Hey guys! I just put on my BC Racing Coilovers earlier this morning and am wondering what stiffness you guys are running. The setting is 0 hardest - 30 softest. Currently I am running 10 front 12 rear. This is a daily(spirited) driver and I think I'm going to go stiffer.

What about you guys?

 

Bump.

 

because race car

 

I tried max stiffness, yeah way to bouncy ha. However 4 ain't so bad. Going to try softest setting today.

 

Its difficult to tune shocks, and the vast majority of people, and people on this forum dont quite understand what they do. Read the far north racing series on shocks and the penske adjustable shock manual.

The bc shocks i think arent really digressive. So there wont be a great setting for them. You will either have poor body motion control or poor high speed bump control or poor both. I would probably just try to get the most comfortable setting (not so soft so car oscillates, not so hard that bumps are pronounced) which might be where the car is happiest overall

 

You send them to Odi at feal suspension and have him re-valve them to properly match the spring rate you are running. Only then will you feel a difference.

 

 

Don't you guys experience any performance increases with coilovers? Sounds like such a pain poor this poor that.. stock is great.. but don't you find the handling is better around turns?

 

First off, what do you mean by "performance" and "handling"? It's not really as straightforward as you may think.

In my view, one of the problem is that our cars aren't cheap econoboxes. The mod-der mentality a lot seems to be carried over from the early 90's import era when everyone was modd'ing base model accords and civics, and just about everything you did was an improvement. If you take like, a 911 gt2 and replace the stock shocks with crap e-bay shocks, you are not going to have a great time. That's not to say our stock system is good by any measure, but it isn't crap.

The second perhaps greater issue, is that some shock companies invested in advertising, especially advertising to the import tuner scene, and some shock companies focused on building good, effective products. Unfortunately, unless you go to the track, the vocal majority who go by shiny adds seem to be the most vocal. That's why on this forum you see everyone raving about BC Racing shocks and stance, while they are basically unheard of on the track. No one here seems to ask about established companies with long histories and heavy track experience, like bilstein, koni, kw, ohlins, jrz, moton.

Related is the issue that it is really hard to gauge performance. the vast majority of people who purchase after market suspension never track their car, and never have their car driven by professional drivers. It's basically blind leading the blind. What feels better to novice drivers isn't actually fast. So the smart companies that focus on advertising, focus on making products that feel like they are a lot different than stock shocks, and not necessarily on performance, and people buy them, and think they are super awesome because now their car jumps around everywhere and is intolerable to sit in, so they think it is super-awesome-hardcore, while they have probably never actually sat in something with awesome road-going and track ready suspension, like porsche 911 or m3/m5's.

But then again, if you don't track your car, why build your car for the track? If lowering your car, having it look like you want it to look, impressing your friends with intolerable suspension, and being light on your wallet is your goal, and you never track your car and need the car to handle well and predictably at the limit, why get track focused shocks?

 

Better reading on the Z forum for any sort of performance suspension info.