Ohlins Road & Track for FRS/BRZ suspension install/review thread

[ajc209]

Originally Posted by stoked_on_spool

Man, I was considering Ohlins because of the smooth ride on the street, and decent track performance, but if they make the car squeak and rattle like never before because of their top hats, that takes away from the smooth ride factor a lot...

Everyone is different but this is my point. Firmer springs mean higher wheel frequencies. Yes the ohlins are much better than stock in terms of undulations, and big and small bumps provided you dont hit the bumpstops. But, and a big but, the dampers and only do so much the way they are connected on the strut. A mass spring and damper sysyem works like a notch filter when you have dampers that arnt perfect (no damper is perfect). It wont filter everything but does a damn good job at the given spring rates, price point, and durability.

You simply cannot have your cake and eat it. What ohlins have done is make a kit that has good performance on the road and track and thats a compromise right there between silly firm springs and nice soft complaint ride with lots of damper travel.

If you already have loads of suspention bushes, gearbox and engine mounts and a very loud exhaust then you might notice it less than us, but its no velvety smooth ride. You'll love them on the track though. They also feel amazing over pot hols when set to -15 clicks.

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[churchx]

BTW, can someone get official response from Ohlin if dampening is same between MP20 & MI20 kits? I wonder if it isn't simpler to get 'real kit' by adding cascams & changing coils for 'wrong kit'. But seeing spring rates to differ so much between the kits, i'd love to first hear official word if dampening is really-really same between them, to not get as result underdamped coilovers after adding higher spring rate coils.

[strat61caster]

fwiw going to camber plates on my stock suspension resulted in no noticeable decrease in ride quality, running them on my Bilsteins it cancels the little road noise better than stock and it's only the big bumps that are worse (stiffer springs and off the shelf bilstein damping I'd accuse, the byproduct of monotube).

The OE top hats are quite stiff, either Ohlins damping is letting some people down or their top hats are real cheap.

[BigFatFlip]

Originally Posted by stoked_on_spool

Man, I was considering Ohlins because of the smooth ride on the street, and decent track performance, but if they make the car squeak and rattle like never before because of their top hats, that takes away from the smooth ride factor a lot...

Originally Posted by ajc209

Everyone is different but this is my point. Firmer springs mean higher wheel frequencies. Yes the ohlins are much better than stock in terms of undulations, and big and small bumps provided you dont hit the bumpstops. But, and a big but, the dampers and only do so much the way they are connected on the strut. A mass spring and damper sysyem works like a notch filter when you have dampers that arnt perfect (no damper is perfect). It wont filter everything but does a damn good job at the given spring rates, price point, and durability.

You simply cannot have your cake and eat it. What ohlins have done is make a kit that has good performance on the road and track and thats a compromise right there between silly firm springs and nice soft complaint ride with lots of damper travel.

If you already have loads of suspention bushes, gearbox and engine mounts and a very loud exhaust then you might notice it less than us, but its no velvety smooth ride. You'll love them on the track though. They also feel amazing over pot hols when set to -15 clicks.

Very well put. When going with "performance" oriented suspension, you are pretty much biasing towards stiffness (and therefore more NVH). The Ohlins is a compromise, albeit a very good one.

Regarding all the harshness being mentioned, I've had mine (with top hats) for about a year now and have not had any problems with it. I would say I drive on relatively bumpy roads (mostly canyon, very little track), sure, it rides a bit stiffer than stock due to the springs, but nothing like others are mentioning. I would agree though that it can use more travel, I've hit the bump stops more often that I'd like and its not a very good feeling.

[ajc209]

Originally Posted by strat61caster

fwiw going to camber plates on my stock suspension resulted in no noticeable decrease in ride quality, running them on my Bilsteins it cancels the little road noise better than stock and it's only the big bumps that are worse (stiffer springs and off the shelf bilstein damping I'd accuse, the byproduct of monotube).

The OE top hats are quite stiff, either Ohlins damping is letting some people down or their top hats are real cheap.

Its neither of those. You'd need quite a few dampers on each wheel (and not a Mcpherson strut desing) to properly damp all the vibrations you get. There is a reason rubber bushes and top mounts exist.

The ohlins work very very well and alot of people don't notice what we are talking about.

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[ajc209]

Originally Posted by churchx

BTW, can someone get official response from Ohlin if dampening is same between MP20 & MI20 kits? I wonder if it isn't simpler to get 'real kit' by adding cascams & changing coils for 'wrong kit'. But seeing spring rates to differ so much between the kits, i'd love to first hear official word if dampening is really-really same between them, to not get as result underdamped coilovers after adding higher spring rate coils.

Go bakc a few posts to lipisnake. According to Ohlins USA they are revalved which makes sense as they qpuld be ovwr damped which would be detrimental to handling.

