i've been reading as many posts as i can find about fd suspension setups, but i'm still unsure of what to use.

one "knowledgable" person tells me to go with brand x, the other guy with brand y...

so from what i gather, spring rates should be ok at around 450-500 lb front, and 350-400ish rear. this is gonna be a streetcar, but i'm not really bitchy about ride comfort, my old fc was stiff as a board and i commuted with that.i like going fast in the twisties.

so other than spring rate, can anyone give me some pointers on what brands are actually good for street/hard driving... i may get it on a track once or twice a year if i'm lucky, but it's gonna get driven every day.

also, tires... rims and tires... dropping the aspect ratio of the tires makes the steering responce a little quicker, but at what point (if any) does it begin to degrade the traction? i'm debating on whether or not to get rims...

anyway, i know this has all been covered before, but not by me. thanks for any input.

 

Why do you want coilovers? Just get some RS-R race springs and some Konis and be done with it. I don't know why anyone would put up with the poor durability of coilovers for essentially pure street driving. IMO, the stock wheels become the limitation in grip and response after even a simple suspension "upgrade".

All that said, the Tein Flex are probably your best option for reasonably priced, more streetable coilovers.

 

because i don't want to lower the car... except for a few days out of the year. my driveway is a little steep and i want the car about stock height, but i want the ability to lower it if i want to.

 

Do you have a budget in mind?

 

any JDM bling coilover will probably be way too stiff for you. (eg. 800-1500lb springs, and terribly crazy damping)

I've been poking around looking at what's what for a street/track setup, which is similar to what you want. I will probably get RS*R race or H&R sport springs, matched with koni adjustable shocks. I think you would do well with the H&Rs and Bilstein shocks.

I've seen shock dynographs and the JDM stuff is basically no good-- in other words way too stiff for the street and many tracks. There is a point where the damping is so stiff, you lose grip because the tires don't retain their best contact with the road while going over bumps. The coilovers are also very expensive. Konis and Bilsteins are excellent for street applications, and as far as height adjustability goes, the springs will take the car where I want it anyway. Also, with coilovers, for best performance the car needs to be corner weighted and stuff, and I have no desire to do that.

 

I don't want to sound like an *** but you won't get anything different in your own thread. Everybody has their own opinions on which setup to go with, x or y. All you can do is read posts on the forum and look at various websites, then come to your own conclusions. Either that or pick one guy you "trust" and copy what he did.

Best of luck

 

my problem is i haven't been into fd's long enough to know what they like.

fcdemon... nothing is too stiff for me, but stiff doesn't = traction.
ne "real" budget in mind...maybe $2k.

maybe i'll grab some rsr springs for now and do more homework over the next few months so i can find out what i'll really like.

thanks for the input guys.

 

^your going FD?

search for posts by "howard coleman" he has prolly forgoten more about susenpion design than most will ever know. I belive he runs the tein HA's, but im not positive.

 

Poor durability?? Which models and where did you hear this?

Regardless, for people with excessively lightened cars or wider wheel combinations, coilovers may be a necessity for ride height adjustability or wheel clearance.

 

Most coilovers don't really last long in street driving. LOTS of posts about that -- especially with the earlier Teins and the JICs. We're talking daily driving over the typical rough roads. The dampers tend to fail in those conditions.

I agree with the statement about ride height adjustability -- I wish I had it as my car is lower than I would like with the HKS springs. Coilovers are typically not necessary for wheel clearance except when running 10" wide wheels up front -- which is totally unnecessary for street use, in spite of how cool it looks..

 

if i were u and had an fd, i'd get silkroad coilovers...they are reletivly inexpensive and the spring weight isn't too wack. go to their website to find out more http://www.silkroad-usa.com/

 

i have zeal b6 with the hard springs i like them alot but if you have crappy roads get the soft springs

PM ARD T2 he can help you out with alot of this

 

How necessary is corner-weighting for a street/occasional track & auto-x car?

I'm certain that a good spring/shock combo would be adequate for now, but I'm thinking since I am doing suspension as well I might as well just get coilovers so I don't regret it later if I want to do some adjustments for the track.

 

Call me this weekend at 707-696-2705, we'll get you squared away. Carl

 

Generally, I'd say stay away from JIC and Tein. JIC's IMO are incorrectly valved for the springs they run and they have a tendency to blow seals too soon, which is probably where the whole "unreliable" bit about coilovers came from. The lower-model Teins are known to rust, but other than that they're pretty good. I know a few people that have Tein RA's on their FCs and they're a good double-duty track/street setup if you can handle a pretty harsh ride.

