Quote:
Originally Posted by Sypher
i'm not seeing the similarities. i'm not trained. mind enlightening us ignorant folk?
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Cartridge damper, entire damper body is threaded for interchangeable lower mounts so they can manufacture like 20 different damper bodies, screw on a mount and bolt on a simple top hat and interface with thousands of different chassis with the same core damper design. Three collars, two for the spring perch one for the height adjustment on the lower mount. Rubber dust cover is always the same as well, black corrugated, super soft and squishy, pretty common to see them collapse one way or another.
Damper control is usually single adjustable on a larger diameter shaft (non-inverted strut, shaft takes the load, too lazy to take advantage of a non-loaded damper to use a narrower shaft for larger piston working area) 24-32 clicks (sometimes 12 tho). The camber plates all look nearly identical just with different anodized colors and sized for specific chassis (pics below, this is when I started cluing into how so many coilover kits are the same parts with different colors). As mentioned before this is all almost identical to the Tein design and a few other mid to high end companies don't look radically different like Ohlins (but they're typically inverted struts).
As Mike said previously the magic is what's inside, the quality control is key, at <$999 they probably got slapped together on an assembly line where they're told to work as fast as possible. Mistakes happen, shimstacks get flipped, torque is inconsistent, lower quality oil and seals degrade more quickly, etc. Ideally paying the higher price gets you a technician who's priority is to nail a damping profile that's been tested and proven with some R&D work relevant to you as a customer, hitting a decently tight tolerance and higher quality bits with tighter tolerances that'll be consistent for tens of thousands of miles or thousands of hours. The damper then gets checked on a dyno and if it's not right it gets disassembled and re-assembled until it is. Dampers are sensitive, a few thousandths of an inch difference between one and another could be noticeable on course and the car turns better left than it does right. A bit of uncleaned grit in the nooks and crannies can mean a leak/blown damper before the next engine oil change. A bit of air in the system and the fluid cavitates over the first curb and the shock becomes a limp noodle of uncontrolled disaster.
Random for sale threads with pics
http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showthread.php?t=138027
http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showthread.php?t=137991
http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showthread.php?t=137153
http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showthread.php?t=129837
I'm not shitting on these things (I've got Megans), just hoping that potential customers realize that they're simple single adjustable monotubes that are likely valved with some compromise. If their damping and spring rate choices align with what you want then fuck yeah money well spent. Sometimes, even on the super high end dampers, they simply don't meet expectations.