Your opinions on the most comfortable coilovers please. Most of our FDs see more street than track duty, and coilovers have become a necessity for running aggressive offsets and tire sizes. Ride height adjustability is also a nice added feature of coilovers. I've had my fair share of scrapes, and raising the ride height just an inch or two for the street would be great. For track, it would be nice to run a lower ride height for obvious reasons.

So, is there a coilover that has all the above benefits, without sacrificing too much comfort? I would imagine such a coilover to be expensive, but hey it's all in good perspective. I'd rather pay $100 or $200 more per corner for something I would enjoy 90% of the time, than an awesome track suspension I would abhor on our (read: shitty) streets.

 

just dont get coilovers that are too short and have really high spring rates

 

Not true at all, unless you are trying to run 10" wide wheels up front.

Tein Flex are good quality coilovers for a reasonable price that use pretty good spring rates and have good valving.

Given the PITA factor and the camber changes associated with it, I doubt anyone is really playing with ride heights that much between track and street driving. I know I don't.

 

The Zeals I just put on feel nice so far, much more livable on the street than the HKS D-Specs I had. It hasn't been long enough for me to form a REAL opinion, but my 1st impression of Zeal B2's is a good one.

I'll get back to after I hit the track.

 

So then it seems coilovers are reserved for track use in which height adjustment would be more necessary. What are the advantages of running coilovers on the street? Are there any coilovers that are more comfortable than a spring/shock combo, ie Koni/Tokico (most common)?

edit: Maybe it would be a good idea for someone to explain exactly what determines how comfortable a car's suspension is. I read some articles relating comfort to the natural frequency of the spring, which I guess is determined by how stiff the spring is. So, is it necessarily true that a higher spring rate is always more uncomfortable? How does damping come into play in determining comfort, besides taking away excessive "bobbing" of the chassis that would otherwise lead you to believe that you really are a sailor, and quite possibly, a drunken one at that. Yarr matey.

 

Coilovers and comfort should not go in the same sentence. Also, comfort is dependant upon each person's tastes/opinions.

Here's a good link for you to check out. When anyone buys a coilover suspension, or aftermarket suspension, they should expect some decrese in comfort coming from a good conditioned stock suspension.

http://www.norcalcrx.org/tyson/coilover.html

BTW- I have koni yellows with ground control coilovers. I bought the softest rates they have for 6" front and 8" rear springs, which is 385 lb/in front and 300lb/in rear. I have the Koni Yellows on the softest setting, the times that I have driven my car, not yet my daily driver, it felt "comfortable" for me, the shocks absorb the undulations in the road very nicely, and the suspension still feels very tight in the turns.

Overall very forgiving as far as comfort and aggressive enough in the turns. Once my car is all buttoned up, I will be hitting up the soonest HPDE possible and go from there.

 

i feel like you have the wrong idea about height adjustment. people typically do not readjust their ride height between track and street. on most cars, when you adjust ride height, your alignment changes. technically you'd have to realign everytime you change height.

the benefit of individual corner height adjustment is the ability to corner weigh the car. the second (and more popular) benefit is fine tuning ride height for aesthetic purposes. once you set that, you get an alignment and you're done.

you could read up on how suspension works, but unless you're an automotive engineer, you aren't going to be able to determine what is 'comfortable' for you in real life without real life experience. what that boils down to as an answer is you, sitting in alot of cars with different coilovers before making your final choice. either that, or going by recommendation.

it's very difficult to figure out which one is comfortable for you by looking at numbers and graphs on the internet. and even that is working under the naive assumption that shock and coilover manufacturers actually bother to provide specs and shock dynos to begin with.

 

I have the buddy club coilovers which have the same springrates as the flex. On the softest setting it is barely tolerable on the street, but the rollbar and fiberglass seats don't help much either. Tire profile also makes a big difference in ride quality.

If I had to do it over I would go with the gc/koni setup and have an easily servicable/upgradable shock coupled with many choices of springrates, not too mention it is far cheaper than most jdm coilovers.

 

Pat,
Any problems with spring binding or bottoming out with this setup? I have the same setup with 450lb 7" front and 350lb 8" rear and Nick at N-Tech felt this was the "soft" configuration. I am happy with it and drive my car daily but I could do to have it softer as well. The most "comfortable" setup I've experienced is stock with touring dampers. My main motivation for going to the Koni/GC was my upper mounts were shot and I already had the Konis.

 

[QUOTE=aznpoopy;6915633]i feel like you have the wrong idea about height adjustment. people typically do not readjust their ride height between track and street. on most cars, when you adjust ride height, your alignment changes. technically you'd have to realign everytime you change height.

the benefit of individual corner height adjustment is the ability to corner weigh the car. the second (and more popular) benefit is fine tuning ride height for aesthetic purposes. once you set that, you get an alignment and you're done.

Yes, that's right. I nearly forgot about corner balancing with adjustable ride height coilovers. I think that is the main reason anyone should go with coilovers then, since other than that, a well chosen set of spring/damper combo will give the same benefits as a coilover.

The reason I was thinking of changing ride heights between street and track is because having "track-height" is too low for the street. Every time I see some change in elevation in the road, I start sweating over the possibility of scraping. Here's a picture to show you how low I am to the ground. This is a Tanabe spring/shock combo I believe -- inherited from the previous owner.

 

the height isn't that bad... the kit is making it lower than it really is.

additionally, you might solve some of your scraping problems with harsher suspension set at the same height... naturally you'll give up some comfort though.

 

Yes, need harsher suspension. Something like 10kg in front prolly. T_T my poor butt.

 

If you go Flex, I hear you can order them with softer 8/6 "street" spring rates