Eibach Sportline Spring review

[Dave-ROR]

First of all, sorry for the delay on this review. My schedule got hectic after I installed them back in mid August and then Darren/Zach posted their review and I turned even more lazy I also wanted to get some more time and experience in with the springs before posting a review. I have been able to get some track time in and about 3,500 street miles on the car with the springs installed, including a lengthy road trip from Ohio (where I installed the springs) back down to Florida with the car heavily loaded with gear for a track day I helped run at Mid Ohio. Unfortunately I wanted to get some autocross time in with the springs but I haven't had that chance yet as my schedule simply hasn't worked out with the local group I run with.

So why did I install lowering springs in the first place?
Well first the car was just too high I'm not one for lowering cars all that much (in the past I've usually lowered anywhere from .5-1") but the wheel well gap was killing me on this car so I figured until enough reviews and research was done on the threaded body coilover setups for this car I would go with lowering springs for the time being.

Why did I pick the Eibachs over the others?
One of the things run that prompted me to try out some Eibach lowering springs was my great previous experience with Eibach products (namely ERS). I had never previously owned a set of lowering springs from Eibach and have always run height adjustable setups on all of my cars (unless they were running stock springs of course) so I had very little experience with their lowering springs and wanted to give them a shot. Also, for full disclosure, Eibach was supporting the event I help run (Integra Type-R Expo) so they were an obvious choice for me as I love companies who support the motorsports enthusiast community. The springs were actually delivered via an Eibach employee's suitcase who was coming to represent Eibach at our event

My original plan for this review was to break it out into three segments (one segment per post) but since I haven't been able to autocross the car yet with the springs installed I'll just create a reserved post for whenever the heck that actually happens

Appearance:
If you've seen Darren's thread on Zach’s car than you already know what the car looks like lowered with these springs, but here's some pics just in case:




And here's Darren's thread with lots of pics of Zach's car:
http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showthread.php?t=15079

There's probably no need for any more pics than that really, I could take some more but it still looks exactly the same a month and a half later

The car looks absolutely GREAT with the aggressive lowering provided by the Sportline springs, there's no doubt of that. The car has only received compliments on its appearance with the springs and the one thing I'll regret when I raise the car back up on a threaded body setup is that I will lose the aggressive look it has with the springs. I run a smaller overall diameter tire setup which makes the factory wheel gap even worse than normal so this setup looks great with the smaller diameter tire setup!

Road Manners:
As with any aggressive lowering I was initially concerned about how the car would feel afterwards. I've been in some cars that were lowered before that handled like complete crap, although blown shocks usually help out with that on higher mileage vehicles. I was pleasantly surprised with just how stock it felt. Sure, the ride is a LITTLE stiffer on bumps, but it's extremely livable. There hasn't been a single case where I felt the ride was harsh at all. I have hit the bump stops and while the spring rate instantly increases quite a bit I never wondered if I just broke something when it's happened. Of course, with an aggressive lowering and a car with minimal ground clearance already, you do have to be mindful of raised manhole covers, potholes, steep entrances into driveways, parking lots, etc. I have scraped the car on the ground more than once. I expected all of that so none of this surprises me but members should be aware of the potential risks involved in lowering their cars. Note: None of that is Eibach’s fault and can happen with any lowering spring and the lower you go the more of a risk there is.

Handling (street):
Not much to comment on here, I don't drive all that aggressively on the street. The car drives exactly as I expect it to so there have been no negatives here in emergency handling or anything else. I save my hard driving for the track and autocross.

Shock dependability concerns:
There have been a few threads now on lowering springs destroying shocks in a matter of days. Well I had the car on the lift earlier today and none of the shocks are leaking or show any sign of failure. They are functionally just fine as well. Install the springs correctly and you won't have a problem IMO. Again this is after about a month and half with the springs and about 3,500 miles, 1,000-1,500 of which was a road trip with about ~800lbs of crap loaded in the car making it even lower than normal.

Alignment:
Due to our cars suspension design these springs will give you a LOT of negative camber in the rear. Most likely more than you are going to want. I would suggest the Whiteline (or other) camber adjustment setups for the rear of the car to tune out some of the negative camber. Mine was -2.7 and -2.3. The front was basically unchanged so I added Whiteline top hats to get -1.0 and -1.2. Since then I have also added the Subaru crash bolts and set them up for max negative camber but I have not had it on an alignment rack since to see what my current negative camber is up front.

Overall street impressions:
I love the way the car currently drives although it is a bit low for my tastes (again I knew this going into it and wanted to do it anyways). I think I'd be perfectly happy with this setup for a long time to come if I didn't have other goals in mind (i.e. I'll be moving to a threaded body setup, likely with custom rates for track and autocross use).

