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it was alyays my intention to lower the car for a lil bit of improvment on handling. has anyone ever fitted a coilover set to their 2? i wouldnt fit the stiffest one available but i would go for a softer set up just for everyday usage. id like to have a more sharper feel of the suspension and something that will handle the superchargers power. any help appreciated the cheap coilover setups available for the AW11 range from uncomfortable to plain dangerous. your only sensible option for now is to just run coilover sleeves, such as Ground Controls. you can then choose your own spring rates, and just run Koni inserts for damping. there are some proper options, but theyre expensive. a set of custom built Ohlins for example would set you back anything from £2500 upwards.(boy were they hard) 
- Rose SOLD- Lightning The range of adjustment is spot on and it handles beautifully. As mentioned, there's not much option for coilovers unless you want to spend a fortune or are happy to settle for some horrific £300 set up from eBay which will be dangerous, cheap and rock solid.- massive improvements for £140 outlay and some elbow grease. shocks be bought easily? or do i have to buy inserts and do it that way? is there anyone reputable that sells the koni shocks and lowering springs as a set? and also what lowering is recommended? theres loads of places that sell Konis, the prices are all fairly similar now, they tend to cost somewhere around the £500/set mark (with springs) iirc. this time last year you could get them for under £400 though, Koni whacked all their prices up when the recession hit. old springs sag, so your 20+ year old springs are already lowered by potentially a couple of inches. drop more than an inch from where youre already likely at and the geometry gets messed up and youll just be bottoming out the Koni dampers all the time.(do a google search) or tein super streets. you sound like you have a simular taste in suspension feel to me and i would aim toward these 2 if you are adimant about coilovers.....phipck wrote:what about hsd coilovers
avoid d2 and k-sport for soft springs, they need to have firm springs installed for them to work ok.
their dampers look near enough identical to BC Racing kit, but are alledgedly not just rebranded. they still scream Taiwanese though, which means inferior quality and performance to European product. BC Racing do make an AW11 set and it doesnt look awful at first glance. they need some proper testing though from a knowledgeable and neutral source, at present the only reviews ive read have either been from sales agents or people that think Teins have good ride quality (which they dont if youve ever compared them to something from the likes of Ohlins, Exe-TC, KW, Koni, etc). run soft springs and they collapse in bump and then barely have enough force from the spring to expand again. the ride becomes unbelievably harsh and grip suffers badly. you could write a book on their problems as well, some are quality related some are just inherent design flaws. its an old car and nobody is showing any interest in producing anything decent for it. there is an obsession with monotube designs over twin tubes (which is absurd for cheap road car dampers) and the end result is low quality Taiwanese product with poor ride quality and poor performance to boot.millentubby wrote:If you intend using your mk1 on the road then i'd forget about coilovers.
..- one standard(ish) weight and one v. lightened. With the former and the spring rates LEDA specced it was more comfortable on a lower setting than the 'standard' Koni, 30% uprated spring type set ups I had on several MR2s. It was perfectly acceptable for daily road use.(of handling and grip) beyond that of the Koni set ups (though they were very good too) plus the spring rates could be changed v.easily to suit the purpose.(Koni and LEDA) had polybushes and uprated arbs too.(450lb/in front and 300lb/in rear) and wasn't ever so comfortable but could still be used OK to air it or drive to a track.- then just drop in some KYB adjustable dampers and spec you own spring poundage. You would probably be able to get a sweet set up for maybe £400 which will xxxx all over alot branded stuff.they still scream Taiwanese though, which means inferior quality and performance to European product.
It maybe a European brand but you can bet you ass its been manufactured in Asia. At the end of the day you have good brands and you have bad brands, and they all make their parts to a price; where it actually comes from is irrelevant these days.Bender Unit wrote:they still scream Taiwanese though, which means inferior quality and performance to European product.
Sorry the Europeans turn out just as much xxxx as the Taiwanese.
Taiwanese and Chinese production is improving all the time, and youre right, most stuff gets outsourced now anyway. but that simply isnt the case with dampers, which is what i am talking about. the quality is high, sometimes so are the prices."developed" (i say it in inverted commas because there isnt any car-specific testing and development, which is why the damping is so poor) and manufactured in Taiwan and China. the problems arent a function of poor manufacturing standards, which is what you have read into my comments. they are a function of the people designing them having no idea what damping a car requires for good performance, comfort and durability, and targeting profits over quality. the top European and American brands have a long history in dampers, and that is the difference in quality and performance. but if a Taiwanese company tried to build a Formula 1 car the same as the Brawn GP from this season they would fail, miserably. the reason being that there is decades of knowledge and experience behind the success of an F1 team, and the same applies to the components on the car (e.g. dampers in this case). you cant just manufacture something based on simple ideas and visual appearance and expect it to perform the same as the products from companies that have been doing it for decades at the highest levels of motorsport (which is where pretty much ALL of the major development occurs). what kind of serious motorsport does Taiwan have?/rant over 
Jim-SR wrote:
kaiowas wrote:Jim-SR wrote:
Now that you're finished, any chance of you putting your knowledge and contacts to good use and developing a decent set of reasonably priced coilovers for a mk1
the term "reasonably priced" is misleading though. id say a set of Ohlins are reasonably priced. ok, so they start out at around £3000 lol, but you get what you pay for Jim-SR wrote:kaiowas wrote:Jim-SR wrote:
Now that you're finished, any chance of you putting your knowledge and contacts to good use and developing a decent set of reasonably priced coilovers for a mk1
already working on it.
"Converted Konis" plan. Prepared to spend up to about 1k for the right product though if you can recommend anything else.(so needs to be drivable on the road although comfort isn't a concern, just so long as it's safe and won't shake itself apart). Weight is currently about 930kg (plus driver) although I'm aiming for sub 900. Don't really know how weight distribution is although I've tried to concentrate my efforts on shifting it forward from stock. if youre lacking in bump damping then spring rate has to compensate. probably somewhere around 225/250 upto 300/350 for road and track use, depending on preference. if youre running Konis (which are the only decent option for under a grand at present) then probably toward the stiffer end of that scale.£800.here for their website or for a little info from RHD Japan"OK" or "good" reports I've heard from coil-over users on AW11's have been from avid trackdayers using Leda coilovers with a lot of other suspension upgrade including adjustable topmounts, full poly bush, uprated ARB's etc... to do it properly you're in for a couple of grand at least.(USA, OZ & NZ).-35mm Pi Springs on my original track car and my current track car until a set of decent priced adjustable came up. The ride was very, very harsh on this setup, but I also had a set of rear dampers fitted to the front and as such not the best in terms of handling performance.(except front dampers for the fronts).-30mm spring (forget the brand). I run then mid (rear) / Soft (front) dampening on the road and hard (rear) and near hard (front) on track. It's a brilliant compromise for us.| 99 528i SE Touring | 01 Mandarin VX220 They look pretty but I doubt very much they work as well as a properly engineered setup. 