Tein Street Basis Coilovers, will it hurt handling?
 

Hi I recently just purchased and 13' frs and I was doing some research on Coilovers for my car. Anyway I assumed that all Coilovers that were half decent would improve the handling with stiffer spring rates. I saw a post on here that members were saying unless you get at least 1500$ Coilovers it would hurt your cars handling. Would these Coilovers still allow me to lower my car and not hurt my handling noticeably? The reason I didn't want to go springs instead was because I wanted to drop my car a little more than 1.4 inches. Any input or advice would be greatly appreciated, thankyou!

I have Street Advance and I can't go below stock heights without too much loose in the coils which cause strong noises on big bumps...
The heights claimed by Tein seem very far from reality...

How much under 1.5" do you want it? Lowering much beyond that will make it handle worse because of geometry issues regardless of how good the coilovers are.

that^

as soon as you get past some calculated height, no spring and damper combo regardless of manufacturer will make the car handle better. There is such a thing as too low, in terms of performance that is.

nope.

and $1500+ coilovers can still easily end up with "worse" handling than stock.

in my opinion, it doesn't matter even if someone gets $5k JRZ coilovers, if they don't know what/why/how they're modifying their suspension, a competent driver in a bone stock FRS can out-handle them with no problem.

I mean you can...but it takes pretty high spring rates which require really good dampers which cost a bunch of money plus you should get at least some form of roll center correction.

- Andy

Its the roll center correction that helps immensely with the much lower geometry as the suspension model thread has acutely pointed out :thumbsup:. Ofcourse different suspension styles can go lower. Typically you don't see a McPherson Strut going as low as a multi-link style on F1 while performing as well.

Don't ever use the F1 comparison! It's just wrong. :lol:

With a strut the issues are travel and geometry.

- Andy

Merely using the extreme of extreme from the spectrum lol.

Thanks for the advice and info guys. Well in your opinion do you think I'd be better off to go with the eibach springs and only drop it 1.4"?

You only have about 2.5" of bump travel at stock ride height, so dropping it 1.4" gives up more than you want for good handling.

If you want it that low, it's either going to cost you a lot or you're going to compromise handling.

What does lowering your car do to hurt the handling? I'm curious to know what causes that

StreetBasis doesn't allow a big range of height because height is directly linked to coil preload, you should use StreetFlex instead.

Do you ever intend to drive your car fast on anything other than a smooth, well-paved road? Lowering will reduce the distance that your suspension is allowed to compress, and thus hinder it's ability to soak up obstacles and uneven surfaces, especially while cornering.

You'll also save a lot of headaches regarding bottoming out, scraping, etc. by not lowering. It's quite a commitment.