like to thank everyone that helped out with the installs and for allowing us to use your tools and also for lending a helping hand when I was absolutely stumped!

Jason @ DSG: Thank you for your patience and understanding, I know I started to lose my mind a bit at the end.

FT86club Community: Thank you for all the DIY and awesome guides that you guys produce. I would have not even attempted this with out this amazing source of information!

Thats a damn shame about the air cups and definately not a good move on Fortune, pushing untested products. :/

That being said Jason is always good to work with and glad you atleast got the refund process taken care of.

Have you started looking for a replacement setup yet?

They sold a product that's never even been test fitted?! What the fuck? That's not even regular stupid, that's advanced stupid.

Stance has an air cup system... just sayin. Unfortunate about Fortune though

the kind of stupid that requires a degree in retarded...

@Kiske: I decided to go with air bags, I just ordered an AirLift kit from Bag Riders. Hawaii doesn't have a track anymore so I figured that this setup would be more than sufficient for daily driving. Plus, it will give me something to tinker with for a while at least lol.

@calcum: Thanks I thought I was over reacting for a moment, here is an exert from an email they sent me "Your FR-S is the first to be equipped with our Air Piston Lift System and we know now that some adjustments will need to be made for that application. We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience this may have caused you."

They should be paying you at this point, at least giving you a free setup for doing the R&D for them.

Kinda sounds like someone forgot you need shorter springs when you have a cup kit...

They did shorten the spring by 2 inches, but if you look at the earlier pictures the spring doesn't go into the air cup. I think they didn't account for the new air cup design? In the final version the spring goes into the air cup a few inches.

thats a lot of coin and hardware for just an inch adjustability. i would rather go full airbags too at that point.

The cup kit is so you have coil over performance with air bag convenience for getting over bumps and dips. If you don't want the performance part then yeah airbags are better. But if you do then you either get a cup kit or drive across town to get to the taco bell with the shallow parking lot cuz the near one's drive way is just too steep :(

yeah i get it, but i guess i just expected the cup kit to provide at least 1.5-2 in of movement :/ i already google map and street view any "new place" that i have to go so i can check for driveways and possible big speed bumps lol

I think its possible to get 1.5-2 in lift out of these things, but you would need to go with a lower spring rate than what they are currently sending out which is 7k/8k. Maybe 5k/6k or something along those lines.

Depends on the kit. Stance sells1 and 2 inch lift

Omfg thank you @Bluehwy !!! I want to buy you a beer if you're ever in LA...I literally have a set of Airlift bags sitting in my dining room right now...couldn't pass up the deal I got but after more research, I wanted cups because the air struts are too fat for my wheels...that and I like to drift lol. I was trying to be economical at first...but cups will come out cheaper than bags and new wheels. Only other cup options I know for our chasis is Platinum VIP and Stance...but I want one company to assemble/ and design the cups/coils/springs, vs just buying cups and altering already expensive coils.

I emailed Fortune Auto on 1/29/16 and this was their response:

"Thanks for your inquiry, unfortunately we do not have the APLS available for the FT86 chassis. We are working on development for a kit that will hopefully be available this summer."

I read really good things about FA coils, especially for their price range. I might actually wait it out in hopes they come out with a solid kit for us soon.

I think you're going to have a hard time finding this as coil over companies don't generally work with pneumatics. What's wrong with a tested and proven system from KW or Stance? Sure they weren't designed by the same companies but they were designed to work together. And according to Stance the springs themselves only cost about $40 each so modifying existing coils isn't THAT bad

What do you mean by designed to work together? As in cup kits designed to work on most aftermarket coils?

I'm not concerned with the price to replace a spring or coils that much...I'm more concerned of something malfunctioning and causing more damage due to altering the spring. I plan to drift this cup set up. The engineer in me wouldn't trust just any shop to alter a spring since it changes it's geometry so much. I don't have the proper resources to properly test the effects of altering a spring and most shops don't have the experience/knowledge with performance cup kits. I'd like to assume that a company that designed and built the cup/coil kit would be safer than pairing a cup kit with another aftermarket coil. Provided they work out all the kinks lol.

