ive wondered for a wile now what makes coilovers more better than springs and dampers besides being able to change the ride height. im thinking of getting the eiback springs and tokico (the ones thats tems compatible)dampers because the coilovers are way to expensive. what do you guys think are the eibach and tokicos handle as well as coilovers?
coilovers?
- Thread starter uberness408
- Start date
The main reason is because coilovers were designed to have balance between the springs and dampers so they work in unison. It is harder to do that w/ spring and strut combos.
if it wouldnt be to much of a pain in the butt ..can someone post a pic of how low the car sits with the eibach springs. i have 17 in wheels on and i dont want the springs to lower the car that much. i want the whole tire to be showing and i dont want it to be at all tucked in to the fender.
Compared to stock, they are better.black87turbo said:
Compare that setup to a good coilover setup, and you'd think that your upgraded springs/struts were stock.
If simple spring/struts were that good, wouldn't race teams run them?
Depends on the coilover really. A cheap ebay/DIY coilover's only advantage is the height adjustment. A good coilover like Tein has a larger strut body for a stronger strut, better valving, more reliability, etc. The ability to custom dial in any height and any spring stiffness is very useful for hardcore racers. The strut/spring matching is also a good reason that coilovers are better.
supra90turbo said:
Well I am not saying that my setup is better than the coilovers, all i am saying is that it is a good value for the money and I think it is enough to race some of these nissans and hondas around town. I think when you have enough cash to run a race team, you can spare 2 grand on tein flex coilovers. I spent a total of 430 dollars on my suspension and I had money left over to pay some bills........ :biglaugh:
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I bought ST springs and Bilstein struts because my struts were junk... I was saving for coilovers, but I needed suspension ASAP.
I regret it all the time.
I regret it all the time.
Tein Flex were going for around $1300 last I looked. No they aren't cheap, but they will outperform any conventional spring/strut combo.
you guys realise that any setup you put on the car, unless custom,. is a coil-over shock setup..... a "coilover" is just that, but the spring is perfectly tuned with the shock and they cannot be seperated...
you can achieve the same results with a spring and shock combo... but they would have to be perfect.
you can achieve the same results with a spring and shock combo... but they would have to be perfect.
NATAN666 said:
This is probably the most important aspect separating coilovers like Teins or JIC's from spring and strut combos like Eibach/Tokico. I used to run H&R springs with Koni Yellow struts, and it was very easy to tell that the springs were not well-matched to the struts--the lowering springs shortened the effective suspension travel more than the stock-height Konis could handle, even when they were adjusted to the full firm setting. Then I purchased a set of Tein HR coilovers used off of ebay. Even with who knows how many miles of abuse, the Teins felt so much better than my 20k mile old H&R/Koni combo...
Eibachs may be better matched to stock-height struts since they are closer to stock ride height than the H&Rs are which should in turn provide a more balanced ride. However, unless the struts and springs are designed to work together, or the struts offer adjustable height spring perches and a nice, wide range of damping adjustability, you'd be hard pressed to find a combination that will provide the matched ride of a well-engineered coilover system.
Even then, you're looking at at least 2/3 of the cost of a coilover system to take a chance that your springs/shocks will play nice together...
This is just my experience. Maybe I did it wrong the first time; maybe I should've invested in some stiff Bilsteins to go with the low H&Rs...but at the time, that would've put me $700+ in the hole for a non-adjustable setup, so I went with Konis. If you just want to get something that looks nice and handles ok, spring/strut combos are the way to go, but if you're going for perfection, a coilover system is the only way to do it.
I had a set of custom Koni Coilovers made to my specs and they valved them perfectly, I can't describe how much better the car is over the Koni/Lower spring combo I had been using!
IJ, I remember you mentioning that in a previous suspension thread; how did you go about getting that setup made? Did you have spring rates and ride height values in hand when you went to your suspension guy, or did you simply hand him a set of springs to work around?
I thought about having my Konis revalved, but even then I wouldn't have had the height adjustability needed with the oh-so-short front H&R springs...
I thought about having my Konis revalved, but even then I wouldn't have had the height adjustability needed with the oh-so-short front H&R springs...
Robeats: yep I had rates in mind and they valved to suit!
Koni do an adjustable perch kit for ride height.
Koni do an adjustable perch kit for ride height.
That is a really nice setup, IJ. Price-wise, how did that compare to an off-the-shelf coilover setup?
Fairly close but a little more expensive to do it this way as there was quite a bit of custom work to make the dampers fit a Mk3 as I wanted externally adjustable.
NATAN666 said:
Yes, but you do realize we need a term to separate the different suspension upgrades. It aids communication. One does not say "I have Tein springs and struts" as it conveys only basic information.
I have yet to find a decent strut for the MK3 that has a large body and is valved properly. If you could find such a beast you could slap a threaded collar and some matched springs and have yourself a reasonable set of coilovers. Hell it's pretty hard to find a decent set of springs too. There aren't many linear rate springs out there, and most are pretty weak in comparison to Tein's lineup. It all boils down to how picky you are.
But that is kind of like saying you took out your V6 engine(7MGE) and put in a turbocharged inline 6(7MGTE) to differeniate the two.Bishop92t said: