Over the past year I’ve seen plenty of reviews in the performance section here on the boards about exhausts, intakes, and most of all F/I systems. Many of these detailed threads have more than 15-20 pages of great information. Some of the posts contain misinformation or useless replies, but there are also plenty of quality discussions that greatly help the Z community with their technical knowledge as well as their buying decisions. I have been researching suspension for my Z even before I got it. During my many months of research I have noticed the lack of knowledge and the lack of technical reviews for suspension setups. So I decided to help the Z community out by starting an organized way of submitting suspension reviews. But the main objective of this is to provide detailed technical information that could benefit everyone in their buying decisions, and aid them in the tuning of their own suspension. I was going to start this for coilovers only, but if you would like, please post any other review you have on other suspension parts as well! If you have already posted a review, an updated review would be great to really comprehend the overall performance and reliability over longer periods of time. Also, I have to give props to Z1 Auto, AutoRnD, LosingGripII, and GSedan35 for helping and answering many questions!
VERY IMPORTANT! :
First, EVERYONE should realize that suspension has too many variables to list and not one product may feel the exact same on two different cars. With all the adjustability coilovers have, it is really almost impossible to compare a coilover setup on another car with different suspension mods, LSD, wheels/tires, tire pressure, temperatures, weight reduction, etc. With that being said, this should not be a taken as if it will transform your car the way you want it to behave. BUT, this FAQ can be a VERY useful tool if used as more of a guide to get you in the right direction. This can be a excellent starting point for some, and then make fine tuning easier on your particular car. It could also be a guide for people looking to buy suspension that need technical information from others to find out what will be best for their particular needs.
The reviews should be very detailed and as technical as possible. It is very important to go into detail about the changes in the car’s driving characteristics over stock. This way, it can be easily compared for people who have been riding on stock suspension thus far. If anyone has had the chance to drive on numerous sets of coilovers, then PLEASE go into detail about the different driving impressions that you could observe from their different setups. (I know most people haven’t had this chance, but some people in bigger cities can drive friends cars with other suspension setups, as well as shop owners that have the opportunities to drive customer’s cars.)
Reviews:
Here are some things to consider when writing reviews. Once again, its very important to use this as a starting point, not a dead end result. Remember that other parts of the suspension will make a significant change on the ride and performance of the handling as well.
Adjustability/Features/Ease of use/Quality and Design:
Single/Double height adjustability (spring preload and height adjustable)
Shock Construction (Monotube/Twin Tube)?
Inverted shocks?
Adjustable Damper (Y/N)? If so, how many increments can the dampener be adjusted? How does each increment feel? Can you feel the different between one click, or does it take 2-3 clicks to really feel a difference? (FOR EXAMPLE ONLY: some 30+ way adjustments are used for marketing tools to make you believe there is more adjustability in their shock, but really it could only be felt in 12 different adjustments, so what you thought is a 30 way adjustable damper is really only 12 way.)
How do you adjust the shock? (tool, knob, etc) Are there numbers representing the amount of stiffness that the shock is set on?
Any thoughts or opinions on the quality and design should also go here. The design of certain parts like the pillowball upper mounts, spring/shock perches, threaded length on body, mounting designs, piston diameter, helper springs, materials used, etc…
For example, there was a great review on the 240sx forums a while back when I used to own an S14, comparing Tein He’s to JIC Magic FLT-A2’s…There were detailed pics of every part on the coil over. The pictures showed that some of the parts used on the JIC where beefier, stronger, and of better quality.
Comfort/daily drivability aspects:
How comfortable is the ride on the street?
Obviously you will give up smooth riding for better handling, but as many should know, some shocks that are properly valved to the spring rates, the ride can be smoother while having better handling (being stiffer) than one with a poorly matched shock and spring. Including different circumstances here also helps in understanding the drive quality. Some circumstances should include how the ride behaves over bumps in a straight line at low speeds VS high speeds, or while cornering over bumps or uneven/wavy pavement. Also, discuss any noises or other annoying problems that you might have that could affect daily drivers.
Performance aspects:
This is of course the most important part of the review that has been the most lacking in the past reviews that I have read. Here we want to talk about how the coilovers compare in driving characteristics to the stock suspension. If applicable, compare the coilovers to a past set that you might have had, or to a set on a friends/customer’s car that you may have had the opportunity to drive. In this part of the review its very important to thoroughly discuss the characteristics of the car, by this I mean discussing the behavior of the car: the way the car turns in, accelerates through corners, stability in corners/and at high speeds, weight transfer, response, the limits of the suspension over stock, and most importantly over steer/under steer. Another thing you could list here is your other suspension mods that might have an effect on the feel of the car along with the coilovers. Things such as different wheels/tires, alignment, sways, etc will greatly effect the behavior of the car. By listing them you can give other readers a better understanding of what is effecting the cars handling.
Technical Info You NEED To Know About Suspension:
Credit and Appreciation to Whiteline for their excellent products and great info in these articles
(Don’t for get to go down to the bottom and push next page for the rest of the articles…most of them have several pages!)
Shocks FAQ
Springs FAQ
SwayBars FAQ
[Wheel Alignment FAQ](http://www.torontonissan.ca/forums/)
Wheels & Tires FAQ
Excellent Coilover Article! (6 pages)
General Info on Suspension
Since most of the general suspension knowledge should be comprehended from the above articles, it would be great to focus this thread mostly on suspension topics pertaining to the Z/G community. Whether its certain setups/settings, driving impressions and reviews on suspension products, or tuning and diagnosing the Z/G’s suspension and its characteristics.