[Dave-ROR]

On The Track:
So I had installed the springs at Mid Ohio Sports Car Course on the first night of a 2 day event so I was able to drive the same track with both the stock suspension setup as well as with the Eibach springs (after a fresh alignment of zero toe front and slight toe-in in the rear). I didn't get as much time as I would have liked due to helping with the event and my own laziness (sorry!) but this post will go over the differences I noticed during those two days. And of course, I failed to charge my data logger so I have one session of stock springs logged, and the first lap with the Sportline springs installed, worthless data in a way since I wasn't pushing the car during the first warmup lap for obvious reasons.

However, I did have video going and my laptimes decreased by a few seconds with the Sportlines installed. Fastest lap of both sessions was probably about 1.5 seconds quicker (hard to get more precise than that off video) and average was 2-3 or so. Turn in and feel seemed to be improved and max lateral accel/grip was increased in the one lap I had data for (1.17g). Overall the car felt very stable with a hint of understeer (Due to the alignment specs I used and the negative camber in the back). Turn in is great, but hell it was great stock too! I wasn't pushing the car as hard as I could have due to being 1,100 miles from my house and driving on a track that is well known to eat cars for lunch (and we had 4 wall contact incidents in our two day event, and just the day before PCA had a rollover during their race at MO). However the car never exhibited any undesirable behavior and felt much more stable with the Sportlines and a lot of the excessive body motion (as seen here) was eliminated. The car felt more or less stock on track, just more focused and a bit stiffer on high speed impacts (curbing, et cetera).

I will be tracking the car more in the upcoming months (next weekend and again on November 11th) so I'll post any additional thoughts at that time but I expect to continue to be pleased with them!

Here's a video of a couple of laps at Mid Ohio:
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2RrZ26sM6Y"]2 laps at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course in a Subaru BRZ - ITR Expo 2012 - YouTube[/ame]

[Dave-ROR]

Autocross:
Reserving for future expansion since I haven't had a chance to autocross the car since installing the Sportline springs.

[Dave-ROR]

Overall opinion and longer term goals for my car:
Overall I am enjoying the Sportline springs. The car has been a daily driver forever and has over 9,300 miles on it currently, 3,500 of which were with the Eibach Sportline springs. The only thing I'd consider changing is the height, but there's the Pro-Kit for that! In the long run I will be running threaded body coilovers, most likely with custom rates. Due to my experience with the Sportline springs, and Eibach themselves, I will most likely be running the Eibach Multi-Pro R1s or R2s (depending on how far with this car I want to go). I will be sure to review those whenever I buy some and in the interest of helping the community out I am planning to have a free raffle for these Sportline springs. Details and requirements (ie must be a stock car, don't sell them 2 weeks later or you'll be banned, etc ) will be posted when the time is right.

[JoeBoxer]

Well written review Dave

[dark.star]

Great review. Helped make my mind up I think, sportlines, white line top mounts, OEM camber bolts and adjustable rear arms. Cheers!

[FT-86 SpeedFactory]

Nice review.

[MattR]

Thanks, Dave. Great review and info. :happy0180:

[CBR600RR]

Looks good!

How do you clear speed bumps and steep driveways?

[Dave-ROR]

Originally Posted by CBR600RR

Looks good!

How do you clear speed bumps and steep driveways?

Carefully. I avoid any really steep ones but I did that when it was stock, used to driving my ITR which was lower than the BRZ stock vs stock by quite a bit. The BRZ's front actually isn't a problem IMO (anymore than would be expected in general of a car like this), I haven't touched the bottom of the bumper, it's all been in the middle of the car on the seams on the sides that stick down and a little bit on the pan under the engine, but that was hitting a large dip in the road at speed that I didn't see and I'm not sure the stock springs would have prevented that contact either.

Speedbumps I have in my neighborhood and they haven't been a problem but I go over them slowly. There are some large speedbumps but I just avoid those.

[ThatManAnt]

Great review man, love all your threads. I just got my FR-S 2 weeks ago so I'm new but been reading yours for a bit before i even got the car lol. Definitely gonna be picking between these and the pro kit. BUT since your thinking about raffling off, i'll just sit my broke college student butt back and hope for the best

[Itssrayyxd]

How much do you do scrape? :o and how careful do you have to drive? Would you recommend it for a DD?

[TouchMyHonda]

Originally Posted by Dave-ROR

Overall opinion and longer term goals for my car:
Overall I am enjoying the Sportline springs. The car has been a daily driver forever and has over 9,300 miles on it currently, 3,500 of which were with the Eibach Sportline springs. The only thing I'd consider changing is the height, but there's the Pro-Kit for that! In the long run I will be running threaded body coilovers, most likely with custom rates. Due to my experience with the Sportline springs, and Eibach themselves, I will most likely be running the Eibach Multi-Pro R1s or R2s (depending on how far with this car I want to go). I will be sure to review those whenever I buy some and in the interest of helping the community out I am planning to have a free raffle for these Sportline springs. Details and requirements (ie must be a stock car, don't sell them 2 weeks later or you'll be banned, etc ) will be posted when the time is right.

I seriously want them. Whatever it takes, what do you want? Lol

[Aaronimoe]

Question! Did your sportlines come with four bump-stops or two.. ?