Faraaz23

EDIT: Mods, please move this to suspension sub-forum. I did not realize this was the general one.

Hi everyone,

I am trying to figure out what suspension to get for my GS400. It has 134,000 and I can tell its time to replace both springs and shocks. For anyone familiar with the road quality here, I live in the Fort Lauderdale area. I am going to stick with stock 17's and stock sway bars. I'll try to explain the best I can what kind of ride I'm looking for. I value comfort a lot. However, I don't enjoy the Towncar-like float and body roll of the stock suspension. I feel like simple speed bumps make the car rock like a boat out on the ocean. For reference, I drove my sisters IS250AWD on some less-than-pristine roads and after about an hour I started to get sick of feeling every irregularity in the road. I wasn't sure if this was due to the springs, the shocks, the firmer seats, or the run-flats. I've rode in an E39 M5 and actually thought it absorbed road disturbances better... perfect level of ride comfort for me. I realize that I am not going to achieve the handling of the M5 here obviously, but that is not my goal. Overall, I think I'd be willing to go around 15-20% stiffer at the most.

Springs: I think I am going to go ahead and get TTE springs (partly because it seems almost no one here has them and I'm curious to try them out). At first I was going to get NF210's, but I wondering how much body roll/flop could they eliminate being within a few tenths of the stock spring rate.

Shocks: I am torn between KYB and Bilstein HD. It seems on the KYB website, they market th GR-2's as OE replacement. How much better than OE shocks are they? On the other hand, are the bilstein's going to be too aggressive for my taste? The bilstein's also cost more.

Are their any other combos anyone would suggest. I know HKS coilovers would probably be my perfect solution, but unfortunately medical school is not cheap and does not leave me with any time to make any adjustments to a set of coilovers.

Also, will someone with some technical knowledge please explain to me the advantage of how the stiffer shocks are going to benefit a car during different motions of the car (e.g. going over a bump, accelerating, stopping, turning).

Sorry for all the questions, but I could not really find any of this in my searches. Thanks in advance!

4ntvings

iTrader: (6)

do your research on spring rates to determine which spring to get. then pick up a set of bilstein sports. then you should be good. kyb's are close to oem.

oh ya and remember, your GS is luxury sedan, not a sports sedan.