Megan Racing Coilovers or Koni Shocks With Racingbeat Springs?
 

I am looking for a new suspension for my '90 vert and I found some Megan Racing coilovers for $899.00 but I also found Koni shocks with Racingbeat springs for $617.00. Both brand new. Should I go with the cheaper set up or spend the extra $280.00 for the coilovers?:scratch:

This is a no brainer!!!! The cheap coilovers are exactly that... Cheap!!! Go with the RB/Koni's.

The RB/Koni setup is the cheaper one. Is it better than the more expensive Megan coilovers?

No he means for coilovers, they're cheap. That's why they're cheaper then other coilovers. RB/Koni might be cheaper, but they're worth more for your money.

I have Megans on my MR2. The height adjustment is kinda cool, and they are made fairly well. But I do not think the valving is right, and the spring rates are not perfect for the car.
I will recommend Megans to anyone because for the money they are a good choice. But they are still the entry level coilovers.


The Koni's and RB springs would probably be a better deal all around. Great quality and nice ride.
The Megans are a little more adjustable, but the Koni/RB will last a little longer.

Nice. I am going to save the extra and put it toward more parts. Thanks guys.

megans hands down...

some of the people above speak from not having megan experience, so how can you take their advice?

added benefits of adjustible ride hieght, pillow ball upper mounts, camber plates and still some damper adjustibility


coilovers over limited shock/springs

Later on, You can always get custom springs ordered cheaply for any coilover application by length and diameter if they are too harsh for you, and the dampers can be removed/replaced possibly with better ones if you could find out who sells em individually.

guess I will just have to get more info. Thanks for responding.

I am speaking from personal experience with coil overs here, so take it for what it's worth. Coil overs sound like a great idea, and they can be, because they allow you to adjust height and sometimes damping, even alignment settings. However, in actual practice it may not be the greatest thing for you. If you plan to drive the car on the street mainly, if you plan to have the car see any rain, snow, road grime or dirt, then a coil over setup may not be all that great. I say this for a few reasons.

First, the height adjustability. It sounds great and all, I can slam my car when I want, raise it back up for practicality. I can corner weight the suspension properly. All good things in theory. In actual practice though, it is kind of a pain in the ass to adjust them, not something you do just before you hop in the car and trot your happy ass to work. So it ends up being you find a height you like, and you more or less lock it there permanently. Now if you really are serious about corner weighting and adjusting the setup, then you really shouldn't be looking at a low end, entry level coil over kit like the one I am assuming Megan racing is offering (and I am assuming that point, feel free to correct me). No, if you are that serious, you should have something with total adjustability, and probably a car that is not typically going to be daily driven.

Secondly, if it is something daily driven you will almost certainly encounter dirt, rain, snow, maybe even road salt. These will quickly screw up your precious new coilovers threaded shock. The corrosion sets in quickly on the untreated threads (again I am assuming that Megan racing does not offer any teflon coated or stainless shock body setups) thus making adjustments an even greater pain in the ass and almost assuredly making your "adjustable" setup largely a locked in, fixed height suspension.

Finally, in the parts game you generally do get what you pay for to some extent. Case in point, I had a set of entry level Skunk2 coil over suspension and a set of entry level APEXi World Sport coil over suspension. Both for the same car, both offered essentially the same thing, stiffer spring rate and ride height adjustable. However, the ride quality was better with the APEXi kit that cost me at least $200 more. I believe the spring rates were rated the same on both kits, but the length of spring/shock did seem to differ (this is going off memory so forgive me if I am way off). The APEXi setup seemed a more complete and truly matched spring and shock combo, whereas the Skunk2 kit had the look and feel of something that was engineered by simply saying "stiffer spring. check. stiffer shocks. check." I know I am short on alot of real hard technical evidence here, but I am just trying to convey my personal real-world, daily driven experiences.

If I had it to do again, I would choose a quality spring and quality shock (like the example you presented) if I intended the car for mostly street use, or I would choose something truly matched together properly (like H&R cup kits). If I intended to get more serious about competition, I would forgo any entry level kit and step up to something high quality and high adjustability. In the end new suspension can be one of the most satisfying upgrades in my opinion, it is something you can always feel right away and can be the most dramatic change to a car you will make. If you want the coil overs just to try them out, then a good cheap set up is not necessarily a bad idea.

If you want a cheap level coilover system, look at Stance GR Pro. You can find about a 100 guys on here who swear by them, specially for the price they are.

Or you could save up like the previous poster said and buy some Tiens, or HKS :)

You are just a Hipermax fan boy admit it! :biggrin:

Haha boy I don't know what you talking about :lol:

If its a daily driver I'd buy the koni's. Weekend warrior, buy the megans.

if you already have that much money saved up, might as well go coilovers =p

The Megan coilovers on 240's feel just fine,never driven a 7 with em though....my .02

:rlaugh: :rlaugh:

Thanks for the detailed response I plan on using the car as a daily driver but want it to be good enough to take to the track when I want to push it. :icon_tup:

I've been hearing mixed reviews on megan racing coilovers. If you really want height adjustable, i'd just rock some stances or tein basics. Even koni's with a gc kit.

The megan horror stories are the same as d2 and nex. Broken shock bodies, broken rods, and at the very least, a blown damper.

I wouldn't risk buying them, not after what i found doing my homework.

^ alright. Do you have any advice on non coilover set ups?:Wconfused

What you had in mind with the Racing Beat springs and Koni yellows sounded like a good start, those are both quality products.

Tanabe GF210s are good springs too. You can find them on EBay for about $200. For aftermarket FC springs, they provide the most drop and stiffest rates. About 1.5" drop and 50% stiffer ride (3kgm/mm front 2kgm/mm rear). I have them on factory shocks and the handling improvement is definetely noticeable with only a small sacrifice in ride. I would actually prefer them to be a little stiffer though. GroundControl sells springs on a threaded collar which allows for height adjustability and their smaller diameter springs (similar to coilover sizes) will you give you better wheel clearance. A little bit more expensive ~$400 iirc but you can specify the spring rates you want and their springs are Eibachs.

You don't NEED adjustable anything on a daily driver.
Best budget suspension would be Tokico blues with your favorite springs.
This will give you the best bang-for-the-buck upgrade over stock.

If you're looking for adjustability, step up to KYB AGX's for shocks.

Cheap coilovers are a waste of money.
Serious racers pay good money for (racing) coilovers, and anything close to $1,000 is a royal waste of money.

I dunno what Koni's you're looking at, but Koni Sports (i.e. yellows) are not drop-in.
Anything other than the Koni yellows are a royal waste of time and are OEM replacements which are not anything better than stock.


-Ted

+1 on the Racing Beat/KYB AGX's. Have had that setup for a few years and love it.

neither go to auto rnd and buy a nice set of stance coils thats what i did a friend got the megans and in my opinion there cheeper of the coils in quality and he had kybs w/racingbeat coils they road decent but the height was still too high foe my tasts

I don't mint the ride hieght as much as long as it is decent for everyday as well as a few "driving" days. I plan on putting a kit on it as well and don't want to be replacing or fixing my bumpers every two weeks. I apriciate all the imput.:icon_tup:

If the OEM shocks are still good would it be a good or bad decision to just replace the springs with racingbeat springs? And how much would the ride of the car change for the good or bad?