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

[BigFatFlip]

Originally Posted by 1Cor10:23

@solidONE I would hope so but you might be right haha. If that's the case, how will you ever know when it's time for rebuild? Only if it leaks?

I vaguely recall reading on the manual that they have a recommended maintenance interval of ~30k mi for regular street driving and about half of that for racing applications.

Originally Posted by solidONE

I know the "higher-end" stuff many racers will have a rebuild interval once every season or maybe every other season depending on their situation. Maybe shoot them an email. 4K is not a lot of miles on these. Plus I recall they advertise a 1 or 2 year warranty, so maybe this is "warranty-able" I hear Ohlins has very good service.

Very true, give Jake at Ohlins USA a call, he has been very helpful when I was having problems with mine.

[CSG Mike]

Originally Posted by 1Cor10:23

Hey y'all, have had 4 track days this season already so I decided to get my car up on the hoist and check the compression and rebound on the coilovers to make sure that they still respond well to adjustments.

Fronts seem to be fine but I found that my rear driver side seemed slightly easier to compress than passenger side (Granted, I left everything installed on the rear and just pushed the tire upward and gauged the movement as well as effort required - I know the spring and endlink provide resistance but it should be balanced?).

Anyway, was curious as they have only been installed for 4 track days about about 4K miles. Could the seals already be wearing?

Thanks!

Edit: pinging the heavy-hitters... @CSG David @CSG Mike @Racecomp Engineering

You probably had the sway pre-loaded in one direction

[1Cor10:23]

@CSG Mike interesting - this happens even with no load? Car was up in the air on hoist. Thought the droop would just keep everything at balance.

I'll try again next time with endlinks off
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[solidONE]

Check that the preload on the spring is even too before you try again.

[1Cor10:23]

@solidONE yeah I'll remove the spring load and endlinks. Thanks!

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[1Cor10:23]

@CSG Mike so I undid the preload and swaybar connection to the rear, still felt that driver side was easier to compress but rebound seemed to come out at the same rate. Gave ohlins a call and they mentioned that at low speeds it is hard to get them to exhibit their characteristics vs. at speed on the road. Any thoughts? Thanks!

[solidONE]

Did you happen to ask whether they check each damper for uniformity in the damping range before they leave the factory?

[1Cor10:23]

@solidONE they did say they dyno the shocks.

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[Wepeel]

Originally Posted by Racecomp Engineering

It will be more likely to understeer with those rates.

- Andy

On the BRZ, how do you think these compare in ride to KWv3? I'm running KW now, and my buddy has these Ohlins on his NC Miata, and the Miata is WAY more comfortable. I think the Miata is more comfortable than it was stock, and that's no exaggeration.

If these ride as well on the BRZ I would seriously consider them.

[BigFatFlip]

Originally Posted by Wepeel

On the BRZ, how do you think these compare in ride to KWv3? I'm running KW now, and my buddy has these Ohlins on his NC Miata, and the Miata is WAY more comfortable. I think the Miata is more comfortable than it was stock, and that's no exaggeration.

If these ride as well on the BRZ I would seriously consider them.

I wouldn't consider them "comfortable" per se, like in a very well damped sport sedan such as a bmw 3-series, etc, but at the softest recommended settings (20 clicks for street use), they are very similar to the stock suspension. Now whether you think the stock is comfortable is completely subjective.

[solidONE]

Originally Posted by Wepeel

On the BRZ, how do you think these compare in ride to KWv3? I'm running KW now, and my buddy has these Ohlins on his NC Miata, and the Miata is WAY more comfortable. I think the Miata is more comfortable than it was stock, and that's no exaggeration.

If these ride as well on the BRZ I would seriously consider them.

I dont know about how the KWv3 perform on this car, but on the cayman S it's pretty comfortable with very satisfactory performance. While I have no doubt that the ohlins are very good in terms of ride comfort, I dont see how a mono tube can be much better than a well tuned twin tube in this department.

[Racecomp Engineering]

Originally Posted by Wepeel

On the BRZ, how do you think these compare in ride to KWv3? I'm running KW now, and my buddy has these Ohlins on his NC Miata, and the Miata is WAY more comfortable. I think the Miata is more comfortable than it was stock, and that's no exaggeration.

If these ride as well on the BRZ I would seriously consider them.

We did back to back on RCE T2s and Ohlins on our car and I've been on both in Baltimore city. We used slightly stiffer springs on the Ohlins. They're fairly close.

A little more travel on the Ohlins would have been nice. It's possible to adjust the KW's to ride really well with a little more ride height and turning down the rebound. But for our "usual" set-ups for both cars they both still rode pretty similarly (and pretty well I'd say given 400 and 450 lbs/in springs).

- Andrew

[DocWalt]

So does anyone know why Ohlins dropped their spring rates so much for the kits without top hats (MP20)? They dropped to frankly useless (for anything but street driving) 228lb/in front & 171lb/in rear

Also, I assume the MI20 kit (with tophats) still has the normal 350lb/in springs front/rear?

[ajc209]

I have ordered a set of the new MI20 which are 7kg/mm front and 6kg/mm rear.

I WILL be swapping the springs front to back (or getting new springs)

Not idea about the mp20. That should be called Öhlins Road.