I've never really heard anything bad about Zeal, other than the fact that they cost a fuckton. Silkroad is beefy as hell by reputation, as well, so either of those two brands could probably stand being put in a daily driver. The big question to ask yourself is, are you really going to play around with the settings that much? Are you going to go to an autocross to try to get your dampening adjustments dialed in? Will you know where you should set your ride height and dampening for different tracks and conditions? I think that if you're not going to be really using coilovers to their full extent, you're just wasting some money. If you're just going to have a daily driver that you track every now and then for ***** and giggles, I'd say go with something like a GC/Koni setup. That way you can have ride height adjustability with some control over ride quality.

I guess it's true that you'd gain some steering response, but if you go with, say, 18s, you'd have to drop your sidewall ratio to around 35 to retain stock rim/tire diameter. I think that around 35 is when you'll find a noticeable decrease in straight-line traction. Besides, who wants to look like 50 cent, "ridin' on blades"? If you're going to get wheels, I say stick with 17s so you can keep the aspect ratio up some. I think they look cleaner anyways. That's just me, though.

 

It depends on how good of a driver you are. Most people with 7s never realize the car's potential anyway. (This probably includes me.) I will mention though that in my opinion you need adjustable sway bars to properly corner balance a car. If you don't the sway bars will have some tension on them when one side is raised higher than the other, thus screwing up the balance of the car, which was the original goal of corner balancing.

dis1

 

I do. 17s look tiny and 40-series tires look fat these days when standard rolling stock on cars like the Corvette is 18-19" with 30-35-series tires.



You're right, that looks terrible...

 

Yup... 18 is pretty much the performance car minimum anymore... I had about the nicest set of 17" wheels available (Fikse FM10), and it just stopped looking good to me.

I don't think you're compromising too much, if you avoid the ultra-low sidewalls. 35-series are very livable when they are based on 255-and up widths.

Now that i've got dedicated 17" track wheels, I almost wish I went w/ 19" for my street wheels.

 

You said it. I really noticed it when I painted my car.

P245/40-17s on 17x8s and P275/40-17s on 17x9s...



P245/35-19s on 19x8.5s and P285/30-19s on 19x9.5s...



Much better.

Yep. If I tracked my car, I'd have a dedicated set of 17s, same width front and rear, but for the street, 19s. I'd have traction problems with any tire without the aid of traction control, so I went for what looked best to me.

 

Jim, do you by chance have a full pic of the car yet? Or a side shot showing the chassis and wheels? Dunno how far along the car is, or how old that pic is (I quit reading your v8 monstrocity after page 2193872894792374920 ). I wanna see what it looks like as a whole if you can. The Volks look hot from that pic alone!

 

Those TE37's really REALLY look alot better in bigger sizes, because the spokes don't appear as fat, and get a little taper to them. The 17's look like a space saver spare, especially in <white>.

 

Sorry, nope. The car hasn't been out of the garage under it's own power, so I don't have any longer distance shots.

About the same as it was last month, and the month before that...

I figured they'd look good polished with the Electron Blue Metallic, so I had them stripped. Two were silver and two were bronze originally, according to the box labels. It's not that easy to get the 19s, I guess. I had to "settle" for +38mm offset in front (3.25" front spacing, 6.25" back) and +43mm in the back (3.55" front spacing, 6.95" back) or wait several months for different ones to come from Japan.

 

i haven't jumped on the super tall rim craze yet... probably slap some mickey thompson's on the back of the stock rims, then get a decent set of 17's for all-purpose driving.

i've spent so much time doing motors and turbos, and crap like that, but i'm more or less a suspension noob.

 

I was just joshin' about the 50 cent bit. I can't argue that 18" wheels look good on a lot of cars, especially FDs, but I still believe that from a straight-line performance standpoint, ultra low-profile tires are still not going to be quite as good as higher sidewall tires.

 

OK, well apparently these auto manufacturers know something you don't.

Saleen S7 - 275/35-19 front, 335/30-20 rear
Lamborghini Murcielago - 245/35-18 front, 335/30-18 rear
Ferrari Enzo - 245/35-19 front, 345/35-19 rear
Koneigsegg CCR - 255/35-19 front, 335/30-20 rear
Chevrolet C6 Z06 - 275/35-18 front, 325/30-19 rear