FEAL Suspension 441 coilover review - FD3S
04-09-18, 06:13 PM
#1
FEAL Suspension 441 coilover review - FD3S
Hey all,
I'm sure at least a few others on here have looked at FEAL, I'd heard lots of 2nd hand experience that these are great coilovers for the price and that they don't ride like every other low budget coilover. Well I went out and bought a set and here's the install and first impressions.
Opening the box I was pleasantly greeted with four dyno charts, with a QC stamp. I assume that's quality control, anyways that's just badass!! The dampers were wrapped and packaged well no damage occurred during shipping.
It took a while before I installed them, it was just hard to find free time. Once I started working on getting the old ones off and the new ones on two things surprised me. 1. Wow taking the rears off is super easy. and 2 Wow. Taking the front off sucks! As a reminder here's the procedure I'm sure other threads have covered this, but whatever here it is again.
To remove the rear:
1) With the car in the air and the wheels off, remove the swaybar endlink. It's a 14mm nut on a ball joint with a 14mm slotted section to prevent the ball joint from spinning. Both rears need to be in the air to keep no load on the sway bar.
2) Remove the lower shock mount. 17mm nut on a ball joint with a 17mm slotted section.
3) Remove 3 14mm nuts on the top.
4) You're done
To remove the front:
1) Disconnect the sway bar from the A-arm 14mm again (I actually just completely removed the sway bar as it was easier for me to reconnect that way)
2) Remove hose clip from the strut body
3) Disconnect the wheel speed sensor from the upper a-arm and the knuckle 12mm bolts
4) Unbolt the whole upper a-arm 14mm and slide it down to the base of the shock
5) Remove lower bolt 17mm
6) Remove 3 upper 14mm nuts
7) Compress damper and wiggle it out.
Now a couple issues with the fitment of the FEALs...
- The front lower mount is too wide to fit into the A-arm. It was 1.975" vs. 1.903". There was no chance that was going to fit and I just used a grinder and a file to take off material and it ended up at about 1.895". FEAL seems to think I got the wrong bushings on the lower mount.
- The rear top hat is designed to sit flush against the sheet metal. However there is a metal stud which is used to mount interior plastics. Therefore the top hat can't sit flush against it. I don't have a good solution to this. For now I used fender washers. I'd like to see a FEAL have a solution here, either cut a relief in the rear top hats or ship a spacer with the set. You can see the witness marks on the metal from the previous Teins coilovers which had a provision for this and did not interfere.
- The rear ride height is not adjustable enough. The bottom clevis cannot thread into the body enough to get the ride height to a reasonably low level. The only way I could get the car lower was to remove spare lock ring collars and put the spring perch all the way against the lower clevis. The picture there with the ride height sky jacked is with the clevis bottomed out on the shock body. Therefore the only way I could lower it more was the move the spring perch and release some preload on the spring. Eventually the spring was just loose and I still needed to go further.
- There's no brake line clip mount on the front struts. The Teins I removed did have this. Seems like another lack of attention to detail.
Now for the good news:
On a short test drive over very broken pavement I was actually impressed at the ride quality. Not only was it a huge improvement over the Tein Driving Masters I had on there previous (10kgf F 8kgf R) but even compared to stock cars this is not bad!
I'm currently talking to FEAL to see if they are going to address any of these issues. I'd really like to see them address those points before I could recommend the setup. Once they do however, this seems like it would be the choice kit. Next step is to evaluate it on a skidpad for limit behavior the 14kgf F 10kgf R stagger seems reasonable, but I just want to check it's understeer/oversteer balance at steady state as well as check some quick dynamic inputs and feel out the damper tune. I have a feeling this is where the setup will shine as the ride quality is a hint of their abilities. Hopefully that's the case and I can get past the fitment issues and lack of attention to detail.
I'm sure at least a few others on here have looked at FEAL, I'd heard lots of 2nd hand experience that these are great coilovers for the price and that they don't ride like every other low budget coilover. Well I went out and bought a set and here's the install and first impressions.
Opening the box I was pleasantly greeted with four dyno charts, with a QC stamp. I assume that's quality control, anyways that's just badass!! The dampers were wrapped and packaged well no damage occurred during shipping.
