Just how “good” are the really good coilovers?

Miata content, but I believe this question spans all makes. 

My miata came with these maxpeedingrods eBay coilovers. God awful damping. The springs were stiff and that’s about it for Performance. 

So when looking at coilovers, there seem to be tiers. There’s the 500-800$ range, which is basically height adjustable and that’s it. 

Then there is $1,000-$1,500 range. These seem to be adjustable damping and spring height. 

There is the $1,700-$2,000 mark. I’m not sure what the difference is here. 

And then there is crap like Ohlins and xida, they are up to $3,000 for a set. 

Can anyone give me the low down on the differences of these higher tiers? What are you paying for that is so inhumanly expensive. 

Proper valving and spring rates, along with adjustability. and construction. For example, the Ohlins have their ridiculous DFV dual valving technology.  The Fox coilovers have much more travel and are properly valved to run pretty stiff spring rates without beating the daylights out of you.

A lot of it depends on what you are doing with your car. Case in point: When I put coilovers on my Miata, I was casually autocrossing it, running 205-width Dunlop ZII Star Specs, and a 92whp 1.6L. So I went with FM VMaxx Classics, because it seemed appropriate. Jump forward 3 years and it's now running 225-width Rival S 1.5s (Soon to be 245 width) with a 245whp supercharged 1.8L. Those VMaxx Classics that worked great back then, now do not have enough spring rate to keep the tires on the ground, it's constantly lifting the inside rear, even without a rear sway bar, and with a Torsen that means it just burns that tire off. I need more spring rate, but the Classics can't handle it because they don't have enough damping, so now I'm making the jump to Fox

The bodies may be treated differently - the Kashima coat on Fox costs more, but it makes the shock basically impervious to the elements. Cheaper units will be painted steel or maybe zinc coated. Inside, you'll see differences like ground vs stamped shims and high quality seals. Rebuildability is another benefit, a lot of the lower-priced coilovers are crimped together and cannot be rebuilt. The quality of the metallurgy in the springs is also better in the higher-priced units, and they may also include features such as custom upper mounts or Torrington bearings on the perches. The high end ones are also basically hand-built instead of pumped out of a factory.

I have had Fox engineers shaking their heads at the prices being asked for Ohlins, though  Those seem to be on sale all the time.

And of course, you've got the R&D. Most of the high end parts will have real testing behind them, not a quickie spreadsheet like you'll see on the flood of cheap Chinese parts. That does have a cost.

Do NOT take "adjustable preload" as a feature. It's a way to use generic inserts in a wide range of coilovers by screwing an adapter on the end, which is great for keeping the cost down. Spring preload is not a thing. What really happens is the generic inserts have shorter shaft travel than a full length shock would offer, so you have to trade off compression travel for droop or vice versa. A properly sized full length shock (such as Fox or V-Maxx) will offer as much travel as the suspension geometry will allow. Adjustable preload (aka two-piece shocks) is an indication of a setup that hasn't been properly engineered for the platform.

Any thoughts from the hive on BC coilovers? They seem like great value on paper.

In addition to what has been said above, better C/Os are more evenly matched in valving from one to another, their adjustability is usually more finite and comes in a range that is actually usable for your application, and is much less likely to foam, fade or lock up on you during heavy track use. 

I will probably never have any high end coil overs that aren't on one of my bikes, but the differences there are night and day. 

Keith Tanner said:

 

Do NOT take "adjustable preload" as a feature.

I think you are referring to adjustable ride height such as BC coilovers rather than adjustable preload which is standard on pretty much any set of adjustable coilovers from the cheapest ebay spec to top of the line motorsport setups.

For a car like a Miata where there a lot of great options specifically designed for that application the BC style isn't a great option for all of the reasons Keith mentioned. I will say that the more universal style with adjustable ride height has opened up more affordable suspension options for cars such as mine (BMW E28) that aren't typically used as track cars with sticky tires, I wish I had a bit more stroke length though.

Adam

Can you define both "adjustable ride height" and "adjustable preload" for me so I know we're talking about the same thing?

I'm referring to shocks that are built in two pieces so you can adjust the length of the overall shock body. This is often marketed as "adjustable preload", but sometimes they'll get on about separating ride height from preload. This is what I'm talking about below.

The big advantage is in production. If it means it opens up options like obsolete BMWs, that's awesome. It's the same way we used to get strut inserts from some cars and put them in the adapters for others when there were no shocks left for the Mazda GTX. But if you have the choice between a multi-piece and a single-piece shock, the latter will be superior if all else is equal.

It's a Miata. There are only two choices worth it until you hit the $1000+ per corner price point.

