suspension

so im lookin to upgrade my lame ebay coilovers that someone put on my car. and since they ruined my shocks also i need a full replacement. i have been lookin around (tien , hks, megan) and such. but to me they all seem the same. i have heard that tien isnt great anymore. What im lookin for is personal experiences. What have you had , or drove with and liked/disliked.
i have roughly 2k to thro into my suspension. lookin to get a full damper/coilover set and sway bars.

for decent priced best over all deal. I would say KTS or stance. I dont think KTS has a repair service though. So stance is prolly your best bet for price to product performance.

I mean hks makes good shit, but your gonna pay for it, since there proven over and over again and dominate almost everything they build a car for.

well i did some more research. and ended up buying a set of stance gr+pro. i hope they as good as people talk.

i went with tein flex..... mucccho adjust ability and very nice and quick road responses... and uhh.. lots of stickers :rolleyes:

not so much the top end of tien but i went with them too and have liked them, although i got no real base for comparison other then my old stockers.

tein sucks balls. they may be ok for a DD but when you get down to the dirty details, they have more in common with pepboys crappy OE shocks than with any performance coilovers.

stance will do you well.


oh btw dont get me started on megan racing. crappy taiwan replica shit.

I roll on Stance, love them. KTS are the only other coils in that price range I considered, it was just a spur of the moment thing that I got what I got but I dont regret it.

KTS doesnt have a rebuild service, but for the cost of a rebuild you send the shocks in and you get entire new shocks. Plus, you have SPL Parts customer service, which is top class.

^^^ correct-a-mundo

oh btw dont get me started on megan racing. crappy taiwan replica shit.

Thus their $200- tubular manifold.

hmm.. well i have a full megan full cat back exhaust and i like it alot. nice tone to it. i dont know much else about megan tho.

Megan blows, and their catback looks like something the exhaust shop down the road from my house could make...


would rather buy ssautochrome

well not like i bought the exhaust. it came with car. so no big deal to me.

thats probably the first time ive ever heard anyone say they would rather buy SSAC. i wouldnt buy either. id rather buy a hooker and some coke.

thats probably the first time ive ever heard anyone say they would rather buy SSAC. i wouldnt buy either. id rather buy a hooker and some coke.

Autochrome exhausts are full stainless for like 150 shipped, I would ride with it scraping the ground till it falls off, the order another one.

They are exact replicas of Apexi N1 Duals, which cost me $580, so I could go through four Autochromes for that price.

They are almost exact same build, and they both suck, but sound sweet as hell.

ok well off exhausts. i seen bc is comeing out with a stroker kit for the ka. anyone stroked a sr? im wondering how well this works, as ive never seen a 4cylinder stroked. but its something ive looked into getting but could never find kits or the info on stroking a ka. i would like to try it out to see how much power i gain.

Toda Racing and Brian Crower have stroker kits for the SR, it's actually a lot more common than a stroked KA. As for four cylinders being stroked, 4G63 and a lot of honda engines have been stroked.

yea i knew sr had kits. and honda i guess i just forgot. but the other day i seen for the first time a stroke kit for the ka. from brian crower. im lookin into getting it but was wondering how it affected us as 4cyl. i know it will riase my tq more then hp. and a lower rev car.

I'd prefer to keep the RPM potential. RPM+boost is more my flavor for power.

i didnt say i didnt wanna boost it. i do but ive been lookin into a stroke kit for a while. that is why i was asking how sr's did stroked. since most of them pushin boost stock.

DUDE!

1) when u buy coilovers (regardless of the brand) look at the valve diameter. the bigger it is the quicker the respond of the shock. for an example, Tien has 32 mm valving (Flex) and HKS has 55 mm.

2) Most of the spring coilover manufactures use are heavy and thick, use SWIFT spring (do the reading on that)

3) DO NOT lower ur more then 1 inch! every piece of suspension on ur car is designed to work with the stock travel! ur car will feel (sporty) cause it will lack the proper travel but it will handle like shit! (bump steer..etc)

2) Most of the spring coilover manufactures use are heavy and thick, use SWIFT spring (do the reading on that)


The spring rate is the kg/mm right? So the higher the kg/mm number the better the spring rate and coilovers?

no the more kg/mm just means they are stiffer...that is all.

no the more kg/mm just means they are stiffer...that is all.

yeap.

http://www.swiftsprings.com/faq01.html

i don't like tien springs... just not enough travel on the spring before it gets compressed.

check the valving on the shock and fined the spring rate that matches it.
(tein is 37mm, Apex is 45 mm, so for tein u can't use a higher rate spring but u can do so with the Apex ..ect)


BTW stiff =/= sporty! ur car MUST absorb the bumps on the rode, if ur butt is doing the dampening then u have no contact patch on the rode hence poor handling.

toda races a stroked s15 in endurance racing and does well. its supposedly quite a bit more durable and allows the car to make more hp without sacrificing driveability.

toda races a stroked s15 in endurance racing and does well. its supposedly quite a bit more durable and allows the car to make more hp without sacrificing driveability.

The HP gain from stroking your motor is actually pretty minimal, IMO and apparently Cory's also Stroking is a waste for the KA, as it will just reduce the little high RPM usage that the KA has already. In turn for loosing revablity you do gain in spool times, but the cost to real world driving, it makes it a 100% retarded move. but this is again IMO.

and on your bit Slideways. the s15 runs an SR which has obviously less stroke. basically its stroking it to the same size stroke as a KA...so whats the point of going bigger if thats all they do to the SR anyways?

~Nick

yes ^^^^ agree. It is kind of pointless. Ka is pretty well stroked already.

The KA already has a nearly optimal rod ratio as well. No need to tamper with that. If you stroke the KA, rod angle is going to increase, and your cylinders will egg out quicker, cylinder tolerances will need to be tighter to reduce the chance of the piston clocking inside the cylinder, piston skirt and wrist pin will need to be changed as balance will need to be even more spot on, ect ect. Its a big waste of time from a financial and engineering standpoint.

I was implying that running more boost and RPM is a better option to make power on the KA rather than increasing displacement, IMO. Increasing RPM will yield better gains in power than increasing stroke will.

I say for Coilovers go with HKS. I just bought a pair and they handle great. They are pricey but hey there worth it. Its not to stiff nor to soft. But i recommend getting a thicker rear sway bar though; thats if you like a little more oversteer.