Quote:
Originally Posted by strat61caster
I think a graph from an independent shop/tester/vendor on a miscellaneous set compared to their published dynos would help solidify their reputation in the budget market. But again, my viewpoint is overkill and not shared by the 95% of people shopping for $1k coilovers, much less the general population.
Conspiratorial paranoid pessimist hat: with as many dampers as they have built over the past 5+ years it'd be easy to select the 'best' plots and place the chosen datasheet into every "86" or "FD" box and easily save a lot of money removing that bottle neck of their production, not performing dynos on every single damper they put out. Even with a video or picture it'd be easy to always dyno a set they know are good and ship out what they build without it ever getting tested, if you're this paranoid there's nothing short of sitting next to the dyno while it's being run and then taking them home right there that the vendor could do to please you, short of that there has to be a certain amount of trust. They're not charging a huge premium over the cheap ebay brands (a few hundred bucks at most) so the effort they claim is put into them means margins would be slim. Or there's fat stacks of margin on the Taiwanese stuff. Businesses have done shadier things, not at all trying to imply that FA is doing anything other than being honest and above board, but it's within the realm of possibility that they aren't. Bigger scandals have happened.
It's not an insignificant deal having dampers mismatched left to right, adjusters that are inconsistent or mismatched (i.e. 3 clicks on one doesn't match 3 clicks on the other) not to mention the potential for hysteresis (as damper works it begins to loose force and degrade) all of which are known problems with budget dampers from less reputable sources and sometimes pop up on even the big names (for example I've heard some negative stuff about some of Bilstein's consumer grade adjusters from multiple sources).
Again, after all this pontification, FA currently have a good rep the only reason not to trust them is paranoia, and what I ramble about is irrelevant to the vast majority who won't hit a track or autox course and probably doesn't belong in this thread. For people like me there are other suspension options, and that doesn't invalidate the FA's, like one of their employees posted here, comparing a $1k setup to a $4k setup is silly.
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Well, to stay on topic; I think this thread has turned out very positive for FA. We've established there may or may not be a higher level of quality control, dyno, and better shims. Like all companies you have to choose your level of trust, but at least it isn't "comes from taiwan, goes in box, ships". This means that all of these coil-overs aren't the same.
It would be great if everyone who bought the DSG special editions for Christmas could post their dyno sheets. What if they were all the same?