Pick what you want to do with the car.

Pick what tires or type (200TW or RComps)

Call Emilio or Keith, order either XIDAs or FOX in the appropriate spring rate for your desired tire/activity. Done.

You left off the Penske/spool valve/G-sensitive bracket, where $3k will get you a coilover...

Edit: Oh and above that is McLaren FRICS...price is unknown but likely deep into the 5-digits.

In reply to Dave M :

I think they can be a decent solution depending on the application and your expectations. I personally have a set of Fortune Auto 500 series on my car and I've been pretty happy with them, if I could order them again after a lot more research and first hand experience I would do things a bit differently and based on my dealings with them after I purchased I think they would've been happy to make those changes. In my case I would've gone with lower spring rates then they have spec'd for my car (even though it is used mostly as a track car) and tried to get longer stroke shock absorbers. Having said that the car does ride reasonably well with the spring rates and dampening the way it is and it performs very well on track. Do your research on your specific application and try to find reviews of what others have found to help you make a decision.

There is a company that is offering the BC coilovers with Bilstein pistons substituted in (RedShift BC/Bilstein), if I had known about that I may have gone with those instead of my fortunes. I suspect if I want to delve inside my shocks I could retrofit those pistons into mine as well but that is a giant can of worms to open.

Adam

In reply to Keith Tanner :

I agree 100% with what you have said, I think the "adjustable preload" leads to confusion as that typically refers to adjustment to the springs rather than overall length of the shock. Maybe that was the goal of whoever was marketing it using those terms.

BC racing "feature" - Height Adjustment Independent Of Spring Compression

Adam

z31maniac said:

It's a Miata. There are only two choices worth it until you hit the $1000+ per corner price point.

Pick what you want to do with the car.

Pick what tires or type (200TW or RComps)

 

Call Emilio or Keith, order either XIDAs or FOX in the appropriate spring rate for your desired tire/activity. Done.

 

 

That’s great and All, but an uneducated customer gets lead around by the hook in his mouth. 

Side question- is there any substantial, tangible evidence to the $3,000 coilovers our performing a set of $1,000 coilovers? Or even $600 coilovers? 

For instance, is there a guy that shows up to the autocross with a set of Xida’s, and all the other auto crossers  just go home because they know they can’t touch that guy? LOL, dumb question to ask as far as plausibility, but you get what I’m getting at.

_ said:

z31maniac said:

It's a Miata. There are only two choices worth it until you hit the $1000+ per corner price point.

Pick what you want to do with the car.

Pick what tires or type (200TW or RComps)

 

Call Emilio or Keith, order either XIDAs or FOX in the appropriate spring rate for your desired tire/activity. Done.

 

 

That’s great and All, but an uneducated customer gets lead around by the hook in his mouth. 

Then start searching terms like hysterisis, digressive valving, high speed and low speed damping, why adjustable rebound is more important than adjustable compression, etc.

Keith has already given a long reply explaining what those differences are.

Are you looking for a deep, textbook education on suspension, or, trying to talk yourself out of spending the money on higher quality coilover?

In terms of sheer lap time, yes. In terms of ride quality, that's harder to quantify without a bunch of cool equipment and the ability to interpret the data. The three tiers (in the Miata world) are basically <$500, $500-1500, $1500+. You'll see step changes in each of those in terms of speed and ride quality.

One thing you have to keep in mind is that "coilover" is not a magic word. In Miatas, it basically means "perch can be adjusted". It doesn't imply anything else. They allow you to corner-weight the car, they allow you to adjust your ride height (within a certain range) and they often use a generic spring size so you can swap springs out. But that's it. If there's a good spring/shock combo out there that suits your needs, it may be a better choice than coilovers in the same price range. Or it may not.

I don't suggest our Fox suspension to everyone, as it's not always the right choice for the use case. In many cases our FM spring/Koni combos do the job very nicely. In fact, I just realized that we have GRM coming here in a week or so and every car I've got lined up for them is on Konis or V-Maxx 

FYI, here's an outsider test of a bunch of different modified Miatas. Sam chose not to name names when he didn't like a suspension, but you will see comments on how the different setups work. Plus it's a fun read.

https://www.roadandtrack.com/car-culture/a32131/miatas-at-mazda-raceway-miatagasm-mega-test/

Good info, I've purchased some Koni DA's with quality adjusting sleeves to replace the control arm mounted springs on my Mustang.  Moving the spring is a huge improvement in it's self in my case, better damping and spring rate is just the icing on the cake.  $3k new $900 used, that I can handle.

The guy that sold me these was going to Penske's for autocross, so he is really spending in an attempt to make a mustang corner.

