AM1

iTrader: (6)

After driving around at stock height for around 5 months, I finally made the jump to a full coilover system. After a full months worth of road testing and abuse on my car, the final review is here. I have the first set of buddy club racing spec dampers in north America. My car is on the stock 18 inch wheels and OEM tires. I also, have front and back f-sport sway bars installed.

Here's the technical details
1. 15 levels of damper adjustment
2.10Kg and 8Kg spring rate front and back
3.Pillow ball upper mounts rubber
4.adjustment brackets for easy height adjustment
5.single tube type shell case (steel)
6.shocks are nitrogen filled
7. shocks can be re-valved and rebuilt
8.made and designed in Japan.
9.**** on top for easy adjustments for damper settings
10.three inches of drop available

First thing up is the intention of these coilovers. These are named racing spec damper, because they were intended for street and track use. Which serves more then one purpose. This is ideal say if you need your car to ride comfortably during your workweek and you need the ride as firm as possible for weekend drives through canyons or on the track. These were made heavy duty to take any type of driving or driver. As I have found through my month of testing the "dual" nature of these coilovers proved to be very valuable for my driving needs.

I drove up Angeles crest highway, which is a local mountain with a lot of sharp turns, changing elevation, steep cliffs, etc. With the damper setting at the stiffest setting the ride and handling was excellent, a huge change from stock. the handling was more responsive and the ride was also. without the stock floating, the car handled the turns and apexes with aplomb. During spirited driving on the highways and on surface roads, with the ride set at very stiff car handled lane changes and abrupt steering inputs with ease, making the car feel more stable.

Driving around town and during my work week, I set the damper settings near the softest settings. With the damper settings set as soft, the ride quality was almost like stock, but without the "floatiness" of the stock suspension. potholes, bumps, dips, and other road imperfections are easily handled with the suspension settings. There was no bottoming out and no clunking.

I started out with the ride height at around 2.75 inch drop. Then later on had it set at around 2.5 inch drop. The final drop and the most ideal for the amount of street driving I do is at 2.25 inch drop. With the ride height at 2.25 my hid cutoff was still very good and the AFS did not need to be adjusted for ride height. At this height I hardly scrape on anything and it looks really low.

Final camber was -2.8 back and -1.75 front. After getting the suspension properly aligned and corner balanced the overall balance of the car was 51.3% of weight front and 48.7% of weight back. All four corners were balanced so the ride height was the same all around, which was made easy with the adjustment bracket. each full turn of the bracket was 2mm.

Overall, I am very happy with these coilovers. Being able to adjust damper settings depending on how I will drive or on my driving needs has been great. Out of everything I have installed into my car, this has been the best modification to date. It has changed the driving dynamics a great deal. This is great since the 2IS is a drivers car and the coilovers just make it that much better.

Finally I would like to thank Tree at Buddy Club USA for making this project possible and for technical support. A big thanks to Tommy at musicbox for the professional installation and all the input with ride height and comparisons to other coilover systems for the 2IS. Lastly, Darin at west end alignment for the expert alignment and corner balancing and all the insight into the inner workings of the 2IS suspension. This project would not have been successful without these guys.

AM1

iTrader: (6)

[IMG]http://i614.photobucket.com/albums

montgb

iTrader: (7)

Excellent write-up and great pics!

Nigel-JDMParts

iTrader: (74)

your car looking good!!

datplayaz

iTrader: (9)

good review, and the car is looking good what's the MSRP on the Racing Spec?

javyLSU

iTrader: (21)

Haha, I know you got a quality installation - that shop looks awfully familiar. You should have let me know you were going to Angeles Crest - I would have gladly helped you "test" your new coils...

Javier

nabbun

very sweet. thanks for the writeup and pics

acefalcon2

iTrader: (20)

so what's the total drop that you can have on these?? you've got plenty of threads bro!! anyway... how much did u get it for and where

jns350

iTrader: (7)

Great write up!!!..To get rid of the "floatiness" is already worth the price of admission to coils. BTW: love your "Ikaika Helmet" on your R.V.M. Good for you on getting coils....And they look great with the chrome stokkies!!!!!

vboy418

Great looking ride!

Mister T

Other than this missing pic, this review was well written.

projectdna

iTrader: (56)

i wonder too...

when i'm ready for coilovers, i'll hit you up for a referral.

NoHoIS350

Cool nice report..Funny how you say the stock car rides like "floatiness"...Dude i have been driving trucks for the last 6 years & a Hyundai accent before that...So this (stock)car drives like it's on rails for me...yesterday i was on the 101 with like 2 fingers on the wheel in my mind just cruzn' i looked down and i was doing 100..I laughed...Coilovers/Sway bars are my next mod looking forward to making the car handle even better..My friend with a Z06 does a lot of track days with Speed Ventures so i think i will start going along...I am a X-Motocrosser i need my fix now in another way..

Calviin

iTrader: (3)

Damn it looks like it can go REAL low.

AM1

iTrader: (6)

1780 is MSRP.

thanks again javy, for helping keep this thread here. next time we go up there ill let you know. we need to organize another run up the crest.

thanks, nigel too bad you missed out when tommy was putting them in.

thanks.

thanks

ideally 3 inches should be the max drop, though we measured the thread all the way to around 4.25 inches i think. most other coilovers dont go past 2 inches or so.

just being able to hit dips in the road and not having the car bounce up and down is well worth it.

thanks.

not sure what happened with the pic...gotta go find it.

youre not on coils? i thought you were.....i think that tommy guy is pretty good. hahaha

i should state that in stock hiehgt and ride the car handles pretty good, for stock. i came from a RX330 which handled like a school bus compared to my IS350. Just that now with the coilovers and sway bars the handling is so much better, that it makes the stock suspension feel floaty. So, dont take it the wrong way, stock isnt a bad thing, just depends on what you are looking to get out of your car.