The kits from Stance and KW were designed specifically for those coils. I imagine it's "possible"to make them work on others but (we will use the Stance for an example) the cup kit was designed by ISM to work specifically with Stance's coils. So they weren't just thrown together. And the springs aren't modified, they are replaced with shorter ones of an appropriate rate as determined by Stance. I could order a kit right now for my coils with everything I need + new springs, everything would plug in fine and work like a champ. If you don't have a problem with the brand just give them a call and have a chat about it, I've always gotten great service from them debugging my various suspension problems(none of which turned out to be the coils btw).

http://www.stance-usa.com/main/produ...ir-cup-system/

First and foremost, I would like to apologize on behalf of the entire Fortune Auto team. I would also like to thank you for your patience and understanding throughout this entire process. We are just as excited now as we were when we first started the roll-out for our new Air Piston Lift System. Unfortunately, we (clearly) got ahead of ourselves by selling and shipping your kit without even a disclaimer or feedback request.

Understandably, there is nothing pleasant or satisfactory about your experience with us thus far and it is wildly unfortunate that you have had to go through all of this. However, for whatever it may be worth to you, we want to thank you for maintaining logic, perspective, and patience throughout the entire process. It has helped us see, firsthand, what adjustments and changes need to be made to the APLS kit for the FR-S and BRZ. We have over a decade of hands-on research and development in every one of our hand-built coilovers for each application advertised and we will carry that proven method over into our APLS line.

We initially tested numerous applications and believed our theory for universal fitment across the vehicle application range to be not only sufficient but, accurate. We, as a team, understand your dissatisfaction and standpoint as a whole. There is absolutely nothing wrong or inaccurate about anything in your original post.

We are hard at work, back to the drawing board, with every bit of information you have provided us with. We will be positive, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that our Air Piston Lift System and Fortune Auto Coilovers work seamlessly together when we re-release product for the ZN6/ZC6 platform.

I also want to give special consideration and attention to our friends at DSG Performance. Fortune Auto is proud to have them as a dealer for many reasons, one of which being their unmatched customer service. Without the professional and crystal-clear communication from you and the DSG team, this learning process may have been prolonged even more.

If you, or anyone here on FT86 Club, need anything at all from any of us here at Fortune Auto, please feel more than welcome to call or email us directly.

nick@fortune-auto.com
sales@fortune-auto.com
(877) 227-0260

I'm gonna have to call you out here. You thanked OP for his work and for his understanding, but you need to apologize as well. You turned OP into an unknowing and unwilling employee. You are benefiting from his time, his efforts, and his expertise, and you've made no move to either apologize for dumping that on him, or to compensate him for it.

Pretty words are nice, but the utter lack of professionalism demonstrated by selling a suspension product that's never even been test fitted is reprehensible. At the very least Fortune Auto should be TESTING their products, not just test fitting them. But you didn't even do that. The liability concerns alone should be enough get you to properly test fit your products, and the desire to not release a product that sucks should have you thoroughly testing your products.

Calum,
The first sentence was an apology. Nick from Fortune publicly apologized on behalf of the company
The Air pistons where EXTENSIVELY TESTED.

As posted here:

I will further explain that the R&D and testing process took roughly 1 year to complete. We tested the new system under multiple scenarios and circumstances. This system was supposed to be a universal product that would fit all Fortune coilovers and all 200+ Fortune Auto applications. We believed that the system would fit the FRS platform with ease. We obviously where wrong about how universal the APLS system was and since removed all the applications until they are individually tested on each application for proper fitment.

I want to reiterate that we released this product because it was extensively tested. We never release anything without extensive testing for many reasons such as liability. The issue here was that we were incorrect in our assumption of universal fitment. That is unfortunate and we have refunded the OP and we are now apologizing publicly.

Lastly we are revamping the APLS system just for the FRS application. We are hoping to have something available mid year that will have proper FRS fitment.

I personally would also like to apologize to the OP of this thread. I think that we should have handled you different in this situation. Not everyone is perfect and we have learned our lesson in this situation regarding some input you gave us and on the way not to handle a customer. We understand that you spent a lot of money on this setup and expected a perfectly fitting and working product. You obviously did not get that. If there is any way we can make this up to you please let me know and I would be happy to oblige.

We also appreciate your review and we are glad that your friends system went in and rides well.

Sincerely and Respectfully
Jenson
Fortune Auto

this is what i like. product gets released under the expectations of the company after sincere hours of R&D and every situation they could have thought of then, only to have it run into multiple problems.

Im literally doing the same thing in school (designing experiments from scratch and learning along as I go)

this is the same kind of process and Im actually glad that Fortune Auto is keen on making this Air piston system into a viable product. The only ones who win out of company battles trying to out do each other is the customer, dont forget that. Im sure OP just helped immensely with finding, answering and posing solutions to the problems he found.

I like seeing product development. Keep on truckin on Fortune Auto :)

No doubt about it! Thank you!

