What coil-overs should I buy? Poll inside

[b302]

For what it's worth I switched to JRi mid season from AST Grand AM spec shocks. I used both during an Optima event as well as autocross and HPDE/test and tunes for Optima road course TT portion.

The AST's had badass valving, easy adjustability with the compression located on the end of the remotes. The low speed ride quality was really impressive right out of the box with only dialing down the compression to make street driving a better than stock affair even with much stiffer spring rates.

Then they started weeping mid way through the season... Then I found a broken shock collar that could've wrecked my car...

From working with Dean Martin at Rehagen I knew of Filip and his company, he came with glowing reviews from Dean which he does not give lightly. I reached out to Filip and purchased his JRi setup, with remotes in the rear.

The outside is made from much nicer/tougher materials and it shows. The adjustments are a bit more difficult and are located on the shocks though, and the low speed damping is a bit harsher at impact. This can likely be dialed out with time and tuning however.

With additional tuning time I had noticeably increased rear traction compared to the AST's and was able to run to -4.0 degrees static camber in the front with Filip's camber slugs. This also gave increased front traction. I am also running the Vorshlag 18x11's on 315 Rival S's all around, Filip worked with me to make sure the rear shock adapters gave me plenty of inboard room to clear the wheel barrel. Filip also stayed over the weekend after SEMA to assist with tuning and strategery, he is a stand up guy who makes and develops a great product.

With these shocks I went out to the Invitational in Vegas and did really well for a low horsepower relatively high weight car and look forward to continuing to develop my car with this coming season.

 

[barbaro]

I just don't see the performance advantage outside of maybe a slightly better ride mounting the rear spring on the shock, seems mostly to me paying good money to solve a problem that doesn't exist, which is probably why MM and Vorshlag don't sell them, sort of like torque arms for these cars.

You definitely have no clue about what you are talking about and all of us with torque arms laugh at you.

 

[barbaro]

They're just another way of achieving roughly the same thing. But minor as the end result differences may be, they might still be there. Here, mounting the springs over the shocks in the rear allows you to run with a smaller rear bar in order to achieve the same roll resistance in the rear. That means you have less side to side crosstalk through the sway bar over single-wheel bumps.

It's a difference, small as it may be. Especially with a stick axle, I expect it's not much of a difference, but it's a difference nonetheless. It's probably dominated by other factors in real-world testing, such that only the most talented might see an improvement from it.

In the end, the solution of mounting the springs over the dampers in the rear is more of a "niche" approach than maintaining the stock locations, and I expect that's the primary reason Vorshlag and MM stuck with the stock locations -- not enough of a measurable gain to make the extra expense worth it.

Keep in mind that Filip Trojanek is a mechanical engineer by trade. It's likely he settled on the solution he did because it is in principle a more pure solution, and that will certainly appeal to the engineer in him. And since his primary target market appears to be the "no compromises" crowd, it makes some sense for him to go that direction.

Vorshlag and MM appear to be oriented a bit more towards the mainstream market, which of necessity means greater bang for the buck. They have products that overlap the market Cortex is targeting, but they sell to a more general audience as well. Because their markets are wider, they almost certainly have to account for that fact in their lineup. You don't see them offering things like SLA front suspension setups, or Penske or Ohlins dampers (for those who regard JRi dampers as cheap junk ), the way Cortex does, and I suspect it's because that market is too much of a niche market (not to mention that, for all I know, the MCS dampers may well achieve the same level of performance as the Penske or Ohlins dampers do). Conversely, you don't see Cortex offering any standard strut systems like Vorshlag's Bilstein StreetPro setup, because that's outside of Cortex's target market. Cortex appears to be going for more of a performance-without-compromise approach (their decision to locate their shop at Sonoma Raceway is consistent with that), which of necessity reduces the "bang for the buck" factor. And while they also seem to have some products that target a more mainstream market (their lowest end coilover system uses Koni dampers), that doesn't appear to be their focus.

Back to the question at hand: the location of the rear springs. If the performance difference between the two approaches were massive, I've no doubt that Vorshlag and MM would pursue the one Cortex is using. But if the difference is sufficiently minor, then going down that road just wouldn't be worth it for them -- it adds noticeable cost for what is likely a very small gain. After all, you can achieve the same roll stiffness in the rear, while maintaining the same bump stiffness, by using more rear bar.


I like that there are multiple solutions to the problem, and that one can choose where on the spectrum of price versus performance one wishes to be. I also like that simple people like myself can have immense fun with their cars without having to go crazy with suspension mods.

