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Had these installed today by the team at RR Racing. Fast install with an appointment pre-made for an alignment right after. Couldn’t be better customer service.
First off, the coilovers are beautiful in construction and very light due to their aluminum construction. Rafi suggested 16/12k since my main goal was aesthetics while keeping a ride similar to stock.
I had a 140 mile ride home to make some comparisons and overall I would say the Road and Track coilovers are superior to my 2011 suspension in every regard. Usually upon installing a new mod, you spend the whole ride home trying to discern differences, especially those differences where the new set up might be inferior to the old, but honestly within about 30 miles on the PA Turnpike I was totally relaxed like the setup had always been there. The coilovers soaked up all 100-thousand expansion joints I hit on the Turnpike without iissue or noise.
Overall, the R&T Coilovers just feel more buttoned up in all aspects vs the stock suspension. I actually quite liked the 2011 suspension for its firmness on compression, but it always felt like rebound wasn’t matched well and there was a bouncyness to them, kind of like Lexus gave it an honest shot redesigning the suspension in 2011, but didn’t quite hit the whole mark. The R&Ts feel competent everywhere and over some of the dips in the road that caused the oem suspension to hit the bump stops, the R&Ts just soaked them up.
I haven’t had too much time on twistys due to the weather, but, overall the turn in effort feels a bit lighter, not sure why, but the car seems a bit more willing to turn.
Alignment was spot on and everthing green except for passenger camber was off by 0.03 or something like that. Interestingly, the camber did not change AT ALL before and after the lowering.
One last observation: with the lowered front end and the slight rake from rear to front, you get a much better sense of where the front of the car is. You can see better over the hood hump.
So, overall this was a no-regrets purchase across the board! I really wanted a quality coilover on my car. I’m not sure how much better the Penske would be compared to these, however, they must be amazing to garner the $1000 difference bc the R&Ts are really good. I would highly recommend these, and the RR service, to anyone in the market.
I am really looking at getting these coil overs. My only concern was the fact its recommended to service every couple of years. So I guess if you don't service, does that mean their performance drops off considerably? I guess I'm curious what has to be serviced - if you have to replace the seals, and replace the oil?
I edited my post, I originally said rebuild but that was incorrect. It says they recommend servicing every couple of years.
From my understanding, pretty much every coilover (or shock in general) would have that same disclaimer, that to keep "100% as new" performance, you would service every couple of years and/or if you track the car a lot. Under normal driving, odds are you may never service before selling the car. Good thing to know, however, is that you have the shop (RR) there to do the work for you when you need it. I don't think either these or the Penske's are in any way out of the ordinary in this recommendation.
I am really looking at getting these coil overs. My only concern was the fact its recommended to service every couple of years. So I guess if you don't service, does that mean their performance drops off considerably? I guess I'm curious what has to be serviced - if you have to replace the seals, and replace the oil?
I edited my post, I originally said rebuild but that was incorrect. It says they recommend servicing every couple of years.
We should really emphasize that these shocks do not require any more servicing than any other shocks. The performance of all shocks degraded over years of usage. At least with ours, you have the option of rebuilding for a very reasonable price.
Jz39, I just want to thank you for that review. A lot of ISF owners just don’t understand how comfortable a properly setup suspension can be, even compared to the “improved” 2011+ suspension.
We should really emphasize that these shocks do not require any more servicing than any other shocks. The performance of all shocks degraded over years of usage. At least with ours, you have the option of rebuilding for a very reasonable price.
They are definitely more comfortable and “sorted” vs the 2011 suspension, not night and day more comfortable, as I think the 2011 suspension is quite good, but better across the board and you get the height and dampening adjustability, weight savings, etc. I think the biggest difference is the better controlled dampening, compression seems pretty similar to 2011, if not a fraction softer. The 2011 suspension can bounce pretty bad on rebound and upset balance. In fact, while I haven’t had a chance to adjust them yet, for my tastes, I intend to try the the R&T even a bit stiffer when I have a chance to test.
I would imagine that even even at a 18/14 spring set up that these would still have a good comfort level. There is no harshness to the ride at all, definitely less harsh than stock. I can only imagine going from an 2008-10 suspension to these would be a whole new world of comfort and performance.
Had a chance last night to play around with the adjustment on these, which is done with nice, big, fat integrated ***** in the rear with distinct clicks for each adjustment and a simple Allen wrench up front.
From RR Racing, I would say the set up was very
slightly softer than my 2011 oem suspension. With just a few clicks the car went from this to being on rails! Now, everything is 100% perfect. I could even back
off a click or two, however, I am now 110% happy with these...Car feels so much lighter and has so much grip, just pulls Gs endlessly.