It took a while before I installed them, it was just hard to find free time. Once I started working on getting the old ones off and the new ones on two things surprised me. 1. Wow taking the rears off is super easy. and 2 Wow. Taking the front off sucks! As a reminder here's the procedure I'm sure other threads have covered this, but whatever here it is again.
To remove the rear:
1) With the car in the air and the wheels off, remove the swaybar endlink. It's a 14mm nut on a ball joint with a 14mm slotted section to prevent the ball joint from spinning. Both rears need to be in the air to keep no load on the sway bar.
2) Remove the lower shock mount. 17mm nut on a ball joint with a 17mm slotted section.
3) Remove 3 14mm nuts on the top.
4) You're done
To remove the front:
1) Disconnect the sway bar from the A-arm 14mm again (I actually just completely removed the sway bar as it was easier for me to reconnect that way)
2) Remove hose clip from the strut body
3) Disconnect the wheel speed sensor from the upper a-arm and the knuckle 12mm bolts
4) Unbolt the whole upper a-arm 14mm and slide it down to the base of the shock
5) Remove lower bolt 17mm
6) Remove 3 upper 14mm nuts
7) Compress damper and wiggle it out.
Now a couple issues with the fitment of the FEALs...
- The front lower mount is too wide to fit into the A-arm. It was 1.975" vs. 1.903". There was no chance that was going to fit and I just used a grinder and a file to take off material and it ended up at about 1.895". FEAL seems to think I got the wrong bushings on the lower mount.
- The rear top hat is designed to sit flush against the sheet metal. However there is a metal stud which is used to mount interior plastics. Therefore the top hat can't sit flush against it. I don't have a good solution to this. For now I used fender washers. I'd like to see a FEAL have a solution here, either cut a relief in the rear top hats or ship a spacer with the set. You can see the witness marks on the metal from the previous Teins coilovers which had a provision for this and did not interfere.
- The rear ride height is not adjustable enough. The bottom clevis cannot thread into the body enough to get the ride height to a reasonably low level. The only way I could get the car lower was to remove spare lock ring collars and put the spring perch all the way against the lower clevis. The picture there with the ride height sky jacked is with the clevis bottomed out on the shock body. Therefore the only way I could lower it more was the move the spring perch and release some preload on the spring. Eventually the spring was just loose and I still needed to go further.
- There's no brake line clip mount on the front struts. The Teins I removed did have this. Seems like another lack of attention to detail.
Now for the good news:
On a short test drive over very broken pavement I was actually impressed at the ride quality. Not only was it a huge improvement over the Tein Driving Masters I had on there previous (10kgf F 8kgf R) but even compared to stock cars this is not bad!
I'm currently talking to FEAL to see if they are going to address any of these issues. I'd really like to see them address those points before I could recommend the setup. Once they do however, this seems like it would be the choice kit. Next step is to evaluate it on a skidpad for limit behavior the 14kgf F 10kgf R stagger seems reasonable, but I just want to check it's understeer/oversteer balance at steady state as well as check some quick dynamic inputs and feel out the damper tune. I have a feeling this is where the setup will shine as the ride quality is a hint of their abilities. Hopefully that's the case and I can get past the fitment issues and lack of attention to detail.
Last edited by w.tungsten; 04-09-18 at 06:18 PM.
04-10-18, 11:43 AM
#2
The front control arm lower metal bushing is movable. It needs to be pressed back using a c-clamp or some other device to expand before you can install the coilovers. You definitely didn't need to cut that piece and I'm not sure it's replaceable on its own.
For the rear top hats, drill a hole to allow the piece in the body to go into. That's how the better coils on the market have their top hats made. Doing that will help with your ride height issue, but overall it sounds like they didn't properly design the rear and it's always going to be pretty bottomed out. Hopefully that doesn't kill them quickly.
For the rear top hats, drill a hole to allow the piece in the body to go into. That's how the better coils on the market have their top hats made. Doing that will help with your ride height issue, but overall it sounds like they didn't properly design the rear and it's always going to be pretty bottomed out. Hopefully that doesn't kill them quickly.
