Anyone run Eibach R1 or R2 coilovers?

[Norm Peterson]

It's how I learned to design my last cage to be NASA, SCCA and NHRA compliant. Learn a lot on that forum as long as you dont try to post without first thinking and getting a "feel" for the place.

Fixed.


Norm

 

[DevGittinJr]

By the way, I stand by those PRIVATE messages 100%. I wouldn't change a single word,

Easy, Kenny Powers.

Seriously!? Not one word? They were a bit harsh, and I'd bet you wouldn't speak to him (or any potential customer) like that if he were standing in your shop.

By Terry's measure, no one knows anything about these cars besides Dean Martin - Ford suspension/chassis engineer with a metric shit-ton of wins at the top road racing venues that allow Mustangs (i.e. World Challenge GS & GTS).

Vorshag is great and the staff is knowledgable, but hating on others to promote yours (Terry's M.O.) is bad form.

 

[CobraRed]

Fixed.


Norm

I lurked for 2 years before needing to make an account to post, now my account is 6 years old and 39 posts.

Only when I have direct questions for threads that apply to what I'm currently doing in a build do I really post.

 

[Alex_5.0]

Really didin't expect this thread to turn into this, but none the less got some things to think about. Thanks for the input everyone.

 

[Vorshlag-Fair]

Easy, Kenny Powers.

Seriously!? Not one word? They were a bit harsh, and I'd bet you wouldn't speak to him (or any potential customer) like that if he were standing in your shop.

By Terry's measure, no one knows anything about these cars besides Dean Martin - Ford suspension/chassis engineer with a metric shit-ton of wins at the top road racing venues that allow Mustangs (i.e. World Challenge GS & GTS).

Vorshag is great and the staff is knowledgable, but hating on others to promote yours (Terry's M.O.) is bad form.

note: this would have probably been better as a PM from DevGittinJr to me, but he took it here and is also dragging me through the mud a bit, so I responded here.

First and foremost: Kenny Powers is awesome.

https://youtu.be/XI_9Yxr0blo - He's the MFCEO!

And yes, I'd tell Whiskey this same stuff to his face, with a smile, and honestly was trying for a long time to help him out. Just because someone gets butthurt by the truth doesn't make them suddenly right or justified in their ignorance, nor does it excuse publicly sharing PMs. I have a very low tolerance for keyboard cowboys that pull these stunts, and if I ever see Whiskey at a race (doubtful), don't worry, I'll tell him. But he's pretty stubborn, and doesn't want to change, and seemingly doesn't care about winning. He just likes to argue (as shown by his *massively* long replies from those PMs, yet never answering any of my questions), and goes out of his way to not change anything significant (cheap shocks, unbalanced spring rates, skinny tires, weird suspension doo-dads) on a setup that isn't performing well in competition.

Also, everything seems so much more harsh in text format, and that's the main failure of emails and forums - you lose all kinds of meaning and tone here, versus face to face talks. Also I don't feel that there's only one source for tech here - that's utter nonsense. LOTS of people on this forum have shared their experiences, testing, setup help, and more. But there's still some ignorance in here as well, as there is in any forum. Luckily this has been diminishing here, over time.

The private messages sent to Whiskey were after he sent me PMs telling me how terrible of a business owner I was, after he crapped on dozens of tech posts or replies Jason or I made, after his hundreds of "torque arms are teh awesome!" anti-tech posts, and on and on. It took a lot to get to that point. These PMs were sent to show why I was going out of my way to "counter" his "tech" posts. I was NOT trying to point out his lack of technical knowledge or lack of winning anything at any level publicly, just trying to tell him why I was countering what I felt was "dis-information", and why. He is the one that made them public - because I'm a big meanie, and should be shamed, or something.

Competition is a metric we all use to base opinions off of, or should. Writing a crapload of replies on forums isn't a good indicator of someone's knowledge - some people have crazy high post counts and don't know much about anything, other than how to kill their free time at work. Most other Mustang forums are ruled by masses of know-nothings, but this forum is different... at least this sub-section of this forum. There are real racers here, who do real testing, and don't let fainbois have free reign. If that's not what you want, go back to the Corral and let your brain turn to mush.