My MI20s are too soft (underdamped - to much bounce) at -20 and too firm (overly firm - wheel cant move fast enough sp you lose grip) at 0 clicks. Definetly plenty of room for increasing or decreasing rates but not 33%.

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[DocWalt]

Originally Posted by strat61caster

fwiw going to camber plates on my stock suspension resulted in no noticeable decrease in ride quality, running them on my Bilsteins it cancels the little road noise better than stock and it's only the big bumps that are worse (stiffer springs and off the shelf bilstein damping I'd accuse, the byproduct of monotube).

The OE top hats are quite stiff, either Ohlins damping is letting some people down or their top hats are real cheap.

I'm not very impressed with their top hats. The plates themselves have a pretty "meh" coating and they appear to have been pressed out of a plate instead of cut nicely. The bearings themselves are tight and smooth, so if they hold up I'll be happy enough.

Also, I've not spent much time messing with damper settings and I'm on snow tires, so there's definitely plenty to be gained with real tires and time tweaking things. I'm more than happy with what I've settled on. Everyone that's ridden in my car has commented on how good it feels for being so much stiffer than stock

Originally Posted by stoked_on_spool

Man, I was considering Ohlins because of the smooth ride on the street, and decent track performance, but if they make the car squeak and rattle like never before because of their top hats, that takes away from the smooth ride factor a lot...

I found my rattle last night, the tools in the trunk, lol. I stuck some weather stripping foam between them so they wouldn't touch and no more noise. I guess I leaned on them while installing the coilovers and messed up the factory foam piece

I've got no new rattles now

[Racecomp Engineering]

FWIW, and I'm sure I've posted this before, but we liked our Ohlins on our car. We ran them with the off the shelf springs and then with firmer 450 lbs/in springs. Fairly comfortable most of the time and excellent all-around handling. There are some things we would have changed though.

It was difficult to lower the car much, especially with the firmer springs. Travel was overall a little bit lacking. We would have preferred that they came without camber plates which has been something we've always thought with Ohlins standard plates. Running with stock top mounts would have been nice or subbing in a higher quality camber plate with caster adjustment.

Overall, very good coilovers that with a few changes would be great coilovers. Softer springs and valving is not a change we would have made and I'm surprised that's the direction they went.

- Andrew

[ajc209]

Please don't let my negative comments make you think im not impressed with these. Far from it, but some of the reviews for these make them sound like they are some kind of super suspention and I wanted to be honest about how I feel. I know a couple people that were unhappy with ohlins for various reasons. One person was unhappy with the handling balance compared to stock and the other didn't think they had enough bump travel for the roads he likes to drive.

As the new mp20 kit is cheaper, whats stopping people getting them valved for the 60N springs with the money left over and using stock top mounts.

Also I should add I have plenty of rattles on the stock suspention too so it not like I had none and all of a sudden I have tons. They've just been made worse and the glove box properly rattles now. It's on my list of things to fix.

As far what other coilovers have I tried. Well ive been in and driven a car with hks hypermax coilovers and I prefered stock to be honest. I've been in a car on rce yellows and a car with tein streetflex (I think). None of them were as comfy as the ohlins and low speed damping was what they really lacked on road undulations.



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[strat61caster]

Originally Posted by ajc209

The ohlins work very very well and alot of people don't notice what we are talking about.

I didn't mean to imply Ohlins was lacking, my point is throwing a blanket over it and saying "camber plates increase NVH" is just not true in my limited experience on this car (stock, stock+camber plates, B14+camber plate). And so far they've all passed the gf test (she couldn't tell the difference when the camber plates were added but has noticed the Bilsteins) so I'm not some nutjob with no hearing left from all those rock concerts.

And it's worth mentioning that this may very well be the dark side of adjustable dampers, there's more 'wrong' settings than there are 'right' ones.

[ajc209]

Not much you can do wrong with a single adjustable.

[Dihudaxia]

Anyone here experiencing some clunking noises on the stock MI20 Ohlins Top Hats?

I have a slight "clunk" noise at low speeds and was wondering if its the bearing failure on the top hats.

If so, is there anyone with the stock spherical specs so i can buy a replacement. Ohlins SG is charging me an arm and a leg for it.

Cheers!

[solidONE]

Originally Posted by Dihudaxia

Anyone here experiencing some clunking noises on the stock MI20 Ohlins Top Hats?

I have a slight "clunk" noise at low speeds and was wondering if its the bearing failure on the top hats.

If so, is there anyone with the stock spherical specs so i can buy a replacement. Ohlins SG is charging me an arm and a leg for it.

Cheers!

Feel bad for enthusiast from Singapore. Everything cost limbs besides the street food.

If you have some calipers it shouldnt be too hard to measure the OD and thickness with the top hat off. ID should be slightly larger than the portion of the shaft that goes through it.

Just curious. How's the auto aftermarket in SG? Seems like modified cars are few and far in between when I last visited.

[Sleepless]

Mine have loosened a couple times; just tighten the top bolt