Hi everybody! I have been lurking around the forum ever since I purchased my 2013 FRS but have never really had anything productive to say until now. I have been doing a lot of research on coilovers setups and there always seemed to be a consensus, KW. I am not really someone to do something that everyone else is doing so naturally I went with AST 5100s instead. So hear is my review.
Vehicle Setup
Camber: F -2, R -1.75
Toe: F 1/16 out, R 1/8 in
Caster: F max, R max
Hotchkis Sway Bars F/R
Daily Driveability
My car is a daily driver/ weekend warrior setup and the 5100s are absolutely amazing for that purpose. The valving can get nice and soft for the street from a turn of a knob and actually ride better than my old oem shocks with hotchkis lowering springs. Properly setup, they will not rattle your car and yourself apart going down the highway. Even my girlfriend said what did you do to the car, it rides a lot better. Overall, extremely happy with the daily driveability of these more track day oriented coilovers.
Track
Lets get this out of the way now, these coilovers are amazing for the track. These coilovers use a 285 lbs/in spring rate all the way around, which really helped balance out the chassis. i'm not going to go into chassis tuning and how wheel rate, and motion ratio affects the handling of a car. If you want to really learn chassis setup read every single article on this website
http://http://www.motoiq.com/Magazin...-your-Toe.aspx.
To make this as simple as possible, the motion ratio of the BRZ/FRS is about 1 in the front and about .75 in the rear. The wheel rate (actual spring rate) in the front is 285 lbs/in and 214 lbs/in in the rear. The GT86 chassis is a front engine rear drive sports car, it will naturally oversteer. A stiffer spring rate in the front than the back will help counteract oversteer. With the chassis being more neutral, the car was a dream to drive. I could get on the throttle much earlier than normal and I could even stabilize the car on corner exit with throttle modulation which I could not do with the Hotchkis handling package. The dampening is spot on, you can make them do almost anything you want. they can get nice and soft for a place like Mid-Ohio or get nice and stiff for a place like Watkins Glen with a brand new surface. At Watkins Glen alone, I picked up over 2 seconds on my lap time because of these coilovers. Every time you turn the adjustment dial you can feel the difference unlike some of the cheaper options. Overall, the chassis balance and adjust ability these give you is phenomenal.
Overall I give these coilovers a definite buy if you are serious about buying a high quality coilover that is capable of not beating you up on the street while still giving you a phenomenal track day suspension setup. I am extremely happy with my decision to go for the 5100s over the KW equivalent.
Now for the bad news. 2 days ago I was driving home from work and I started to smell something burning. I drove a few more miles and smoke started to come out of the dash. I pulled over as quickly as I could. I try to get as much out of the car as possible. within 5 minutes the car was engulfed in flames. I lost my FRS to a stupid dash fire. Hopefully the insurance company will allow me to take all of my aftermarket parts off before they scrap it.