The real Corner Carvers forum is the same way - very low tolerance for bad tech - and I've been reading and contributing there for 15 years. I've stepped on a few toes there but for the most part I'm a semi-respected member of the community on that forum, and feel like I am here as well. Again, everything is distorted a bit by the "forum lens", and many of the folks I've argued with over the years online were actually pretty cool in person. We are all car people, in the end, and share more things than not...

OK, if people will quit bringing this crap up, we can get back to the awesomeness of Eibach shocks. Oh wait...

Cheers,

 

[ArizonaGT]

f5f5f5f5f5f5f5f5

 

[Whiskey11]

note: this would have probably been better as a PM from DevGittinJr to me, but he took it here and is also dragging me through the mud a bit, so I responded here.

First and foremost: Kenny Powers is awesome.

https://youtu.be/XI_9Yxr0blo - He's the MFCEO!

And yes, I'd tell Whiskey this same stuff to his face, with a smile, and honestly was trying for a long time to help him out. Just because someone gets butthurt by the truth doesn't make them suddenly right or justified in their ignorance, nor does it excuse publicly sharing PMs. (1)I have a very low tolerance for keyboard cowboys that pull these stunts, and if I ever see Whiskey at a race (doubtful), don't worry, I'll tell him. (2)But he's pretty stubborn, and doesn't want to change, and seemingly doesn't care about winning. He just likes to argue (as shown by his *massively* long replies from those PMs, yet never answering any of my questions), and goes out of his way to not change anything significant (cheap shocks, unbalanced spring rates, skinny tires, weird suspension doo-dads) on a setup that isn't performing well in competition.

Also, everything seems so much more harsh in text format, and that's the main failure of emails and forums - you lose all kinds of meaning and tone here, versus face to face talks. Also I don't feel that there's only one source for tech here - that's utter nonsense. LOTS of people on this forum have shared their experiences, testing, setup help, and more. But there's still some ignorance in here as well, as there is in any forum. Luckily this has been diminishing here, over time.

(3)The private messages sent to Whiskey were after he sent me PMs telling me how terrible of a business owner I was, after he crapped on dozens of tech posts or replies Jason or I made, after his hundreds of "torque arms are teh awesome!" anti-tech posts, and on and on. It took a lot to get to that point. These PMs were sent to show why I was going out of my way to "counter" his "tech" posts. I was NOT trying to point out his lack of technical knowledge or lack of winning anything at any level publicly, just trying to tell him why I was countering what I felt was "dis-information", and why. He is the one that made them public - because I'm a big meanie, and should be shamed, or something.

Competition is a metric we all use to base opinions off of, or should. Writing a crapload of replies on forums isn't a good indicator of someone's knowledge - some people have crazy high post counts and don't know much about anything, other than how to kill their free time at work. Most other Mustang forums are ruled by masses of know-nothings, but this forum is different... at least this sub-section of this forum. There are real racers here, who do real testing, and don't let fainbois have free reign. If that's not what you want, go back to the Corral and let your brain turn to mush.

The real Corner Carvers forum is the same way - very low tolerance for bad tech - and I've been reading and contributing there for 15 years. I've stepped on a few toes there but for the most part I'm a semi-respected member of the community on that forum, and feel like I am here as well. Again, everything is distorted a bit by the "forum lens", and many of the folks I've argued with over the years online were actually pretty cool in person. We are all car people, in the end, and share more things than not...

OK, if people will quit bringing this crap up, we can get back to the awesomeness of Eibach shocks. Oh wait...

Cheers,

To clarify:

(1): I'll be at Nationals in a month, in F-Street. Come tell me to my face. You wont be there because you are "protesting" the SCCA National office after you violated the lateral locating device rule in ESP, ran anyway, requested a clarification and it went the WRONG WAY. You continued to bitch about it, until you finally "gave up" even after it changed to include what you were running not even 2 months later for the next season. To add to that, when dozens of people, who have actually won at Nationals, told you you were wrong this was your professional response to that group:


A grown man can't take a little heat from real competitors so you "take your ball and go home" and have been shitting on the SCCA threads here ever since.