04-10-18, 12:08 PM
#3
Ahhh yeah I bet you're right on the front lower bushing. I noticed there was some gap between the two pieces. Should've tried that first.
Yup FEAL said to just drill a hole so that's what I'm going to do. Trying to see if they are going to make a design change for that part in the future. They said they have never seen that stud before. I was surprised as it seems like all our cars would have it to mount the hatch plastics to. @Smokey you have the same stud that I do correct?
Yup FEAL said to just drill a hole so that's what I'm going to do. Trying to see if they are going to make a design change for that part in the future. They said they have never seen that stud before. I was surprised as it seems like all our cars would have it to mount the hatch plastics to. @Smokey you have the same stud that I do correct?
09-04-18, 01:41 PM
#5
Been living with these for a few months and I've actually been really impressed with the ride quality. I was also able to get a few drift days on this and they've been absolutely wonderful coupled with some alignment changes.
One caveat is the overall vehicle balance with stock sway/stabilizer bars is extremely pushy. To the point where I'm going to buy an aftermarket adjustable bar to counteract the understeer. I may also try a 12k rear spring instead of the current 14k front/10k rear setup, but I wanted to go with the bar first since it's easy to install and having the adjustability to move between a drift setup with lots of rear grip to a more neutral setup for a track day.
One caveat is the overall vehicle balance with stock sway/stabilizer bars is extremely pushy. To the point where I'm going to buy an aftermarket adjustable bar to counteract the understeer. I may also try a 12k rear spring instead of the current 14k front/10k rear setup, but I wanted to go with the bar first since it's easy to install and having the adjustability to move between a drift setup with lots of rear grip to a more neutral setup for a track day.
05-06-20, 07:25 AM
#6
Figured this was worth adding in here. A teammate of mine had this happen.
I also ordered 4 bump stops from them and they sent me 3 of one kind and randomly 1 of another??? Ok... I've been ok with the coils on the FD, but the spring rate balance was pretty dumb. I guess if I were to do it again now I'd spend the $1400 on the coils + $300 on the bar for Ohlins since you're almost there already.
I also ordered 4 bump stops from them and they sent me 3 of one kind and randomly 1 of another??? Ok... I've been ok with the coils on the FD, but the spring rate balance was pretty dumb. I guess if I were to do it again now I'd spend the $1400 on the coils + $300 on the bar for Ohlins since you're almost there already.
THEN THE REAL KICKER. was jacking up the car to swap the left axle then POP and oil starts dumping from the right wheel area.
From my understand the snap rings fail which then allows the nut to back off the rod and the rod pulls out of the shock.
Im not familiar with building shocks so correct me if im wrong.
The scary part is, I have had a handful of people tell me their Feal coilovers have done the same thing. One even while just driving down the highway.
Sounds like a ******* lawsuit waiting to happen lol.
Its out of 1 year warranty so its not covered <3
From my understand the snap rings fail which then allows the nut to back off the rod and the rod pulls out of the shock.
Im not familiar with building shocks so correct me if im wrong.
The scary part is, I have had a handful of people tell me their Feal coilovers have done the same thing. One even while just driving down the highway.
Sounds like a ******* lawsuit waiting to happen lol.
Its out of 1 year warranty so its not covered <3
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05-08-20, 10:57 AM
#8
FEAL sounds a lot like they're trying to ride on ZEAL's reputation. Zeal coilovers are made by the same company that makes Endless brakes and are a pretty damn nice set up.
.
Sorry to see that happened, but I like the sound of those Ohlins being on your radar.
Sick little run in the vid, and good luck with the new stuff. You really do get what you pay for with suspension. SakeBomb Garage is your friend.
EDIT: lol TRD! I had a set of JICs on my old Mazdaspeed Protege. Those things were so stiff they'd knock your fillings out when you ran over bot dots.
.
Sorry to see that happened, but I like the sound of those Ohlins being on your radar.
Sick little run in the vid, and good luck with the new stuff. You really do get what you pay for with suspension. SakeBomb Garage is your friend.