So let's see. We are on the Corner Carver Forum. And you have acknowledged that A true coilover would give you an advantage but you then make the jump that MM and Others must have considered it not worth the trouble for the cost. Have you looked at the cost of MM's JRI COilover package? It costs more than Cortex. Also Penske's are not better than JRI's

http://www.maximummotorsports.com/MM-JRi-Shocks-Suspension-Kit-2005-2014-Mustang-P1474.aspx

 

[kcbrown]

So let's see. We are on the Corner Carver Forum. And you have acknowledged that A true coilover would give you an advantage but you then make the jump that MM and Others must have considered it not worth the trouble for the cost.

It's more Vorshlag that I was thinking of, but MM offers Eibach and H&R coilover kits in addition to the JRIs (the JRI kit is by far their most expensive one). And yes, they may not consider it worth the trouble for the cost. They may also have personal tuning philosophies that steer them towards the OEM rear spring locations. The OEM locations make it possible to generate less oversteer (i.e., more understeer) for a given rear bump stiffness than the true rear coilover does, which yields greater tuning flexibility, which in turn translates to a potentially wider market.

Have you looked at the cost of MM's JRI COilover package? It costs more than Cortex.

So it does! But it's very close (less than 3%). The MM units include helper springs on the front, which is a $150 option on the Cortex units. That brings the price difference down to about $140 in favor of the Cortex units. Still, this is a fair point.

Also Penske's are not better than JRI's

I've no opinion on that because I've seen no hard evidence whatsoever about which is "better". Frankly, I wouldn't be surprised if the difference depended on things like driver preference. No idea.

And yet, Cortex sells them anyway. Why would they sell Penske or Ohlins if JRIs were unequivocally better?

The Ohlins come in a triple-adjustable version. Where's the JRI equivalent of that? Maybe the Ohlins are "better" precisely because they have that additional adjustment knob. Can't say anything about the Penskes, but Cortex offers them anyway.


My point in mentioning those dampers was to illustrate that the market range that Cortex is targeting is different than the market range that Vorshlag and MM are targeting. Yes, there is overlap in the middle, but the ends of the ranges differ. The Penske and Ohlins offerings by Cortex illustrate the high end of the market that Cortex caters to, that Vorshlag and MM do not. Better or not, the Penske and, especially, Ohlins dampers are much more expensive (nearly $10K for the Ohlins 3-way system with all of the equivalent hardware that comes with the JRi systems we've been talking about), and some people obviously prefer them for whatever reasons (else Cortex wouldn't bother carrying them) . I am not in any position to insist that those reasons are wrong, and neither, I'd wager, is Filip, else he would talk his customers out of buying them, or wouldn't carry them out of principle, or something.

 

[Mark Aubele]

You definitely have no clue about what you are talking about and all of us with torque arms laugh at you.

Ran em, wheelhopped like crazy under braking any time I didn't perfectly match revs while downshifting. They did seem to put power down better though than a three link or parallel four link (steeda "five link") on the same chassis, which usually meant a push that was hard to dial out without making the car really loose off throttle. Out of the three setups I prefer a three link, especially when the car has one from the factory, seems silly to downgrade to a torque arm.

Oh yeah, and blow me.

 

[DSMaverick]

So... did the OP choose a solution?

Let's face it, most of our cars aren't race cars. And most of us won't be able to tell the difference between coilovers set up similarly on a blind test. MOST of us, that is. I'm sure we can all agree with Vince; it's all about what we want for our car. Otherwise, it's a lot of good conversation and butt-hurtness. For those of us that want to truly get out track times down via purchasing suspension components, read a book; preferably one with graphs and numbers. Trust me, they're out there. We're all looking for firm data that says Brand X is better than Brand Y, but that's the beauty of competition (manufacturing and design competition that is) - there are many solutions for the same problem/application.

Back to it though. OP did you choose a solution? What were the main drivers of why you went the route you did? Any feedback on the parts and how they fit your driving style and needs?

Dan

 

[foolio2k4]

Has anyone tried putting on the GT500 bilstein set on their S197?

 

[2Fass240us]

Has anyone tried putting on the GT500 bilstein set on their S197?

I have the front GT500 Bilsteins waiting to go on my '14 now, P/N 35-128717. They're listed for the '05-'10 GT and '07-'11 GT500 but they'll fit up to '14 with the right upper mounts.

 

[foolio2k4]

I have the front GT500 Bilsteins waiting to go on my '14 now, P/N 35-128717. They're listed for the '05-'10 GT and '07-'11 GT500 but they'll fit up to '14 with the right upper mounts.

I guess my question was will the OEM 2013-2014 GT500 Performance Pack bilsteins work on our cars