Let's talk coilovers

[JustinIsLegend]

That's how I figured it would go, bunch of people who asked the questions before and now are too good to help others. Thanks anyway, guess i'll take my search elsewhere.

[DocWalt]

That's how I figured it would go, bunch of people who asked the questions before and now are too good to help others. Thanks anyway, guess i'll take my search elsewhere.

http://www.3sgto.org/f17/bilstein-in...ruts-3675.html

That with some good lowering springs. If you want to slam your car and forego any handling buy some cheap Megans and drop it. If you want handling, buy some KWs or if you want the very best handling buy SCEs adapters and respring/revalve some high end Evo struts/shocks for a 3s.

[JustinIsLegend]

http://www.3sgto.org/f17/bilstein-in...ruts-3675.html

That with some good lowering springs. If you want to slam your car and forego any handling buy some cheap Megans and drop it. If you want handling, buy some KWs or if you want the very best handling buy SCEs adapters and respring/revalve some high end Evo struts/shocks for a 3s.

I'm having the pieces professionally put together and installed by a buddy of mine, so that part i'm definitely aware of, my only real concern is, Do the perches come with the coil sleeve, the strut? or are they bought seperate? and what exactly are they used for

let's just start there so I don't overwhelm the car gods with questions -_- I'm not going to be filling this thread up with already answered questions I just have a few things i'm confused about that I want to get covered by a group of people that I trust to lead me down the right path

[J. Fast]

Hold on a minute here and lets not get too far ahead of ourselves. The question was asked about lowering the ride height more than a Tein S tech? If my memory serves me correcly that drops the stock height roughly 1 1/2"? You're in a completely different realm when you're pushing it lower. You start toying with significant ride height deviations and you're going to change the roll center and a few other portions of the geometry. Everything starts getting a little more fucked up when you add the toe adjustment from the all wheel steering. If you're shooting for lower you need more armiture adjustment points or should modify the subframe to correct the geometry. I would actually hedge a $100 bet to anyone with a tein or megan coilover. Set rideheight to stock, set ride height to 1" lower, and set rideheight to 2" lower. Don't change any dampening... I bet the lowest setting isn't the fastest. Not only that but when you lean on it I bet it gets sloppy and you start understeering terribly and chewing the shit out of the shoulder of the front tires.

Wouldn't you know it on that Bilstein link DG posted Mitsubishi has an off the shelf Evo PSS9 (B12). You can customize the valving and springs . That's about as easy as it's going to get unless you want to modify a perch or take a strut apart if you want to adapt a Bilstein.

Get away from the mindset that the lower you make your car the better it will handle and the faster you will go. There's additional adjustments that need to be considered and compensated to actually make a car faster. I'd actually hedge a another bet on stock ECS that says on hard setting a car lowered 1" is faster than one lowered 2" or more, or one with stock ride height.

If you're after performance there's lots to consider. If you're after looks, slam it, it doesnt matter!

[anyonebutme]

You are not going to have good handling when you slam our cars, just not possible without redesigning the subframe/suspension pickup points. You are going to have to give up something somewhere. The lower you go the stiffer it has to be to stop bottoming, and that doesn't take into account the geometry that goes screwball when you slam a car. From what it sounds to me, what you are looking for are just simple lowering springs on stock ECS or bilstein inserts. Megan and Intrax are the lowest drop of the drop-in springs.

Note: I've ridden in a GC equipped 3S, and as the kit comes, it rode like complete ass and was borderline dangerous without helper springs. Without shortening the shock or adding helpers, the ride is extremely "bumpy" as the car just bounces on top of the spring, and adds the potential of spring jacking over bumps or when the suspension unloads.

[edit]: looks like I type too slow

[J. Fast]

Agreed, when your tires leave the pavement unintentionally in a turn you'll pucker your ass real quick and prolly go farming!

