Street focused suspension advice

[SupraTR]

That bounce or rebound is why coils were high on my list with sways possibly coming after. If I was willing to give up the EDC what coilovers would people recommend? Are Ohlins R&T reasonable for a strictly street driven car?

Very interested in this same question. Strongly considering grabbing some coilovers on black friday. For me it's a combination of needing to raise things up a bit (I have rubbing on lowering springs with 305/35) plus the bouncy feeling you describe. I feel like I've been mainly looking at the KW DDC/V3 or Fortune Auto 510s. While retaining EDC sounds great I feel like the reality is for street I'll just get one setup dialed in and be perfectly happy with that...can always manually tweak if actually tracking. Effectively looking for the best street riding coilover under ~4.5k. I'm guessing one can't really go wrong with any of the quality coilovers if the goal is street only.

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[Strych9]

My issues are mostly on entry and hard transitions.

Right out of the gate, this sounds like damping, jerking the wheel, overloading or rapidly unloading a tire, a major toe issue, or a combination of those.

On stock dampers and MSS springs the car feels oversprung. It sort of bounces or slightly rebounds on every entry or transition.

Unless you are severely over-sprung, that bouncing sounds like a damping issue. Noticeable rebounding can be tuned out. If you aren't trail braking then I would absolutely address that first. If not then A: you're losing out of a few keys to cornering fundamentals, and B: you are unsettling one tire and loading the other too rapidly.

If you sit down and accurately calculate what the corner load should be under given circumstances, then figured what the spring length would be with those loads, the spring would ideally get to that point without overshooting and hold. Unfortunately for this ideal scenario, movement comes with inertia so you need to slow it to avoid overshooting. This oversimplified idea is what damping aims to solve.

The simple idea is to spring the corner for heave and dive, roll bar to provide the remainder of roll stiffness, then damping to make those things get to where they're going to be at the right velocity. There is more to it, but this simplified version frames the role of damping.

Additionally, you've lowered the car and therefore increased the roll couple so you will absolutely need more roll bar to get back to where you were, it has just yet to be seen whether the extra roll stiffness needed is truly needed or because of driving technique. (it's likely both tbh)

After that initial settling it handles sweeping turns well, just that initial turn in feels very unsteady.

This screams damping, technique, and roll bar to me.

S-turns are especially bad. Makes it hard to get a feel for the limits of the car and I'm looking to get a more solid entry/transition.

This makes me lean more toward damping and very slightly less toward more roll bar. All in all, it is likely a few components.

Damping, more roll bar, ensuring good technique, and a fresh setup will most likely solve every issue you have with the front end.

 

[Julian Baynes]

I am under no illusion that technique plays a role in the issues I'm having. Smoother entry, better lines. I do brake into turns, but again I'm not going to pretend I'm working at a high level as far as technique. I may look into an HPDE in the spring.

Damping, more roll bar, ensuring good technique, and a fresh setup will most likely solve every issue you have with the front end.

This is more or less the route I'm planning at this point just in a stepwise fashion. Coils, front sway, rear sway. Just looking for an opinion from someone that has put some real miles on Ohlins on less than ideal roads or pushed KW DDCs real hard. Those are the main options I'm looking at.

 

[noogie]

Did you cut the bump stops when swapping springs? You may be bottoming out the shocks.

you also changed to lower grip tires which doesn’t help.

I’m assuming you just to lower the car for the look. Maybe look into those adjustable height spring kits. Without swapping out the shocks, you’re not going to be able to lower the car much without some other negative impacts.

 

[tracer bullet]

Did you cut the bump stops when swapping springs? You may be bottoming out the shocks.

Even if they didn't, and they aren't bottomed out, it does sound underdamped and in a sustained corner might be riding fully on those bump stops.

 

[Meraki Autoworks]

Tires make the biggest difference on a track, all seasons vs track tires you'll be able to tell.

Coilovers are great though even if you don't track, you'll notice a night/day difference from springs.

DDC is great.

-Josh

 

[Julian Baynes]

Very interested in this same question. Strongly considering grabbing some coilovers on black friday. For me it's a combination of needing to raise things up a bit (I have rubbing on lowering springs with 305/35) plus the bouncy feeling you describe. I feel like I've been mainly looking at the KW DDC/V3 or Fortune Auto 510s. While retaining EDC sounds great I feel like the reality is for street I'll just get one setup dialed in and be perfectly happy with that...can always manually tweak if actually tracking. Effectively looking for the best street riding coilover under ~4.5k. I'm guessing one can't really go wrong with any of the quality coilovers if the goal is street only.

For what it's worth I just caved and ordered a pair of 510s. From this review and his comment on a listing I got that exact setup. Time will tell, but if it's not too rough on Pittsburgh roads it shouldn't be too bad for me. I went back and forth on whether to get the heim joints but ended up getting them. I realized I was more concerned about maintenance than ride quality and I can manage that. If you were worried about being too harsh I imagine not getting the heim joints would make them more comfortable.

Not sure on the exact ride height range on them, but I know from that review you can go at least as high as 3/4" below stock and I'm sure higher if needed. That's better than I can get with the MSS springs.

 

[SupraTR]

For what it's worth I just caved and ordered a pair of 510s. From this review and his comment on a listing I got that exact setup. Time will tell, but if it's not too rough on Pittsburgh roads it shouldn't be too bad for me. I went back and forth on whether to get the heim joints but ended up getting them. I realized I was more concerned about maintenance than ride quality and I can manage that. If you were worried about being too harsh I imagine not getting the heim joints would make them more comfortable.

Not sure on the exact ride height range on them, but I know from that review you can go at least as high as 3/4" below stock and I'm sure higher if needed. That's better than I can get with the MSS springs.

I'm pretty sure I'm going to go the same route. I read back through that thread a couple days ago. Have a feeling I'll pull the trigger before you receive and install, but good info on the helm joints. What spring rates did you go with? I'm just having a tough time justifying the price increase for the KW DDC and the other comparable for me is Ohlin but seems to be better first hand reviews on this forum for the Fortune hence leaning that way.

 

[Rensuhlo]

For what it's worth I just caved and ordered a pair of 510s. From this review and his comment on a listing I got that exact setup. Time will tell, but if it's not too rough on Pittsburgh roads it shouldn't be too bad for me. I went back and forth on whether to get the heim joints but ended up getting them. I realized I was more concerned about maintenance than ride quality and I can manage that. If you were worried about being too harsh I imagine not getting the heim joints would make them more comfortable.

Not sure on the exact ride height range on them, but I know from that review you can go at least as high as 3/4" below stock and I'm sure higher if needed. That's better than I can get with the MSS springs.

Ive been runing FA510s in a slightly more track-focused spec and they're just fine down in ATL. You'll be happy with them.

 

[Julian Baynes]

I'm pretty sure I'm going to go the same route. I read back through that thread a couple days ago. Have a feeling I'll pull the trigger before you receive and install, but good info on the helm joints. What spring rates did you go with? I'm just having a tough time justifying the price increase for the KW DDC and the other comparable for me is Ohlin but seems to be better first hand reviews on this forum for the Fortune hence leaning that way.

I went 10k/16k exactly like in the listing posted above. The review does not list the rates but the same user in that listing says his were identical, so that's what I went with. I will say that I spoke directly with RMC LV from the review and they said they normally recommend Ohlins for daily drivers due to better corrosion resistance and what they consider more favorable valving for street use. They're in stock with no lead time as well. I still went with FA, but something to consider.

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