RS*R Sports i Moto Miwa Spec Coilovers vs RCE Yellow Springs and Koni Shocks
 

Hey Guys,

Got a dilemma on my hands..

I picked up some TE37V 17x9 rims and Dunlop DZ101 245/40/17 tires along with the rims my mate threw in some RCE yellow springs and camber bolts.

I'm pretty happy with the setup but in comparison to my mates setup the car does not feel as as agile as his setup with RS*R i Sports coilovers with continental ps2 tires.

Suspensions is setup very similar both running around - 1.8 camber my toe is set at 0 and his toe in positive a little bit on the front.

Best way I can describe is changing direction quickly the car seems to lag in changing direction unlike his setup (Car rolling from side to side), so I was thinking if I went about getting Koni shocks how far off would the car come along to responding in a similar fashion.

I know I'll probably go coilovers down the road, but I'm not bothered about ride height and really want to spend some money on SS lines, pads then headers and full exhaust.


Thanks!

well what size tires does he have? a narrower lighter wheel setup will give that willingness to turn in. so does that toe

OZ Racing Ultraleggra 18x8, not 100% but 225/40/18.

Both Turn in almost the same, big difference in transitions. Hard to describe, like an elastic band but mine is longer than his if that makes any sense.

well what is the difference in spring rates?

The difference is in the dampers. Not sure how the Konis compare to the RS*Rs.

The RCEs are 4.5kg (about). The moto spec are 6kg/7kg f/r I believe. But I will keep a close eye as this is something that interest s me as well.

steering response from 0 on the RS*R's is pretty crazy. We took a couple cars out for test here .. one being mine with HSD HR's which are a step above ALL of the entry level coilovers like Stance, Megan, D2 etc etc. In the end, the RS*R's were just far superior and this was a noticeable trait they had.

I am almost debating ditching my HSD's and also getting roll-center adjusters to try and attain that level of response. It's so sharp!

Anyone else can chime in?

Konis don't come as a bolt in strut, you need to mod with existing struts. They are a pain to install since the fronts are inserts. To some that dont have the tools or know how that is something to consider.

The difference is in the spring and dampers, plus the toe.

When your car is turning, think of it as rolling along a pivot point along the centre line of the chassis. When you turn, the outside of the car moves downward relative to the centre pivot point and the inside of the car moves upward relative to the centre point.

Following the above model I can explain it this way:

You're basically running relatively lower spring rates as well as less damping so your car will tend to roll over more and/or resist roll less when the chassis is subjected to a similar turning force. Less spring rate to resist roll and less damping to control the springs.

It's obviously more complicated than that, but might give you some idea as to why the difference is there.

You may be able to decrease the amount of body roll and sharpen up transitional response to some extent by going to stiffer sway bars but I think that would be somewhat of a band-aid approach - best practice is to tune handling with springs and dampers first and use sway bars for fine tuning chassis balance between over and understeer.

To improve handling further over what the RCE Yellows and stock shocks are designed to handle I advise looking at a set of quality, functional and cost effective set of coilovers in the upper-mid range of the many off the shelf offerings on the market.

That's not to say that the RCE Yellows aren't good - they are - but you're comparing them to something that's a good step up from there. You'd likely notice a similar gap between the RS*Rs if you compared them to something even better, such as JRZ RSs.