Well, I managed to wriggle my way into the first set of production
D2 RS Coilovers in the US
and installed them the other night. I am not going to write a complete installation DIY because
@
GrimmSpeed beat me to it here:
http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showthread.php?t=12864
JM Auto Racing was my contact for obtaining these D2 coilovers. They arranged for my set to be
shipped to me directly from the Taiwanese factory. I have to say, I was not impressed with JM's
communication or customer service. When I placed my order in June I was under the impression
that my coilover set was going to ship immediately. After payment the shipment was delayed
several times, and at two different times I was told that the order had shipped out and tracking
information was to follow immediately -- but the tracking number never arrived. The package
from Taiwan that eventually showed up nearly six weeks later was a pleasant surprise, but not
so much when you thought it would only take about a week. About half of my emails would go
unanswered, I was overcharged (by $16) for my set and then it took them five weeks to process
the refund while telling me that they processed it a long time ago, and now that they have the
coilovers in stock they are selling them for $947.32, which is $77 less than the "promotional" price
that I negotiated in return for promoting the product and their business. It's good news for you,
though, because you can get these coilovers shipped out to you for under a grand right now!
http://www.jmautoracing.com/2012-sci...s-p-85586.html
It has been brought to my attention that the
D2 RS coilovers are nearly the same exact product
as the
K-Sport Kontrol Pro coilovers, although they might have different spring rates. This topic
will also be used to review those brands as well.
Official D2/K-Sport manufacturer links:
http://www.d2racing.com/content/products/RS_coilovers (FR-S & BRZ)
http://www.ksportusa.com/b2c/proddet...prod=CSC080-KP (FR-S)
http://www.ksportusa.com/b2c/proddet...prod=CSB200-KP (BRZ)
(The K-Sport part numbers are actually the same identical product)
I'm going to start by comparing the D2 RS coilovers against the current highest-end coilovers available: the KW Racing Variant 3. The retail price of the D2s sits at about $1500 while the KW retail price is about $2300. You will end up paying near retail for the KWs, while the D2s will probably be available at a discount from the retail price... so there is essentially a difference of over $1000 in these two products. I have not installed the KWs, so I cannot attest to the difference in performance, but the following photos will show you the physical difference in the components.
Boxes are about the same size and both are kind of heavy, but the D2 box is slightly heavier.
Front: The D2s are noticeably heavier than the KWs by about a pound.
Front: You can tell that the brake mount tab is rotated slightly differently, but other mounting points are the same.
Front Top: The KWs reuse the OEM strut caps while the D2 comes with pretty camber plates.
Rear: The rear struts are about the same weight.
Rear: Lower bushing on the D2 can fall out while the KW is a little higher quality
Rear: KWs have helper springs while the D2s use only a single spring
What do you get with your coilovers? The KWs came with a small package that contained only the adjustment tools. The D2s come with LOTS of stuff!
Look at all the stuff you get! The four brake brackets (lower left) and four rubber grommets (upper left) didn't get used. Although you only need one shock adjustment tool, they provide four so you could just leave them in. Nice touch!
Comparison of the old endlinks to D2's adjustables.
The camber plate at the top of the front struts is one reason that I chose these coilovers.
The included rustproofing gel should be applied to the exposed pillowball up here.
Uh oh! The bracket that holds the brake line is slightly out of alignment for a perfect fitment. I haven't fully tightened the brake line here, but you can see that the rotation of the bracket favors the inside of the car, which causes some tension on the brake line from the bracket to the caliper. Also, you have to twist the brake line slightly so that you can get the brake line bolt to line up to the bracket. This applies some torsional pressure to the line as well, as you can see in the slight kink at the top of the image.
It was fairly simple to bend the bracket slightly with some pliers to relieve some of this stress (not pictured) but I hope that in future production they can solve this slight error. On the plus side, the mounting area for the ABS line was perfect and the plastic ABS line snapped right into the holes as if it were OEM.
Another issue that I experienced was some confusion over mounting the strut to the hub assembly. The OEM bolts are used and the top bolt has a larger collar than the bottom. Easy to match the bolts with the holes that way! As you can barely see in the image because of my thumb, the upper bolt hole is larger. The upper bolt hole in the back of the coilover, which you can also barely see because of the angle of the photo, is slotted instead of round. Hmmm....
Because the top/back hole is slotted the hub assembly can wiggle in and out when the nuts are loose. There was no instruction on the proper installation technique, so I contacted D2 and they told me that this is to allow additional camber adjustment and that I should push the hub assembly in toward the center of the car and then torque the bolts. This is a nice touch because although there is an upper camber adjustment plate, this will allow for even more extreme camber if it is needed. I would like to see a cam bolt provided that would allow for a more secure fitment, but with the bolts properly torqued I shouldn't see any movement from this setup.
@
Calum chimed in to let me know this slotted hole is so that an alignment shop can accurately match the true alignment of the front wheels with the marks on the camber plate.
The adjustable swaybar endlinks are a nice touch, but there was no instruction on how to install them. Obviously you just bolt them in on each end like the old ones, but how long should you adjust the endlinks? I guessed with 7.5" front the center of each bolt. I figure as long as each side is equal and there is no mechanical contact between the swaybar itself and the suspension components then it shouldn't really matter what the endlink length is adjusted to. (oops, ended a sentence with a preposition. Bad grammar!) ...shouldn't really matter to what length to which the endlink is adjusted?
@
Calum noted that the adjustable endlinks are to prevent preloading the swaybar when you corner balance the car.
Another nice touch is that the new endlinks come with Nylock 19mm nuts to replace the regular OEM 17mm nuts. In the photo above I accidentally installed the OEM nut, but I pull it back off in a sec.
Here is the new nut going onto the top of the endlink. Because the bearing in the endlink spins, you must use an Allen wrench in the end of the stud while applying a wrench to the nut. Unfortunately, this is very time consuming and there isn't enough room around the nut to use my Gearwrench ratcheting 19mm wrench, so...
...an easier way is to use an Allen socket in an air ratchet set on reverse (loosen) This causes the non-rotating nut to quickly tighten onto the rotating stud and then you can give your final torque with the regular Allen wrench again.
The bottom nut seems harder because you can't see it, but it was actually easier.
The ratcheting wrench fit onto the nut this time so combined with the regular Allen wrench you could quickly tighten this combo together.
I installed the passenger side first, so the image of the camber plate earlier showed that the D2 logo was nicely aimed so that anyone standing along side of the car could see the branding. Unfortunately, the driver's side was a different story. It confused me at first, but when I realized that you can only install the camber plate in one obvious direction it caused the D2 logo to be upside down, readable only if you were standing on the engine. Oops, seems like a slight manufacturing glitch, but not one that will affect anything except your OCD twitching. Also, the included rustproofing gel should be applied to the exposed pillowball up here.
I finished up the installation by tightening the two lower spring perch collars at the point where they just make contact with the spring (no pretension, no slack) and the lower collar that secures the bottom of the strut from rotating, which is how you adjust the height of the coilover. It is important that you use a hammer and flat-tipped screwdriver to tighten the collars, not just the fancy little wrenches that are supplied. You don't want these coming loose and making noises!
If you want to change the height of your car, you just have to loosen the lowest adjustment collar and then rotate the strut assembly and re-tighten the collar.
So my initial settings for the front strut was 1.5" of lower threaded shaft exposure which lowered the car 1 3/4". For the rear struts I measured 8 5/8" from the bottom of the top plate to the top of the lower mounting component (or the bottom of the lower adjustment collar, same thing) for a lowering amount of 1 1/2". The lowering amounts mentioned here are after the springs settled for 24 hours.