[vr4tune]

And as far as sourcing parts go, our example amp was made by Onkyo between 1992 and 1999, and in small numbers. While it has all the key features desired in an amp, the digital inputs on this amp use a proprietary Onkyo connector designed for a short-lived attempt at building a competitor for the iPod. The connectors are electrically identical to HDMI, but use an Onkyo-specific socket that was never adopted by the rest of the market. Accordingly, the only way to get an HDMI signal into our rare amp is to have custom cables made, using an HDMI to leads cable from Digi-Key mated to a surplus Onkyo plug from OnkyoSX.com. No matter how much we beg and plead to Radio Shack to build a pre-assembled cable for us, they aren't interested in building one-stop-shopping cables for an out of production amp owned by a handful of diehard fans. The only way to get the cable we need is to source the parts separately.

I've stretched that analogy about as far as it can go.... but you get the picture. Or at least, you should, if you are capable of logical reasoning.

DG

Sounds like AMR is that radio shack you've been wanting.

[JustinIsLegend]

Hold on a minute here and lets not get too far ahead of ourselves. The question was asked about lowering the ride height more than a Tein S tech? If my memory serves me correcly that drops the stock height roughly 1 1/2"? You're in a completely different realm when you're pushing it lower. You start toying with significant ride height deviations and you're going to change the roll center and a few other portions of the geometry. Everything starts getting a little more fucked up when you add the toe adjustment from the all wheel steering. If you're shooting for lower you need more armiture adjustment points or should modify the subframe to correct the geometry. I would actually hedge a $100 bet to anyone with a tein or megan coilover. Set rideheight to stock, set ride height to 1" lower, and set rideheight to 2" lower. Don't change any dampening... I bet the lowest setting isn't the fastest. Not only that but when you lean on it I bet it gets sloppy and you start understeering terribly and chewing the shit out of the shoulder of the front tires.

Wouldn't you know it on that Bilstein link DG posted Mitsubishi has an off the shelf Evo PSS9 (B12). You can customize the valving and springs . That's about as easy as it's going to get unless you want to modify a perch or take a strut apart if you want to adapt a Bilstein.

Get away from the mindset that the lower you make your car the better it will handle and the faster you will go. There's additional adjustments that need to be considered and compensated to actually make a car faster. I'd actually hedge a another bet on stock ECS that says on hard setting a car lowered 1" is faster than one lowered 2" or more, or one with stock ride height.

If you're after performance there's lots to consider. If you're after looks, slam it, it doesnt matter!

I didn't say I wanted to make it perform better for one...I said I want to close the wheel gap a bit...

Realistically i'd only go an inch lower than the Tien S Techs which are only...1.5" ? I go to meets regularly and see a ton of people in the 3S crowd that go lower than 1.5" safely, I'm not trying to roll the fenders and slam the car to the ground

This is realistically probably slightly lower than I would want to be, and i'm not getting that kind of drop with springs


Is it unrealistic to say my car could go that low with coilovers without massive adjustments and changing everything? I don't mind USING THE FUNCTIONS on the coil overs...otherwise why are the adjustments there?

and i'm not tracking or sliding this car, is the above picture too low for daily driving?

[MR2]

depending on your local roads...yes.

my car wasn't even lowered and it gave me shits when on Teins(was actually lifted compared to Teins recommendation) the reason you probably see more problems with Teins over other Coil-overs is due to Market share aka the shear shitload of them floating around on people's cars.

[IPD]

Ah, OK.

Well then, let's run with this analogy:

Let's assume that I am, in fact, an audiophile. How would I determine which cables to run?

Let's assume a digital source (like HDMI) into an amp, then an analogue, high-level powered source into the speakers.