As for tech posts, I think I've brought plenty of tech to this forum. I've posted my experiences for people to take or leave (you've chosen to leave, that's fine). You ignore the reasons why I chose to go to a torque arm (because there was no other option to get forward grip back in ST at the time I purchased it) and I developed that for my car and my driving because it was the only class legal option at that time. I ran in STX because you chose not to. You never even ran your car at a National event in ST and gave up before even fully prepping the car. Had you fully prepped the car, you probably wouldn't have had anything but time into the car because everything transitioned to ESP except the wheels and tires.

Finally, I never claimed to be a fantastic driver. Never have, and never will. I have been autocrossing for four years. It isn't expected for a normal driver to win things within four years of starting racing. Possible, but unlikely for the vast majority of people. But the interesting thing is, when I've been put into competition winning cars (Neal Tovsen's STX winning 328i for instance) I wasn't that far off the owner's pace. I think we'll see just how well I do at Nationals in F-Street since that is the "drivers" class.

(2): You are damn straight I'm stubborn. I don't make six figures and never will. I'm not backed by any sponsors, like a full blown shop, and I don't have access to the tools you do. I can't afford to dump $2800 on a set of coilovers to spend another $100-$200 every other year to rebuild them when their seals start to fail. I don't want to buy your $1000 Whiteline Watts link, nor do I want to buy your excessively heavy Whiteline swaybars. I especially don't want to do it when a proven part (you know that Fays2 unit has been under every winning ESP car since FOREVER) is already on the car. Rather than work with me on car setup, you wanted me to buy more and more parts that were actually better (no doubt AST's are better, never said otherwise), or just a different version of something already on the car, because you wanted to sell me parts, not help me build a car. That's fine, I wasn't a "customer" of yours but I also wasn't soliciting your advise directly. YOU chose to respond to my public build thread. You attempted to make me spend money I didn't have and I resisted. When I wanted help developing the car within what I had already purchased you refused to help. Fine by me, but I don't make decisions on what the best product is because I can't always afford the best part. I instead have to chose between keeping a roof over my head, food on the table, and out of debt before dumping money I don't have on parts I can't afford. I have to chose to maximize the performance within my budget because I don't make enough money to buy the best thing on the planet. That's called real life. Pardon me for choosing the best parts within my budgetary constraints.

(3):No, they were not. You sent me the first message after I told you publicly that you had NO IDEA how my car rode or drove in a thread about spring rates. You said my rear spring rates were SPINECRUSHING and my car handled like a dump truck without ever having driven or ridden in my car. You based your opinions about how my car handled off of videos, not from the driver seat. After you sent the first PM to me, I responded in kind about your lack of professionalism as a business owner by sending a PM to a person dragging your "Wins" in your car setup (still no National championships either right Terry?) to brag about yourself. Your PM was unprofessional and at least one of the admins on this board agreed with me. Rather than respond publicly, you opted to PM me that message instead.

I find it funny though that you chose to crap on my car setup advice (much of which is based on common sense principles that don't require a PHD to understand) when i bring up my own experiences in my own car. There are plenty of people on here who offer up their advice on car setup that you don't shit on, probably because many of them are your customers, which shows your bias ten fold and proves my point in those PM's. You refuse to believe anyone else could possibly set up a car as well as you do unless they do it the same way you do it.

 

[408Stang]

For fuck sake you guys need to race and see what is what.

This is childish. The original poster doesn't care how big either of your dicks are... He just wanted some opinions on shocks/springs. You both have made this post about you and your feelings and not about the topic.

I don't side with either one of you. Someone needs to just take the high road and be humble, not insulted. Tit for tat isn't getting either of you anywhere.

Moderator: make a new forum for "Dick Comparison" and move this conversation there.

 

[stkjock]

Gents - all of you, let's stay on topic please

last time I am asking nicely

 

[Department Of Boost]

Serious question to Vorshlag.

What would you recommend opposed to the Eibach R2's in the $2400 price range?

 

[408Stang]

I know I'm not Vorshlag but....
KW V3's are in that price range.

