Opinions on these coilovers

[connorp]

http://www.europerformance.co.uk/pages/p...uct=191359
Any good or not, and apparently you can adjust the ride height at the back as well as front but surely not because of the torsion bar?

[Eeyore]

Where does it say it will lower the rear? It wont. You need to get the rear beam lowered properly. And thats not using the nick method!

Tbh everyone loves and hates every kind of coilovers. AP isnt a terrible brand as far as my knowledge goes. £300 is cheap enough. I think my AVOs were the best part of £550. TA technics are about £150 a set so youre kind of bang in the middle of budget to mid range.

[welshpug]

NO.

buy B8's or konis.

[RetroPug]

Where does it say it will lower the rear? It wont. You need to get the rear beam lowered properly. And thats not using the nick method!

Tbh everyone loves and hates every kind of coilovers. AP isnt a terrible brand as far as my knowledge goes. £300 is cheap enough. I think my AVOs were the best part of £550. TA technics are about £150 a set so youre kind of bang in the middle of budget to mid range.

Except engineers.
Engineers hate all cheap dampers.

To be good, dampers need to be a minimum cost because a) the development of them is expensive and b) because the internal parts have to be very precisely manufactured. I've heard of examples of cheap dampers having different damping rates damper to damper, so various corners of the vehicle have different damping rates.

"feels good" isn't an indication of how good vehicle suspension actually is. Often a vehicle with ridiculously, overly stiff springs and silly low profile tyres "feels good" because it has a sharp turn-in when really max. lateral load will almost certainly be lower and stability will be worse.

So when people are giving mixed reviews about how their new coilovers feel online that essentially doesn't tell you much about whether or not they are any good, unfortunately.

Agree with WP. Get a good quality set of dampers and springs eg. B8s instead of cheap coilovers and the car will be objectively better at going around corners. Ideally, you'd buy something to get slightly lower and slightly stiffer than OEM, that is manufactured precisely, to a known quality. B8s and Eibachs achieve this. Cheap coilover kits probably don't.

[Eeyore]

What? I said love and hate.... its always mixed reviews... ive never heard of one coilover that has consistently good reviews...

[lolsteve]

ta technics 4 lyfe

[Eeyore]

ta technics 4 lyfe

better than stock rover suspension.... and what? 

[RetroPug]

What? I said love and hate.... its always mixed reviews... ive never heard of one coilover that has consistently good reviews...

I'm just expanding on what you said, not trying to put your input down.

People will say they love them and people will say they hate them. The fact that most suspension upgrades receive mixed feedback, plus the subjectivity of assessments of suspension feeling don't add up to a reliable way to determine how good a suspension setup actually is.

I'm just tacking my own advice on the end which is to buy something of a known good quality.

[Eeyore]

gdgd. Things come across in many ways on the internet

[Ash J]

For the road I wouldn't even use coilovers.

From my experience, most people who have bought coilovers for their cars (not just 306s, any car) first and foremost buy them so they can 'lower their car'. Their priority does not seem to be handling, even though we hear all the time how cars 'corner so much better' with coilovers fitted.

Coilovers are mostly pointless for a road car anyway. You set them at a height which you want your car at, and then in most cases they are just left like that. And then they seize (the crap brands at least anyway).

Not to forget how harsh the ride is on coilovers, particularly on budget - mid range brands.

Bilstein B6/B8s and Eibachs for the road. If you can't stretch to B6/B8s, then even a new set of B4s with Eibachs, and rear beam lowered to suit, would sharpen up the handling no end compared to most peoples suspension which could be 15-18 years old.

[welshpug]

coilovers are fine on the road if theyre decent units with well chosen springs.

[7057sam]

ta technics 4 lyfe

Haha this /\

Although I have now got kw's now, I'd never say a bad word about my ta's

[connorp]

So what sort of price am I looking at for the b8's a and eibachs and also who can lower my torsion bar? And what is this 'proper' way of lowering you speak of because I had it done on my 106 by just removing the bar and jacking the hub so it lowered it to the desired level

[lolsteve]

ta technics 4 lyfe

better than stock rover suspension.... and what? 

The mk2s suspension is actually really nice and comfy, makes me think bluey had something broken( which doesn't surprise me with the mismatch rear beam)

[welshpug]

people dont realise that proper height adjustable coilovers worth buying start near the grand mark, most even at that price will not have much damping adjustment if at all, not a bad thing as ithat a cornerhe valving that bumps the price up in part.

competition stuff is knocking on the door of a grand a corner for the stuff thatll cope with the battering they get without overheating half way through a stage, proper wrc stuff is five times that per corner and will be rebuilt every few thousand km.

there are one or two small exceptions to that rule for road use like tge kw's which afaik are essentially a koni fast road insert in an adjustable height leg, the bilstein challenge dampers are using their 40mm inverted insert from the group a 205 with a std spring platform and lower damping rates to match the much softer springs.

the b8 306 stuff is constructed very similarly, where the b6 is just an uprated b4.

---

my experience of avos is that they leak, even the motorsport stuff, yeah they have a decent rep for servicing, but we would rather finish a small rally season without blowing a damper, were only on belgian tarmac!!

thankfully the new saxo I service for sits on proflex, they were old so did need a service atraight off, but since then not a single problem.


ride quality on gaz is horrendous, especially on a 205, no amount of fiddling with the knobs helped they rust for fun too, banged on some bilstein gravel dampers, transformed!!

koni did the job as well as bilstein b6's, seem to last years too

spax, gmax, ap, raceland, please just NO.

[Piggy]

I got GAZ coilies from Anton who had them rebuilt not long before I had them...amazing leap forward from the B4s and anyone thats been in my car n knows cars never guesses they are in coilovers. Adjustable damping too

[adam b]

I don't mind my kw v2s but I had to go for softer springs. A touch too stiff for my taste on the road. Always been a softer spring, matched damping person - cars stick better if attached to the road