In reply to adam525i :

Thanks! I've got a Pontiac Solstice, so I think my options are to scrounge up an old set of used GMPP shocks/springs (not excited about this for a variety of reasons) or go with (1) either BC adjustable coilovers or KW non-adjustable at a $1k.$1.5k price-point, (2) KW adjustable at a $2.7k price point or (3) Penske's at $4.6k. It's a track car, but I'm not racing so the Penske's seem excessive.

akylekoz said:

Good info, I've purchased some Koni DA's with quality adjusting sleeves to replace the control arm mounted springs on my Mustang.  Moving the spring is a huge improvement in it's self in my case, better damping and spring rate is just the icing on the cake.  $3k new $900 used, that I can handle.

That's why I specified the Miata world for my coilover definition. Cars that don't have coil-over-shock suspensions from the factory can pick up different benefits.

_ said:

Side question- is there any substantial, tangible evidence to the $3,000 coilovers our performing a set of $1,000 coilovers? Or even $600 coilovers? 

For instance, is there a guy that shows up to the autocross with a set of Xida’s, and all the other auto crossers  just go home because they know they can’t touch that guy? LOL, dumb question to ask as far as plausibility, but you get what I’m getting at.

Tanibile evidence?  Sure.  Lots of people reporting before/after lap times from changing suspension.

If you were to rank the things you can easily change in order of importance for laptime, damper tuning comes in somewhere around #3, after driver skill and tires.  More power might be more important than dampers or might not, that's going to depend on the course.  ('easily changed' because reducing weight is always better, but it's usually hard to get enough out of any kind of dual-purpose car to make a huge difference)

I say "dampers" because the important bits of the coilover system are the shocks (really dampers) themselves.  The spring perches, threaded sleeves, upper mounts, etc are all good, but they're way less important than proper damping.

(BTW, my understanding is that Xidas are really tuned more for big road courses than autox)

For track use or in autocross you don't see huge gaps in performance just because of better shocks. On a smooth surface you're already starting to get into the diminishing returns with a set of $1000~$1500 coilovers, and unless you have too much money or are really serious about competing with people who do, there's no reason to get up into Ohlins territory or higher for driving on smooth surfaces.

Really high-end shocks make more sense in stage rally or high-speed offroad racing because the surfaces suck and every bit of contact counts.

I also think alot of this boils down to the driver.  For instance my lap times are pretty similar between a set of Koni DA's and a really expensive set of $4000 shocks/struts.  My butt just can't adjust enough to exploit the high dollar suspension...

_ said:

Side question- is there any substantial, tangible evidence to the $3,000 coilovers our performing a set of $1,000 coilovers? Or even $600 coilovers? 

 

Like I said in my first post, my car would be a fair bit faster in an autocross or track with a set of Xidas/Fox/Ohlins over my VMaxx Classics, because it would be able to properly run enough spring rate to keep from lifting the inside rear tire on hard cornering. With a Torsen differential, whenever you lift a tire, the diff essentially goes open, and it starts spinning the inside tire and clawing for traction. And that's just the obvious benefit. 

In reply to z31maniac :

I’ll disagree slightly and add that the Koni “race” shocks - Sports valves for higher spring rates - are really good too. Especially for less than a grand for 4 shocks + another ~$400-$500 for springs & sleeves. P/N 8041 1203Race & 8041 1204Race fyi. 

I don't know as much about the technical lingo as the guys you've already got posting here but I'll say that we can feel a pretty big difference between my expensive 2 way adjustable MCS shocks and my buddies really expensive 2 way adjustable remote reservoir MCS shocks.

On smooth turns/tracks they feel near identical but the way they handle bumps and autox is quite different. The remotes absorb bumps much more easily and feel more confidence inspiring.

Compared to the Koni sports I had before the other thing I've noticed driving the same car on both sets of MCS suspension is that twisting the knobs on the MCS makes a more profound difference in handling balance than the Koni's ever did, with those I usually had to resort to bar or spring changes to get the balance change. on the MCS we haven't changed springs/bars all year because we can always get the balance adjusted back in with just the shocks.

Dave M said:

In reply to adam525i :

Thanks! I've got a Pontiac Solstice, so I think my options are to scrounge up an old set of used GMPP shocks/springs (not excited about this for a variety of reasons) or go with (1) either BC adjustable coilovers or KW non-adjustable at a $1k.$1.5k price-point, (2) KW adjustable at a $2.7k price point or (3) Penske's at $4.6k. It's a track car, but I'm not racing so the Penske's seem excessive.

Does Ground Control offer a setup for your vehicle?

KW's are typically progressive-rate springs until you get to their motorsports level coilovers.