For the digital signal, I know that all the cable has to do is convey a logic high and logic low. As long as the cable is not introducing noise strong enough to trigger a low into a high or vice versa (which is so much noise that the cable is probably broken or acting as an antenna) then the signal is, for all intents and purposes, perfect. A cheap, basic cable will do the job just fine. Any gold-plating, copper conductors, heavier gauge wire etc on a digital cable is completely superfluous and is an increase in price for no benefit. In shock terms, this is the choice between the OEM Z06 shock (basic cable) and a set of Penskes adjusted to produce OEM forces (Monster Cable).

For the analogue cable, I'd do a quick calculation equating the peak RMS power I expected to run through those cables as a function of voltage and resistance. I'd then spec out a cable that could transmit that much power, and buy the cheapest thing that met that spec. Then I'd connect a frequency generator to the amp, connect a mike to a frequency analyzer and put the mike about where I'd expect to sit when listening to the system. I'd then step through a frequency range and adjust the equalizer on the amp so that, given the same strength input, to produce the same volume at the listening point across the frequency range. For bonus points, I might even consider using the results of my last hearing test to attenuate the frequencies I have trouble hearing, so as to produce a flat response to my ears instead of a pure flat response.

If I was having trouble doing that across the spectrum, I might suspect the cable. If that were the case, I'd hook up a dual-trace scope - one input at the head of the cable, one at the tail - and overlay the traces on each other. If there was a real difference in the traces, that would mean the cable was inducing error and I'd replace the cable with something better. But if the waveforms are identical, or the tail is identical in profile but slightly less in amplitude than the head, then the cable is fine and it is either the amp or the speakers at fault.

How I'd test the amp and speakers we can omit, because we are talking cables here after all.

What I would NOT do is go out and buy Monster Cable because they are shiny and/or expensive. I TEST my shit and make decisions based on the indicators in the data.

It is the Megans, Teins, JIC, Buddy Club etc that are the "Monster Cables" here. Shiny, grossly overpriced for what you are getting, and ultimately, ineffective (and, I might add, with their dedicated fan clubs notwithstanding the evidence). The basic cable that gets the job done as cheaply as possible is the OEM ECS shock, or the Bilstein.

And as far as sourcing parts go, our example amp was made by Onkyo between 1992 and 1999, and in small numbers. While it has all the key features desired in an amp, the digital inputs on this amp use a proprietary Onkyo connector designed for a short-lived attempt at building a competitor for the iPod. The connectors are electrically identical to HDMI, but use an Onkyo-specific socket that was never adopted by the rest of the market. Accordingly, the only way to get an HDMI signal into our rare amp is to have custom cables made, using an HDMI to leads cable from Digi-Key mated to a surplus Onkyo plug from OnkyoSX.com. No matter how much we beg and plead to Radio Shack to build a pre-assembled cable for us, they aren't interested in building one-stop-shopping cables for an out of production amp owned by a handful of diehard fans. The only way to get the cable we need is to source the parts separately.

I've stretched that analogy about as far as it can go.... but you get the picture. Or at least, you should, if you are capable of logical reasoning.

DG

completely missed the part where the non-audiophile buys the $20 component cable to replace the non-functioning OEM $10 cable because it provides a signal acceptable to him--regardless of factors that require a degree in electronic engineering to compute.

i'm happy for you that you "test your shit". and when someone is looking for the absolute hard-line facts about what is unequivocally "the best hands down", i'm sure your input will be of indispensable value to them. meanwhile, there are people who don't have OEM shit to use, and to whom going down to wally-world & buying a cheapo analog cable is sufficiently capable enough to outweigh the hassle of assembling piecemeal. perfect solution? no. acceptable performance for non-discriminating people who don't want to dick with the time and possibly expense of piece by piece assembly? most certainly.

it's the same reason why most computers are sold pre-assembled still today. can you get faster/better by doing it yourself? possibly. does that invalidate the market for pre-made computers? last time i checked, dell & HP were still far outselling newegg & tiger-direct.

again, i'm glad for your input. what i don't care for--and isn't serving any purpose other than to thump your own chest--is the elitist attitude that anyone who DOESN'T shop like you shop...is an idiot.