If you get a spring rate around 8/6 you should be good to go for the track and street.

Of the several coilover set ups Ive owned, none were too stiff for DD.

And thats through several Colorado winters. Saying coilovers are too stiff for the street is ignorant. 12/10 sure too stiff. 8/6 you will be fine unless you already have a fractured hip.

Stick to JIC, TEIN, STANCE, KTS, HKS, ZEAL,DG-5 and the like and you will be just fine.

I wont mention spring/strut combos, corner weighting or how i told some guy something once. Because thats not what you asked about.

 

I'm not trying to say that it won't work, I'm saying that it's stiffer than is required and stiffer than is ideal, especially on street tires. Since he said he was competing I thought that maybe going fast and winning might be an important consideration.

Now I know that a number of people on the board here are drifters, so speed doesn't matter so much, and for everyone else unless you're racing it's not the end of the world if your setup is less than ideal, but why use stiffer springs than is needed when they make you slower and give a less comfortable ride?

Unless you've tested it and have found the stiffer springs to be better then I'm convinced that going over about a 7/5 setup is stiffer than ideal for street tires and the harder race tires that tend to be used for track days (ie RA-1's, not Hoosiers). With slicks stiffer springs will probably be faster, but hardly anyone runs slicks.

 

ok yeah.

 

suprisingly my spring rates are softer than many mates cars...

i have borrowed a few other mates cars at track days before...

one of my mates has 10/8 on his 180sx... which i thought understeered like a pig... but it had crappy tyres, and wasnt set up too well... (didnt have much castor/camber)

i like the 9/7 set up in my fc... it works for me... i have experimented with a all sorts of tyres... from random china tyres like linlong to advan neova ao48s...

currently I run 215/45 ad07s up front and 225/40 antyres on the back (only because I can get them from a friendly tyre warehouse at cost price lol)

I just think it is a bit broad to say that 9/7 is too stiff... hey I have 12/12 for my pure track only FD which I am building... guess ill see what happens... (another guy in perth is running 16/16 on his fd? =/ )

 

Wow, the depth of your ignorance is really coming through. You CANNOT compare spring rates from car to car just like that. The different suspension setups make it a useless thing to compare. An FD has a much lower motion ratio than an FC, meaning that those 12kg/mm springs feel much softer in an FD than they would in an FC (the force felt at the wheel is differnt for the same springs).

Yes it is broad to say plain and simple that 7/5 is the limit, but that's not what I said, I said that for the FC with street or some of the harder race tires that 7/5 is about as stiff as you want to go before you probably start to loose grip from the suspension loosing compliance.

 

i've recently swapped in 9k/7k stance coilovers, and after they've settled in they dont seem that much stiffer than good-condition OEM's. sure, you feel more bumps and stuff, but it basically just feels less bouncy.

i drive a "modded" civic for daily driving (which is actually getting a new motor in my backyard, making the FC the DD) and driving on any coilovers feels much stiffer and less enjoyable than the FC.

yea, its comparing a FC to a civic, but im just saying that 9k/7k might sound stiff, but compared to other cars street driven with coilovers it's practically OEM.

 

After driving around on my Tein Flex Coilovers for a week, I'm posting my initial impressoins.

The drive itself is much stiffer than what I was used to (Stock AAS GXL suspension), even for a 6/5. I may even choose to lessen the dampening force to lower than the midpoint, but for the most part I like the feel and response. I've noticed increased cornering ability right off the bat. The initial drop is more than I was expecting, but can easily be adjusted.

I have yet to take the car in for an alignment and as such I don't drive it a whole lot (The main reason being that i'm replacing the bushings, tierods, ball joints, sway bars, and end links). But after I do I'm fairly sure that the car will handle even better than it does already.

 

Tein drift spec impressions: first time out i had it on full stiff, the rear end kept bouncing all over the place. even on slight undulations. second time out i put it to full soft front and back, feels great. i didn't think the 8/6 springs were too much and i live in NYC. prior to install i actually raised the coilovers .5" from what they recommend from their manual and i have about a hand thickness from tire to fender. i will install the edfc kit soon and start auto-x'ing this season for a better evaluation. so far i dig them. also to do is rear camber correction and alignment to my specs, luckily i have access to an alignment machine at work.

 

What roads do you drive on? I thought my Tanabe's 3 kg/2 kg were a pain.

 

HEY HEY! Another drifter in Pittsburgh! What's up man! Could you give me the info on the events? I'd really love to go to some of those events PM me the info man!

 

the drift spec is the TEIN HE right?
I heard that the TEIN HA (dunno what model that is) is as good for drifting as the super drifts but better for daily driving because you can make them alot softer.
\
can anyone confirm this fer meh?

 

I do believe the HE is an older model and is no longer available. I'm 99% sure that the Super Drifts are Flex based, as they've got all the same specs. The HA has been discontinued and is being replaced by the Mono Flex, which isn't yet available for FC's in North America.

The Super Streets are stiffer than the Flex or the Super Drifts, and IIRC they're the same as the HA's(?), but they use the stock upper mounts which means no camber adjustability in the front, but they give you *some* insulation from noise and bumps.

 

i asked the same question except for track/road racing and had alot of people tell me that its not a good idea i should just buy another car so i ended up with another car and decided i wanted to drift it so i bought the tein drift spec dampers and the edfc control witch has 16 way adjustabilty and they wirk great for street and drift

 

x2

 

I would caution that one should only listen to people who've drifted on more than one type of suspension brand to be able to judge if it's good or not.

 

^+ 1 BILLION!

EVERYTHING feels great compared to a crappy worn out old stock suspension. Mediocre compared to crap feels good, but you'll never know that it's not really good unless you've felt good.

 

I thought I sent you the event. Regardless, check out the PA drift team SUISLIDE's website. http://www.suislidedrift.com/events.htm

Those are the events that are around the area as well as PA.

 

so what should i get ?
for drifting purposes
reguardless of the cost

 

Something overly stiff, with stretched tires? Like those max coilovers? You might want to ask this question in the drifting section.

 

Almost every FC coilover out there is stiffer than it needs to be, so just go for one that has a proven track record. Tein Super Drifts would fit the bill.

 

i do know what the difference is between a good suspension and a crappy old one is even though ive only been messing with rx-7's for about 4 months now i own a shop and the fc i use to do road rallys with has been through 3 different suspensions so far

 

fersher
i jus figured while i was here
and itll be my dd