my main focus is on ride smoothness. i want to keep the same feel of stock while lowering the coupe. do i need after market shocks to achieve this? or are the stock shocks good enough? I am using 350Z S-techs.

 

how many miles on your OEM shocks?

 

40,000ish

 

I'm in the same boat, and I think this is the route I will be going. I have an '05 sport coupe with 40k miles.

My old A4 had S techs and stock shocks on it for 50k miles, 100k miles total. Never had a problem. Apples and oranges though I suppose....

 

I think i am going to run on stocks for now. Switch over to TOKICO's HP shocks eventually as the stock shocks where down. But then a part of me wants to knock it all out in one shot.

 

If you can afford to do it all in one shot, I would recommend that. If you're installing it yourself you probably won't want to do it all over again, ( I did my front and rear springs myself, its a decent amount of work even with the right tools.) and if your paying a shop for the installs the $$ will add up.

 

Are the after market shocks really any better then stock?

 

Yes.