EDIT: lol TRD! I had a set of JICs on my old Mazdaspeed Protege. Those things were so stiff they'd knock your fillings out when you ran over bot dots.
Last edited by Natey; 05-08-20 at 11:01 AM.
05-12-20, 08:23 PM
#11
To make sure I don't hijack this thread with off topic things - let me add my tidbit into the failure mentioned above first. I'm not sure what design they have on their shock shaft, but I've never seen a c-clip added to the bottom of a hydraulic shaft (i.e. to prevent the nut from backing off). The bottom nut that sandwiches the piston and shims to the shaft is typically just Loctite'd and torqued properly. It doesn't look like any Loctite is on that shaft (albeit difficult to see) and even if there were, it needs to be the correct type to resist the hydraulic fluid. There is also a certain aspect of proper engineering and machining tolerances in the first place.
I'm not sure that Odi touches any of the rebuilds - only his low standards minions. Maybe this used to be different? I can give you many examples of their faults, but here is an overview.
"Replace common wear items" (per their website) means they will only touch the absolute minimum required (if that... it seems). They have sent shocks back to me with obvious wiper seal damage. I can't imagine that they would ever touch the buffer or rod seal if they won't touch the wiper seal. This will lead to leaks pronto. One time I sent 8 shocks for rebuilds and 4 ended up leaking significant amounts of fluid sitting on a shelf for 1 month. They certainly didn't touch a single o-ring. I had to ship them back (out of my own pocket) for them to rectify the issues. They will also never clean the shock at all - not once have that cleaned a single shock I've sent them. I don't know how you can even rebuild a shock without ensuring you have a clean basis to start with. It's like going into surgery with mud all over yourself. I took apart one set they "rebuilt" and guess what, the oil was clearly new, but had tons of dirt in it. It's so easy to throw the parts in a parts washer - why wouldn't you do it?
Can Feal get the job done to get you running again? Sure. Is it a quality rebuild? Not anymore at least. I have sent many shocks to them in the past and the rebuild quality had progressively gotten worse. I'm pretty sure they don't do anything more than dump the old oil, put some new oil in, recharge it with nitrogen, and charge you $250 for each shock. I've had plenty of rebuilds from them that were fine, though probably only because those shocks were in good condition to start with and didn't require anything to be replaced. I much prefer to do rebuilds myself, but I haven't always had the time and needed them to do it. Anymore, I always make sure I have the time to do it myself.
Bottom line: Feal has poor standards and low quality rebuilds that will lead to premature failures.
I'm not sure that Odi touches any of the rebuilds - only his low standards minions. Maybe this used to be different? I can give you many examples of their faults, but here is an overview.
"Replace common wear items" (per their website) means they will only touch the absolute minimum required (if that... it seems). They have sent shocks back to me with obvious wiper seal damage. I can't imagine that they would ever touch the buffer or rod seal if they won't touch the wiper seal. This will lead to leaks pronto. One time I sent 8 shocks for rebuilds and 4 ended up leaking significant amounts of fluid sitting on a shelf for 1 month. They certainly didn't touch a single o-ring. I had to ship them back (out of my own pocket) for them to rectify the issues. They will also never clean the shock at all - not once have that cleaned a single shock I've sent them. I don't know how you can even rebuild a shock without ensuring you have a clean basis to start with. It's like going into surgery with mud all over yourself. I took apart one set they "rebuilt" and guess what, the oil was clearly new, but had tons of dirt in it. It's so easy to throw the parts in a parts washer - why wouldn't you do it?
Can Feal get the job done to get you running again? Sure. Is it a quality rebuild? Not anymore at least. I have sent many shocks to them in the past and the rebuild quality had progressively gotten worse. I'm pretty sure they don't do anything more than dump the old oil, put some new oil in, recharge it with nitrogen, and charge you $250 for each shock. I've had plenty of rebuilds from them that were fine, though probably only because those shocks were in good condition to start with and didn't require anything to be replaced. I much prefer to do rebuilds myself, but I haven't always had the time and needed them to do it. Anymore, I always make sure I have the time to do it myself.
Bottom line: Feal has poor standards and low quality rebuilds that will lead to premature failures.
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