As the title says, are there any coilovers that come with progressive springs instead of linear springs. On previous platforms KW's were easily available but on the FD3S I have not been able to find any. Thanks!

 

Yes, but most all of these were progressive springs on a twin tube shock with coil sleeves like FAMC kit or Mazda Speed coilovers.

I think HKS had a Hyper Damper that might have been monotube, but it is going to he hard to find a progressive spring on a quality monotube damper because its a compromise that doesn't really work.

You have the soft spring rate for small bumps for comfort, but you have the soft rate for body roll too.

So then you have to have bigger swaybars and then any bump one axle's tire hits is transfered to the other side. Unindependent suspension that upsets the chassis.

Or you can crank your damping up for racing to fight body roll but then you jack your suspension down over rough surfaces or back to back transitions and you end up on your bump stops with no traction.

Instead I would advise a coilover with an advanced damper like the Ohlins DFV (dual force valve). It has blow off in compression and rebound for a soft ride.

I was amazed that it rode softer with 11kgmm springs front and rear than stock 4/3 springs on Gab Super R shocks.

Anyways, you can tell I am biased against progressive rate springs.

 

Fair enough on the bias. I'm not so worried about the little bumps on the road but i was looking for a smaller spring range progressive as the surfaces I do my hard driving on vary to a large degree, ie; hockenheimring is a near perfect surface however the nordschleife is one of the most imperfect road surfaces of any track. It would have been nice to have a progressive that does well on most surfaces instead of a linear spring thats excellent on one surface type.

Do you happen to know if the ohlins at the very least offers multiple spring rates so they can be swapped out depending on which track I'm at?

 

It's very easy to man any coilover progressive like KWs. You just need to add a tender spring. that's what the mazdaspeed coilovers had and they still recommend on the rear dampers.

Here is an excerp from eibach's website:
EIBACH MAIN AND TENDER SYSTEM
The Eibach Main and Tender spring concept provides a softer initial rate when both springs are compressed together, then delivers the desired firmer final rate once the tender spring closes completely. The Main spring has a linear-rate characteristic and determines the final rate of the system. The Tender springs are available in linear or progressive-rate (shown) and determine the initial rate of the spring-system.

Mazdaspeed recommended eibach part # 0175.250.0150 (150 lbs/in)

 

The Ohlins do come in a kit with two boxes; one for the damper and one for the springs, so may be possible to order them without springs and then put whatever you want on.

 

This info helped me out a lot as well. Thank you

 

It's very easy to man any coilover progressive like KWs. You just need to add a tender spring. that's what the mazdaspeed coilovers had and they still recommend on the rear dampers.


This can cause a problem on a short stroke damper made for a high rate linear spring.

When you put your lower rate tender spring in or a zero rate droop spring in it collapses more then the single high rate linear spring that came on the damper did (the whole point of what you are doing, ie gain droop).

Then you jack your car back up to the correct ride height and your short stroke damper has much less stoke in compression (since some is now commited to droop). In operation through normal suspension travel it is more likely to hit the bumpstop and you end up bottoming the damper constantly destroying it.

Check with your suspension manufacturer for their recommendation or physically check it out yourself.

When I had JIC suspension on my FC JIC USA said I could not add a tender spring to their rear damper. I bought Stance XR with longer rear stroke and tender spring and I did notice more rear traction over uneven surfaces (crossing road crowns) and dips in the surface.

 

True.

I don't run tenders on my rear AWR Bilsteins because they're too short.

 

Hmm.. interesting on the helper springs, I was kind of hoping for a single progressive spring but if i can run a tender spring with a longer piston travel it should in effect do the same thing. Time to give the manufacturer a call...

 

tenders and helper springs are different.

you want tenders.

helpers are essentially 0 spring rate and just keep the main spring from becoming loose in the perch at full droop.