Thanks for chiming in! Since this is all about apologies, regardless if I already made one, I will go on and apologize for my late response to your input as I've been out of the office for the past couple of days. And yes, you're right, we benefited from his involvement in the matter, which is the case with all of our products! The progression of all of the Fortune Auto products are not only based off of our own research and development but, that of our customers as well. Needless to say, this particular situation is far from ideal for either party and it was, by no means, our intention. We didn't "dump" anything on him. We made a mistake. Also, by way of DSG, we refunded his purchase entirely. At this point, I feel like I am just repeating my original post. It's nice to see a community member defending another. Thank you for your contribution to this conversation! Just as everything in this scenario, you have been heard!
Cheers!

Was he also reimbursed for his trial and error, extra materials, etc? Dude spent time doing R&D for you guys after you released a product that wasn't ready.

Thank god Cole is here to point out everyone's flaws... shit happens dude. It wasn't intentional. They apologized. Get over it

cant wait til fortune auto works out the kinks. been excited for this since the sema review!

Doesn't matter. How would you feel if your time was entirely wasted and you spent extra money to fix their shortfalls only to be offered a refund and a thanks?

I may be an asshole, but at least I'm not a weeaboo.

Edit: I'll further justify my stance. I'm a contractor, and on site, my clients often ask me to do a little bit more, or go the extra mile. I politely tell them id be glad to, providing the purchase order is revised to reflect the additional work I put in, because if I can't get something for nothing, why should I give my services away for free. Get it now?

Oh. Don't worry. I understand the situation. I also understand that sometimes shit happens and you gotta live with it. I understand that Fortune believed their system was valid and publicly apologized. They never asked OP for extra labor or testing for free. It was all incidental.

i had to google "weeaboo" :o

Honestly I did too... Cole just made himself look like a total douche since "weeaboo" has absolutely nothing to do with what was being discussed. Not even a little. Good job Cole.

Is this you?

https://secure.static.tumblr.com/90d...4sksgg_640.jpg

If me calling you a weeaboo was so off topic, then why'd you start with the personal attacks on me? I would apologize for making you butt hurt, but you're a grown man. You should learn to deal with meanies on the interwebz.

You are very condescending in every topic I've ever seen you in. Is there a reason you think you're above everyone else and superior? One thing I've found in my many years of dealing with customer service daily is most people who act the way you do have deeper issues, personal issues with their persona and seek approval/power since they feel they're lacking. It's honestly concerning seeing as how often you do it.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Again... what does this guy have to do with customer service or suspension parts? I mean, if you wanted to say"I may be an asshole but at least I'm not a bitch who let's people take advantage of them" it would have made sense but instead you picked a fairly racist and probably ironic(I'm guessing wapanese is the English version and weeaboo is the Japanese word for the same person) term to describe me. What does pretending to be Japanese have to do with anything? Like... at all? What's the connection? I could say "at least I'm not a wigger" or "at least I'm not short" or maybe "at least my dishes got washed last night" and they would all be just as applicable. I'm not asking you to be nice, cuz we all know that's pointless. But at least try to make sense.

i just ate but oh wells :popcorn:

Can we not lock this thread...it's one of the few useful air/cup threads we have.

were you ever able to solve the issue of having FRS SUV ride height by adding droop? How did you lower the car enough to get rid of the gap even with the cups installed?

Fortune Auto Air Piston Lift System
 

I’m hoping to get some help from fortune auto and the community about this custom one off set that was sold to a customer and that I purchased. If you notice on FA website they only sell the setup with front pistons. This one off set had the rears added on, so that all 4 corners had the cups on them. I am able to adjust the fronts to the ride height I want however after installing the rears my car is like an suv. Keep in mind I’m using the OEM LCAs and have Stance V2 LCAs coming in tkmorrow to help drop this some more.

Here is a picture of what it looks like at the moment. (OEM LCAs).

I believe he coilovers are already on the max adjustment to lower as the bottom mount is already maxed out and no way to move the shock tube down anymore.

Basically where can I adjust to lower the rear some more after installing the drop LCAs?

Thanks!

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Picture of the setup.

https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...fbcb102d5e.jpg

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When you added the cups, did you adjust the spring down to account for the cup height? If the cup is 2 inches tall (un pressurized) then the spring needs adjusted down 2 inches. Not the coilover shock. A cup kit shouldn't affect ride height after install (if installed properly).

Are the cups currently pressurized? Just trying to cover all the bases

I simply took them out of the box. And my friend helped set the preload of the springs agains the cups. I’m pretty sure the cups are fully compressed. When I swapped out the used fittings I could see into the cups that they looked compressed. And I totally understand what you’re getting at. When I get down there I’ll take another look.


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