Suspension upgrade

[Calum]

Originally Posted by Jmk91

Current suspension (stock) okay it's nothing amazing or anything but again I'm also running stock tires that are horrible. The car definitely needs lowered so that's why I'm upgrading suspension. The wheel gap isn't the prettiest and it's been documented that lowering the car slightly does improve handling. Not looking to slam the car by any means that defeats the purpose of upgrading the suspension for performance reasons. The stock struts are stock so why just upgrade one without doing it all in one go. Rims I'll be running are advanti s1 storm 17x8 the miata guys love them and if they can hold up on the miata than they can surely hold up on the frs. Plus they look damn good in my opinion and priced right. Not looking to spend 400 per rim for me to get one curbed or bent on accident. I'm a good driver but life happens at times. I'm not 100% sure on what tire to run. I was going to figure out the suspension than choose the right tire. I was originally thinking springs and koni but after seeing a few of the coilovers in same price range (that are not China junk) I might go that route vs the spring and strut and a bonus would be weight savings as well.

You should choose you're suspension after you know what tires you'll be running. Also, if you can find a few guys with different setups to drive, that would tell you much more than anyone here ever could as so much of this is subject.

For a street car I wanted; a little bit of lowering, good handling without being too rough, and as close to a set it and forget it setup as possible. I'm running Racecomp Engineering's T0 coilovers. These, like the STs, are based on KW bodies. The T0s have RCE's own damping and spring rates though. The damping on these is more gear toward performance than ride comfort when compare to the KWv1 or the ST but they're still very streetable. I have no regrets with my choice, but this is a very subject decision. YMMV

[MeisterR]

Two thing you got to look at with suspension is the driver, and the tires.
What the driver want to do with the car, and the tires they will do it with determine alot of how a suspension should be valved.

An experienced / professional driver using slick tires on a race car will need a dramatically different suspension for a novice / clubman driver using road compound tires for fast road use.
Even if the car is exactly the same, the difference in tires compound and driver preference mean the best setup for either car / driver will be different.

In your case, where you are using road tires, coilovers are fine but the specs need to be sensible.
Because the setup need to work for uneven fast road surfaces as well as using road tire compound.
Damper adjustment will make a huge difference as you will be able to adjust the suspension behaviour to your preference.

As other say, it is all very subjective and reading the paper don't always tell you the full story.
The best is to ask supplier questions once you have a better idea of what you want from the car.

Jerrick

[Jmk91]

I'd be using a street tire it all depends on how much I have left from suspension for tires. I might end up going with a decent budget tire such as Hankook Ventus v12 evo2 or something similar. Not looking to break the bank and it's a decent street tire for the money on current stock power.

[MeisterR]

Originally Posted by Jmk91

I'd be using a street tire it all depends on how much I have left from suspension for tires. I might end up going with a decent budget tire such as Hankook Ventus v12 evo2 or something similar. Not looking to break the bank and it's a decent street tire for the money on current stock power.

If that is the case, stick with a fast road based setup.
Because you don't want to throw some suspension on the car that will ask tires for grip that it cannot produce.

There is nothing wrong with road compound tires, we actually have race car in racing series that use road compound tires because it produce faster lap time than semi-slicks.
But you got to put a package together so that everything will work together, as that will produce the best result.

Jerrick