Upon opening the Stance box I was immediately let down by their lack of care on packaging. The coilovers were beating themselves up.
My stomach dropped further on initial quality inspection. They had made in Korea all over them literally and in the lack of quality of materials used, machining, welding and surface coatings.
Although they are very overbuilt and heavy some of this is not appropriate like the thick steel rear shock lower mount. This piece has no side loading and the "strength" is just extra weight.

I had a race to attend so they went right on the car with max camber dialed into the front with the camber plates and spindle mounting slop.

Initial ride and handling impressions were very positive. Even with the dampers set on the lowest settings there was no bounce on rebound from the pretty stiff 8/6kgmm Swift springs and they weren't over damped to the point of hopping over mid corner bumps. They had loads of traction under acceleration over many different surfaces.
At the kart track they were very composed hitting the curbing and most noticeably on the 90mph front straight where there is a dip that my old short stroke rear suspension would bunny hop over, spin, hook up and squat to the bump stops and spin again. Very little drama with the Stance XR here- just a bit of spin as the rear got light over the dip.
I kept turning up the rear damping as I had terminal under steer and began to feel the damping ***** did nothing on these shocks as it still had great traction on acceleration with the damping maxed front and rear however, still had the horrible under steer. Once off the track I immediately felt the damping was WAAAY to high now for the bumpy pit and street area so the ***** were indeed doing something.

I turned the damping down for the first time ever and the remote adjusting ***** broke on both sides. The cheesy crimp onto the flex line allowed the flex line springs to unwind and slip right out.

Back in the home garage the cause of under steer became immediately apparent- lack of front negative camber. Even with the camber plates maxed I had 0.2 degrees of negative camber up front. The slots in the camber plates did not extend far enough in to allow adjustment to the limits of the strut tower stock sheet metal. In addition, because they had used larger diameter strut/shock on the XR line with standard shaped FC RX-7 spindle mount plates the struts were pushed way in at the bottom killing any chance of negative camber.

I drilled and tapped the remote adjusting ***** for a set screw to keep the flex line spring from unwinding and the remote adjusters worked well.

I took the camber plates and spindle mounts to the machine shop to have the slots milled for more negative camber. Once reassembled and set to max negative camber I had 5 and 5.5 degrees of negative camber! The most I have seen on an FC.

This much negative camber with some 235/40-17 worn to slick RA1 was horrible under braking as it would lock one side or the other easily based on how much more contact patch the other side had on the ground from road crown or steering angle. It looked like rain anyways so I put on my street tires (225/50-16 Hankook RS-3) and the taller more forgiving sidewall made braking much more manageable so I decided to give it a try racing with this demon camber.

The under steer was banished and as the track dried out my times continued to drop all the way to TTOD. The next day I did not do as well, but it is interesting to note that that TTOD was once again held by a car on Hankook RS-3 street tires. This new crop of street tires is pretty serious.

In conclusion, the Stance XR seem to be a fairly well valved generic shock with parts hobbled together to fit various chassis with no testing other than it physically fits on the car.

If they turn out to be reliable and easily rebuilt/replaced I feel the work needed to get them to work on the FC chassis will be worth trying these coilovers.

 

Pics or it didn't happen.

 

Good god y'all! That is just sick. Glad to see you more than made up for the camber issues on the Stance's. I think I need to get a set of those now. I'm still a little worried about slippage with the slots in the spindle mount, but time will tell.

 

Those seem awfully expensive to be having those sorts of issues...

do they adjust compression and rebound at the same time or just rebound?

Also, can you measure the upper inverted tube? I'm interested to see what the actual piston size. I wonder if it's a standard 46mm or 36mm piston.

 

I think I need to get a set of those now.

I know ride quality was a concern of yours.

My friends tell me it does ride stiffer than the JIC FLT-TARs did.

I didn't get the under damped bounce even at the lowest setting on the XR, so I will go turn the rear down to 1 again and drive around some and report back if its softer than the 4 click setting.

Even so, it doesn't have the unwanted **** sex feeling like the JIC FLT-A2s had and the chassis doesn't hop or bind from over damping.

I'm still a little worried about slippage with the slots in the spindle mount, but time will tell.

I will let you know if I find any movement. There is quite a bit of material contact between the two pieces and a high clamp load so I am optimistic.

 

Those seem awfully expensive to be having those sorts of issues...


Exactly my thoughts!

do they adjust compression and rebound at the same time or just rebound?

I don't know.


Also, can you measure the upper inverted tube? I'm interested to see what the actual piston size. I wonder if it's a standard 46mm or 36mm piston.

The body of the damper (exposed at the top on the inverted front dampers) is 50mm.

 

Cruised around and did some spirited driving on the touge with the rears on 1 again and it really is comfortable and still very secure feeling.

 

nice. That's what most of the high grade rally coilovers are. which means the piston is about 46mm.

 

I've had Stance GR+ coilovers on both of my FD's and i've been more than happy with them so far. They ride good, allow me to adjust the car a lot. Both sets have taken quite the beating on the dragstrip, street, and road course and have done fantastic.

 

The GR+ line and XR are different dampers.

To confuse things now, Stance is calling the XR the Pro Comp, but the Pro Comp 2 and Pro Comp 3 appear to be based on the GR+ line by the smaller damper tube.

 

Yo Ian, where did you get these from? I just made a report to Stance about this. I could have sponsor dealt ya.

Thanks, Rishie

 

Thanks for reporting this Rishie!
I emailed Stance about the adjusters failing, but never heard back.

I did check with you @ AutoRnD first and will continue to do so in the future. Future is hopefully going to be Ohlins DFV and some light 17x10 +50s for the FD.

I bought the Stance XR from Enjuku Racing Parts LLC but then THMotorsports got me their lower quote late and had to hassle with Enjuku to get a price match.

One thousand eight hundred and eighty four dollars

Stance XRs still working great and very happy with them so far despite the extra work needed to make them work and the lower then Japanese quality appearance.

 

I just installed a set of these on a FC and we got between -1.6 and -2.6 degrees of max negative camber. I didn't have a chance to investigate why one side was more negative than the other but I know it's not the coilover. I have to look at the vehicle or maybe there's a little slop in the front lower bracket so I could have pulled on it and then tightened.

Regardless that's a lot more camber than the -0.2 that you ended up getting. Evidently they have corrected whatever the issue was.

Thanks,
Rishie

 

Awesome!

Good to hear because I like how they work.