 

[Department Of Boost]

I know I'm not Vorshlag but....
KW V3's are in that price range.

Those look like a decent option.

This is what I see as cons with those:

-Gotta get under the car (while hot) to adjust. Not something you need to do with the R2's.

-They have progressive springs....which should be put in the garbage. And then replaces with linear rate springs, which represents a cost.

-They are twin tube/twin piston non gas charged dampers (basically motorcycle forks). Not a true mono tube. They seem to work pretty well (I have done a lot of work with the Clubsports which are effectively the same), but I prefer a mono tube gas charge setups.

Again, I'm nit picking. The KW's are pretty good. I would rather have the extra features and the mono tube design of the R2's myself.

 

[dontlifttoshift]

What would you recommend opposed to the Eibach R2's in the $2400 price range?

BOOM! http://www.s197forum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=121494

 

[Department Of Boost]

BOOM! http://www.s197forum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=121494

Well yes, for a one time deal your used ones....are the ones.

 

[claudermilk]

LOL. I'm sure there's about a dozen of us who have been looking at the classified thread thinking then looking at our bank accounts vs bills and thinking I know I so want them, but the bank statement says "NOPE"

 

[Sky Render]

What about Cortex Racing's "street" coilovers?

http://cortexracing.com/product/xtreme-grip-coil-over-system-2005-2014-s197-mustang-street/

Those are a little more than $2,600 with options (closer to $3k), but I've been seriously considering them.

I haven't considered Don'tLiftToShift's JRi setup only because I don't want to rebuild them every year.

 

[SlowJim]

Isn't that pretty much the same as the $1600 Ground Control system? Single adjustable twin tube Koni inserts?

 

[Department Of Boost]

What about Cortex Racing's "street" coilovers?

http://cortexracing.com/product/xtreme-grip-coil-over-system-2005-2014-s197-mustang-street/

Those are a little more than $2,600 with options (closer to $3k), but I've been seriously considering them.

I haven't considered Don'tLiftToShift's JRi setup only because I don't want to rebuild them every year.

Isn't that pretty much the same as the $1600 Ground Control system? Single adjustable twin tube Koni inserts?

What adjustment is that? Compression? Rebound? Or are both on the same adjuster?

 

[Vorshlag-Fair]

Serious question to Vorshlag.

What would you recommend opposed to the Eibach R2's in the $2400 price range?

Well... hmm.... There just isn't much available in that range right now that I would recommend, yet.

We're testing these modified inverted Bilstein monotube coilovers, which we make in-house, and they should be in that price range with springs and camber plates - without adjustable valving. They are ready to go, and we have had really good luck with the test sets, but we're just swamped and haven't had time to make the production fixtures from our tester's car. We will make them soon, and we already have the struts and shocks in stock to use for the first batches.

And while I'd rather get people into MCS TT1 coilovers at the entry level, this S197 market has made it clear that we need something lower cost. We have our Bilstein + lowering spring + camber plate setup at $1499, but we need an option between this price point and the MCS TT1, that has real spring rate improvements (coilover rates, not lowering spring rates) and the other monotube strengths.

Those (KWs) look like a decent option.

This is what I see as cons with those:

-Gotta get under the car (while hot) to adjust. Not something you need to do with the R2's.

-They have progressive springs....which should be put in the garbage. And then replaces with linear rate springs, which represents a cost.

-They are twin tube/twin piston non gas charged dampers (basically motorcycle forks). Not a true mono tube. They seem to work pretty well (I have done a lot of work with the Clubsports which are effectively the same), but I prefer a mono tube gas charge setups.

Again, I'm nit picking. The KW's are pretty good. I would rather have the extra features and the mono tube design of the R2's myself.

On the points about twin tubes and progressive springs, I agree with Dept of Boost 100%. Those are major aspects when you look at coilover dampers that should not be ignored.

KWs: Technically, KW does "charge" their twin tubes, but instead of using Nitrogen they use compressed air - this is from their own literature. Which is highly unusual and atypical from almost every other shock manufacturer. KW also seems to go out of their way to not mention that most of their offerings are twin tubes. And yet KW does make monotubes, but the last time I checked they are around $7000/set and up.

