im looking at coilovers for my 87 SE and the best deal ive been able to find is the ground control coilovers, by far. you can order them with custom spring rates and their only 399.. now, is anyone driving with these on their car? any problems or dissatisfactions? i know theyre only 2-way adjustable, but it seems like ill be getting a lot more for my money then teins, for example. comments?

-will

 

I've got some Ground Control coil-over sleeves for my stock struts with eibach springs and I have no complaints... except perhaps that you have to allign the springs back up to the upper plate properly when you jack the car up and down. The height adjustability is nice to have especially when you wanna upsize wheels. The stiffer springs go a long way to elliminate the floaty feeling you get with stock springs that can get downright scary.
There is one serious problem with messing with height on these cars (and most in general I'd imagine) and that is the camber. The rear suspension sprawls out least 10 degrees with just a modest .75 inch drop. There are a lot of cheap solutions to this but the only one that actually corrects misaligned suspension geometry (and therefor maintains proper handling characteristics) are the Mazdatrix rear camber links. (The Ones that replace the lower control arm control links) And they aren't cheap at $105 a peice.

 

I know that I am gonna get it for jacking this thread, but my camber links are worn out (stock parts, I belive originals) and I need to replace them. Should I go with OEM from Mazdatrix for $65/per or the adjustables for $105/per? I would rather ask this here then start another thread about it.

 

If you plan to ever lower the car, definitely go with the adjustable camber links. If you plan on keeping it stock height, the OEM should be just fine.

 

I second this, Racing Beat springs only dropped my vert 1/2", but I'm out 1.75degrees of caster in the rear on both sides now. According to Mazcare this won't cause wear or handling problems on the tires. Note the ajdustable RB caster & camber links won't help, their's not enough adjustment.

I've got GC's coilovers with blue tokico shocks on my TII and it definitly handles better. Note you MUST corner balance the car and upgrade your bushings, swaybar end links, rear a-arm end links, and possibly the body-subframe link. I haven't done this on my TII yet so I've got lots of slop in the suspension & it bounces uneven off of bumps occasionally because I need to corner balance the car.

Also note my GC's spring rates must be a bit stiff because it's easy to hit your head on the ceiling now when hitting large bumps on the freeway. It handles smooth but large potholes or hitting bumps too fast cause the car to top/bottom out. I might buy softer coilover springs to cut down on this in the future.

 

I dunno if you realize this, but the Ground Control stuff is a retrofit coilover and spring kit that does NOT include a damper.

Most of the Tein stuff is a complete coilover spring and damper kit, which justifies the higher price.
Does Tein make just a coilover spring kit?


-Ted

 

Yeah Ted, I did hear that, but I guess I don't fully understand it. Is it worth an extra 1k for a damper? What will having a damper instead of just a coilover spring kit translate into my ride quality?

 

Many have had great success with AGXs and a GC kit. I plan on running this in the future, at the moment I'm running AGXs, racingbeat springs and cusco camber plates.

 

I REALLY love the GC prices, but above that I love the ability to choose the spring rates, that lone makes this one of (if not THE BEST) kits out there. As far as dampers go, you can just buy something else, if you wanted you could buy the TEIN dampers seperate and just use the springs from the GC kit (the dampers are sleeved so you won't be needing the sleeve with the GC kit, likewise the JIC and a few others). But I say that GC is basically the best you can get UNLESS you're making a dedicated track car in which only the springs would be what I'd buy from them (although you can just get some custom dampers and use their setup just the same).

Bottom line buy the GC's.

Kiyo

 

thanks kiyo.. yeah my 7 is my daily driver so itll be useful to be able to pick spring rates that will give me decent ride quality and performance.. now i just gotta figure out exactly what those rates will be. anyone else riding on GC's?

 

anyone?