This is the end of my review thread. The coilovers are broken. I noticed a clunk in the rear a few months ago and I was due for rotor and pad replacements so I took a closer look at the suspension while I was in there and the rear lower mounts cracked on both sides at the eye as pictured here:
I'm uncertain how this happened but my suspicion is it had to do with one of the collisions the car was in that would have started as a small fracture but got worse as time went on. Either way, the suspension isn't safe like this so it had to come off. I still had the OEM suspension in a box in the shed so I put it back on. Whee monster truck wheel gap again.
I've spoken to HKS and I'm out of luck with these coils. I'm not the original purchaser, they are *way* out of warranty even if I was, and HKS can't service them even if I was willing to pay because they don't use these mounts anymore. Probably because of exactly this problem, if I had to guess... Well, it's not like they owe me much considering what I put them through during my ownership.
Giving my final thoughts on going back to the OEM suspension; there is good and bad. The good is that the car *is* notably more comfortable over really bad road surfaces. Minor imperfections aren't much different though. The bad is that now the car feels lazy in transitions and does not feel nearly as composed over uneven surfaces as it did on the HKS coilovers.
Now I'm debating how to proceed. I'm on a very limited budget these days so I'm debating going with springs this time around but it sounds like OEM top hats won't provide me with sufficient camber and suitable camber plates with lowering springs would put me into lower tier coilover territory anyway. I might also have clearance issues if I wanted to move up to a 245 wide tire for track use in the future because of the large OEM spring perch too. Alternatively, I can look at buying a lightly used coilover from someone else that meets the requirements although I'm hesitant to go down that route again because it may lead to issues getting support later if I need it. Finally, I can suck it up and buy a lower-mid range offering such as the FA500s, BC RM, or MeisterR which are in a similar or slightly lower class than what I had.
Either way, this is the end of my experience with these coilovers.