i'm looking at coilovers. I'm looking at Kei Office GX, Tein super drift, possibly JIC, and Silk Road. Does anyone have any expirence with any of these coilovers or any others.

 

kei office is nice, my boy has em on his 10th anni... but the only problem is that the are pretty freaking stiff. Made it so hard for daily driving that he got a corrolla as an everyday driver.

 

well i dont have any experiance with tein HOWEVER i would strongly recomend staying away from them especial because they only offer a one year warrenty for non adjustable shocks and are only adjustable if u spend way to much money on the little computer thingy to adjust them ... and its not like u can buy just the shock or strut ... u have to buy the whole assembaly .. and they are not sold sepratly ... so yeah stay away from tein

 

ive had good luck with the JIC FLTA2's, which are easly adjustable from track settings to street..... and camber plates=

 

I currently have JICs and work amazing, The spring rates i have are a bit on the stiff side ( 10-8 ) i believe.

But for tracking work great.

Really depends on your budget. The KEI office are also really nice , but way to stiff if you plan on driving the car on the street ( 14 - 12 I beleive) you can always get softer springs, but then your wasting the nice setup.

All the brands out there are pretty good , Just depends what you want to spend. And I would recommend something in the 8 - 6 range max if you want to drive your car on the street.

 

the Kei Office GX are the "street" version of their coilovers, they are somewhere around 8kg, 6kg for spring rates. the XT are their race versions with stiffer spring rates. this is what is says about the GX on Drift factory:

GX - The GX is brand new from Kei Office and they are a step up from the TE. Ride quality is slightly diminished but they do feature dampening adjustability. The GXs are recommended for the recreational drifter.


What about matching spring rates, 8kg fornt and rear seams to be pretty popular with othter FC owners i've talked to.

 

i don't see why people need to spend that much money on coilovers unless they are 100% track. of course there's the name factor...being able to tell others you have $3k coilovers.

a good alternative, that i will be looking into, is a good set of shocks with Ground Control coilovers. you can also choose pretty much choose any spring rate you want.
i am planning on Koni Yellow shocks with GC coilovers...good price and should give pretty good performance for street and track. lots of spring rate options also. the eibach springs they come with also have lifetime warranty.

http://www.ground-control-store.com/...hp/II=41/CA=23

hmm, GC seems to have changed their site around...i can't seem to find their info page for RX-7s...

edit: oh, i forgot to mention, the good thing about the Koni shocks is that you can eventually spend money to include even more adjustability. for example, you can get them re-valved, and have adjustability for both bump and rebound. this is something that most high end coilovers don't even offer. you can even get them rebuilt...

 

i would think you want slightly higher rate in the front. most FR platform cars tend to have that. even the stock spring rates are like that.
could be due to giving better balance under braking.

you can also ask in the suspension forum for more technical answers...

 

I have the JIC FLT-A2s as well. Springs are 9 front 7 rear on mine I believe. Still freaking stiff, but the dampners are only set 6 clicks softest front and 4 from softest rear (out of 16 clicks?) to control the springs so I could see how they could handle more spring.

They are almost too stiff for the country roads I love so much. I have thought about dropping the spring rate a tad and picking up some heavier anti-sway bars.

So far no problems with the product. The fact that they are rebuildable and all the parts are available seperately really appealed to me.

 

I would err with the fellow JIC entuhsiasts...
they make good units, what can I say? reasonably priced (relatively speaking that is) good quality, rebuildable...what more can you ask for - the kitchen sink?hehe

 

i'm with coldfire on this one. i think the jdm coilover thing is way way overrated and over priced. i've seen some shock dynos and most of them are a lot of clicks for a very narrow damping adjustment range.

teins my friends have had bad experiences with..

konis i've had nothing be good experience with, so i'm all for the gc/koni combo.

 

I rock some cusco zero-2's and they're awesome. My FC handles like a go-kart with them, zero body roll. And surprisingly, they are more comfortable for daily use than the Tokico Blue/Intrax spring that I run for winter driving.

 

My experience is that the adjustment clicks on the JIC FLT-A2s are meaningful ones.

If I go up one click in the rear (4 to 5 out of 16) it hammers you over the smallest bumps making a nasty "bang" and feels like the car has no suspension. It might work on the track, it might work with heavier spring rates; but it is too much for the streets around here.

I just had to try it on full dampning all the way around once. Once is enough!

I got to drive ScrapFC (GXL) which I believe has Tokkiko blues and Eibach progressive springs- it was nice and REALLY is enough for the street on street tires. Only thing I and the owner noticed is the shocks get overwhelmed (not enough dampning) on big low speed bumps when you get into the stiff part of the progressive spring.

 

honestly if people are so worried about street driveability and adjustability, the Koni and GC combo seems to be best. you choose whatever spring rate you want, and you can even have more than one set of springs.
Koni shocks are "infintely adjustable" also. there are no clicks.

lifetime warranty on the Koni shocks AND Eibach springs means a pretty much foolproof setup for a good price...

for spring rates i think i will be looking at the FD springs rates and see what Mazda went with there...seems like a good starting point.

 

for spring rates i think i will be looking at the FD springs rates and see what Mazda went with there...seems like a good starting point.

Due to different suspension geometry you cannot compare spring rates on different model cars easily.

FD had double wishbone front and rear; FC has struts up front and semi-trailing arm in the rear.

So, FD spring rates would be way too stiff on the FC. With performance FD spring rates in an FC you would get more movement through flex in the unibody and subframe bushings than you would get in the suspension

 

Some FC owner told get some koni shocks n get eibach lowering springs, the ride is bit stiffer than the stock one, also one of the cheapest setup -bang for the buck. I would say go with Cusco Zero 2R for adjustable coilovers.

 

i was looking at these, but it says the lowering range is 0-1.5"....

1.5" isnt that low, is it?

 

no it's not but honestly beyond that you start getting camber in the back that is very hard to correct. performance wise 1.5 inch i think is decent, unless you are really planning to step up the rest of the chassis and suspension for serious race use...

 

that's a good point.
i should have noted that comment was from a more track-use oriented perspective. the FD rates would be considerably stiffer, yes. however i am sure that many track FCs use even greater spring rates than stock FD. obviously this is not great for the street and it means you need to adjust the chassis from stock.

the FD is similar in the [static] sense that it has a similar weight and balance. the difference in suspension geometry, like you mentioned, would be something that would effect rate choice further.
i'm just going off very basic suspension theory here, so i definetly don't claim to be right.

 

modern speed labs is doing a group buy on KTS coilovers right now for $999 shipped. looks like they're good products, and have good service too. I'd check em out, I already ordered mine, hopefully they'll be here soon.

 

I have KYB AGX struts with ground control coil-overs, and am very happy. They are a little stiff for the street, but not too bad. I used this car as my daily driver for several years. As or the track, they do very well. I've never had them on a true race track, but the previous owner took it out all the time. He could smear trailored in 944's in handling.

 

Well... What does a set of Koni's run these days? $400? Throw in another $400 for the ground controls and another 300 or so for the front pillow ball mounts so you can adjust the front camber. You are just a few $100 from a set of nice coilovers that everything is matched to work together.

 

how is that setup not matched to work together?
how do you know that a 'nice' set of coilovers will outperform that setup?

i don't see any reason why it shouldn't work just as well as other coilovers. you get quite a lot of adjustability with maybe an inch less height adjustment to work with.

 

oops, mods delete this

 

I second this completely. I've been planning on the exact same thing for a long time for the same reasons.