Going back over some old threads just to gather some information from RR RACING explaining how they went about setting up there coilovers. It gives a lot of insight into mindset of RRR when it comes to how they want about setting up coilovers. I know by re-reading this whole thread it's help me to get a better understanding of what Rafi was thinking of when designing his Coilovers.
Enjoy read
David
Effect of spring rate selection on suspension loading characteristics.
So in the figure above, we assume that during aggressive cornering, the shock/spring is seeing an effective increase in load of about 750lbs as measured at the shock/spring. (Note: This is just a good estimate of the amount of increase in loading you would see on an RCF under about 0.9g cornering force, the precise calculation depends on knowing the exact weight of the car, front/rear weight distribution, center of gravity height, track width, and motion ratio of the suspension).
I labelled two displacement points on the graph, "A" and point "B." Point A represents the amount of spring displacement and loading under a weight transfer of 750lbs for a 16kg (900lb) spring... and point "B" represents the same for the 10kg (560lb) spring.
The following are important differences in the behavior of the softer vs. stiffer suspension derived from the graphical illustration above (and from actual track testing):
(1) When the lateral weight transfer of 750lbs is applied, the suspension with the stiffer springs (labelled "A") behaves very linearly. The increase in loading on the wheels is more predictable and the driver has a better feel for the behavior of the car. Even as more than 750lbs load is applied to the spring/bump combo, the behavior continues to be linear. In the more softly spring suspension, you can see that after about 0.55" of travel, the force of the bump stops is starting to ramp up very quickly (beginning an exponential rather than linear ramp up). Any further increase in weight transfer and corning force results in non-linear bump travel and rapid non-linear increase in the effective spring rate (where the bump stop effectively takes over from the spring). This type of behavior typically induces at-the-limit understeer.
(2) Comparing displacements of the two springs under similar weight transfer, you can see that the more softly sprung car (displacement "B") will roll more (more bump travel for the applied load). The only way to reduce roll is by either increasing the bump stop stiffness, or using a larger roll bar. But increasing the bump stop stiffness will only make the situation described in above worse (more non-linear behavior). Likewise, increasing roll bar stiffness has negative consequences as well, such as reducing the independent movement of the suspension and inducing inside wheel lift.
Ok, so some may ask, "doesn't increasing the spring rate so much result in a harsh ride?"
No, not necessarily. This is where shock valving and shock quality come into play. When you are traveling on a bumpy road, the shock is actually playing a more important role than the spring in terms of what you feel. Bumps on the road force the shock to travel at a high speed, due to to the sudden impact of hitting something. Penske has done an amazing job at assisting us with shock valving. We achieved what is known as "digressive" rate curve, where the shock valving is set relatively soft at high shock travel speeds, making the ride over bumps very comfortable. Digressive valving also means that the shock valving at low shock speeds (low shock speeds occur when you change the direction of the car) is relatively hard, resulting in handling behavior that feels very responsive.
That said, some may ask, "Well, if increasing spring rates so much is so good, why doesn't every aftermarket coilover manufacturer do this?"
The higher you go with spring rates, the more energy the shock must absorb. More energy equals more heat, more pressure, and more stress. So now you need to use better materials to make the shock, machine everything to higher tolerances and higher quality control procedures. All these things are what makes Penske Shocks more expensive (not to mention their proprietary shock pistons and internals which are the same as found on their uber-expensive full race shocks). Running the higher spring rates on a lower quality shock results in reduced shock life/durability, and often times inability to control the energy (rebound) of the suspension, resulting in bouncy ride and poor tire contact with the road.
The other reason RSR and KW are limited with front spring rate choices is that they are limited with how high they can go on the rear spring rates since they are retaining the original "divorced" spring setup, and they must maintain a proper front/rear balance. This gets onto a whole other subject, but the main reason that it is difficult to run high springs rates on divorced spring type rear suspension is that (1) it limits "droop" travel of the rear suspension, and (2) due to the angular mismatch of the upper perch relative to the lower control arm, you induce a significant amount of bowing into the spring, which wreaks havoc on the linearity of the spring.
Had a chance last night to play around with the adjustment on these, which is done with nice, big, fat integrated ***** in the rear with distinct clicks for each adjustment and a simple Allen wrench up front.
From RR Racing, I would say the set up was very
slightly softer than my 2011 oem suspension. With just a few clicks the car went from this to being on rails! Now, everything is 100% perfect. I could even back
off a click or two, however, I am now 110% happy with these...Car feels so much lighter and has so much grip, just pulls Gs endlessly.
And the looks....just nasty!
quick question, what was used to hold the abs lines since there's nothing to hold it on the coilovers? thanks
04-03-18, 04:00 PM
Review: RR Racing Road and Track Coilovers