KW is a large company and they have a LOT of model coverage, and they do a lot to make them TUV approved - and for sales in their native Germany, that is a requirement. But almost everything KW sells is just a twin tube.

That type of shock is, to put it in perspective, pre-WWII damper technology. The only real advantage of twin tubes vs modern monotubes is: cost. Twin tubes use so little gas pressure (0-30 psi) that they lose fluid integrity (it foams) within minutes of use on track. This Bilstein video shows how quickly and easily a damper's hydraulic fluid will foam without high Nitrogen pressures - which Monotubes use (180-360 psi+). Twin tubes also don't shed heat very well at all - and a damper is turning movement (kinetic energy) into heat - that's all they do at the core level. Lastly, when twin tubes lose pressure or develop a hydraulic leak, they often hide the leak internally, because of the twin tube design. So most folks that have a dead shock won't see the evidence externally.

We could sell KWs with some decent profit margin, and they have huge coverage... but after much internal debate we have decided not to. We are a 100% monotube shock seller, period. Do we miss out on a lot of entry level shock sales because of this? You bet. But I can stand behind the brands we do sell because of their technical merits.

Eibachs: Even though they are monotubes, I still have some issues with these, on several small technical aspects that don't jive with what they claim and where they say they are built, as well as higher failure rates from customers. Again, I've just seen too many of these violently lose pressure/fluid, bend shafts, or show the effects of poor chrome finish on the shafts. I think Dept of Boost himself will admit that he has had his Eibachs apart many times (revalving), which I think might be masking their inherent lack of long term reliability? Please correct me if I'm wrong. (edit: he did, and I was wrong)

Earlier today (7/29/15), someone with S197 Eibachs was asking on Corner Ponies facebook group - "who can rebuild Eibachs?", and he showed the leak (above). Sure, eventually all performance shocks will leak, given enough abuse or time, but these seem to have a shorter rebuild interval, from what we've seen.

Just something about these... doesn't add up. The old adage "you get what you pay for" applies here as well as everywhere. To be a supposed U.S. built monotube, they are priced too cheaply. The price point as well as numerous machining aspects lead me to believe they are made in an overseas machine shop, no matter what it says on the box. I've talked with Eibach reps before at trade shows about this and they got... uneasy with my questions.

And of course, the strange threaded-on swaybar bracket on the S197 strut reduces wheel clearance

Again, we have been an Eibach dealer for many years, and sell other things they make, but these shocks... just too many little red flags and too many failures that bother me enough that I don't want to sell them. Even Sam Strano agrees with me on Eibach dampers, and we don't agree on almost anything.

If the Eibachs work for others, that's great. I don't want to argue about them further, because the details that we have seen with these that make me think they aren't really made here in the USA (or by KW) are little nuances like the chrome finish, bent shafts, and "weird thread pitches on the strut stem" and the price point.

Anyway, I'm trying to "stick to just the facts" and if that means I say something slightly negative about a brand, so be it. Should I not be truthful and just "recommend everything"? That's not what we do. I do try hard to NOT get into "mud slinging" against other brands, and usually that means I just have to stay silent and not comment. But the KW and Eibach limitations and issues are real things we have looked at, and weighed them against other shock options we have access to sell, and just chose not to carry these, or Koni twin tubes, or Tokicos, or other clearly Chinese made shocks, as well as other brands of monotubes.

Cheers,

 

[Department Of Boost]

I've never cracked into my R2's.

Those MCS TT1's are actually a pretty good comparison to the R2's as far as price point goes. The R2 CC plates are junk, so those go in the trash and you need to get something else anyway. And the R2 spring rates aren't ideal, and they won't swap them for different rates before shipping. So if someone is serious, they need springs too. So now you're looking at a $200-300 swing in price. Which when playing with this stuff isn't much.

And I would like to clarify. From day one I have never claimed that R2's were "the best". Or even "nice". They just work really well and have a lot of features for their price point. Features I know how to use. And when I got my R2's they were $1800. At current pricing they probably wouldn't be my first choice for most people. Me, maybe. But I know how to use the adjusters and if they have any issues I can go through them faster than I can box them up.