A Powere by Max coilover review
03-16-13, 02:09 PM
#1
A Powere by Max coilover review
This is a review for future reference to all future members and existing ones who may ever consider these coil overs. I'll break it up into categories and simply express my experience and opinion to each one.
Highway Driving: Highway driving is incredible. The car feels solid and stuck to the ground. I will admit that it can be a bit bouncy if you hit what I'll call a "short frequency styled wave dips" in the road...you will then feel what I mean by stuck to the ground. At high speed, I did a little switch from lane to lane as quickly and tightly as I could manage with NO TRAFFIC around for a total of about 8 lane switches back to back and it feels awesome. No body lean what so ever. On underhighway style turn arounds, again it sticks to the ground and does not lean at all.
City Driving: Here is where it mainly depends on where you live and what roads your daily commute involve. Where I am in Texas, the roads are great but occasionally, I'll get a strip of road thats is littered with crappy pothole repairs and cracked cement. Overall it isnt that bad, but you do want to slow down for them or it can be a little jarring to the person who doesn't like to hear their car rub. Slow down for dips too...remember the bounciness. Stopping and taking off feels a lot tighter too. There wont be as much sink in the rear if you gun it and it will feel like more of a solid movement.
Parking lots-Entrances-Exits-Speedbumps: Some extreme entrances and exits like those for some apartments that have a "V" shaped dip, can be crappy feeling if you take it fast, so slow down. Other than that it will handle well on any type of smoothed entrance/exit as long as it does not have a huge rounded curb(in which case slow down). Speed bumps you must take slow and at an angle if you drop yourself real low. I always take these things slow even before I was dropped, so this category does not really bother me much.
UserFriendliness: They are so easy to adjust so do not worry about that. Simply unlock the top and bottom lock rings and the entire unit twists and lows or raises itself with the turn of your supplied wrenches.
Install: The install was honestly very easy. The only reason it took me 3 days was because I kept having to put the car back together to pick up a tool I was missing and I had classes 4 times a day at different times. Other than that, no air tools required, although I will say that it will make your job a bit easier as long as you know what you're doing with it. Other than that a simple double up on wrenches or using a breaker bar will suffice. I recommend soaking EVERYTHING in WD-40 the day before and this will make it all like butter I promise you that. A spring compressor should be kept near incase your rears are heavily preloaded like mine were. Other than that the fronts slide out no problem. A helper is a good thing to have as well, especially one who knows cars.
Recommendations: I highly recommend purchasing new swaybar endlinks as in the front mine completely went to crap and I had the worst rattle noise problem ever. Finally got it taken care of so now I'm writing this with confidence that the coil overs are great.
Stories I've heard are that even at the max height setting, they "SLAM"...but this may not be the case anymore because at max height mine basically match KYB-GR2's with stock springs in the rear and even the front. I have mine on the stiffest setting because I like it. I have not tried the softer setting and probably never will.
Buy with confidence from Powered By Max people. They are damn good coils and a great plus is how freaking sexy they looks.
Here is how my Bambi is sitting as I type this. If I am not mistaken, the rears are at 93mm from bottom to top lock rings and the fronts are at 85mm from bottom to top lock rings.
Hope this helped and continues to help any current and all future members.
Best,
Carlos
Edit: Can somebody fix the title? I missed the "d" on Powered by Max. Thanks mods.
Highway Driving: Highway driving is incredible. The car feels solid and stuck to the ground. I will admit that it can be a bit bouncy if you hit what I'll call a "short frequency styled wave dips" in the road...you will then feel what I mean by stuck to the ground. At high speed, I did a little switch from lane to lane as quickly and tightly as I could manage with NO TRAFFIC around for a total of about 8 lane switches back to back and it feels awesome. No body lean what so ever. On underhighway style turn arounds, again it sticks to the ground and does not lean at all.
City Driving: Here is where it mainly depends on where you live and what roads your daily commute involve. Where I am in Texas, the roads are great but occasionally, I'll get a strip of road thats is littered with crappy pothole repairs and cracked cement. Overall it isnt that bad, but you do want to slow down for them or it can be a little jarring to the person who doesn't like to hear their car rub. Slow down for dips too...remember the bounciness. Stopping and taking off feels a lot tighter too. There wont be as much sink in the rear if you gun it and it will feel like more of a solid movement.
Parking lots-Entrances-Exits-Speedbumps: Some extreme entrances and exits like those for some apartments that have a "V" shaped dip, can be crappy feeling if you take it fast, so slow down. Other than that it will handle well on any type of smoothed entrance/exit as long as it does not have a huge rounded curb(in which case slow down). Speed bumps you must take slow and at an angle if you drop yourself real low. I always take these things slow even before I was dropped, so this category does not really bother me much.
UserFriendliness: They are so easy to adjust so do not worry about that. Simply unlock the top and bottom lock rings and the entire unit twists and lows or raises itself with the turn of your supplied wrenches.
Install: The install was honestly very easy. The only reason it took me 3 days was because I kept having to put the car back together to pick up a tool I was missing and I had classes 4 times a day at different times. Other than that, no air tools required, although I will say that it will make your job a bit easier as long as you know what you're doing with it. Other than that a simple double up on wrenches or using a breaker bar will suffice. I recommend soaking EVERYTHING in WD-40 the day before and this will make it all like butter I promise you that. A spring compressor should be kept near incase your rears are heavily preloaded like mine were. Other than that the fronts slide out no problem. A helper is a good thing to have as well, especially one who knows cars.
Recommendations: I highly recommend purchasing new swaybar endlinks as in the front mine completely went to crap and I had the worst rattle noise problem ever. Finally got it taken care of so now I'm writing this with confidence that the coil overs are great.
Stories I've heard are that even at the max height setting, they "SLAM"...but this may not be the case anymore because at max height mine basically match KYB-GR2's with stock springs in the rear and even the front. I have mine on the stiffest setting because I like it. I have not tried the softer setting and probably never will.
Buy with confidence from Powered By Max people. They are damn good coils and a great plus is how freaking sexy they looks.
Here is how my Bambi is sitting as I type this. If I am not mistaken, the rears are at 93mm from bottom to top lock rings and the fronts are at 85mm from bottom to top lock rings.
Hope this helped and continues to help any current and all future members.
Best,
Carlos
Edit: Can somebody fix the title? I missed the "d" on Powered by Max. Thanks mods.
Last edited by ashtray; 03-17-13 at 10:04 AM. Reason: title change
(no homo)
03-16-13, 08:07 PM
#5
Stories I've heard are that even at the max height setting, they "SLAM"...but this may not be the case anymore because at max height mine basically match KYB-GR2's with stock springs in the rear and even the front. I have mine on the stiffest setting because I like it. I have not tried the softer setting and probably never will.
STILL, PBM's is best bang for the buck in my own honest opinion. It's not that harsh in long drives, but like you said it is bouncy when going over short wave-like parts of the freeway. I (also) have always avoided or drive carefully when going over dips, speed bumps and nasty parts of the roads even before switching to PBM's so it doesn't really bother me, plus I have 19's, so I also take care of them. And mine is slammed compared to yours, plus a daily family car too. The aesthetic appearance of it is already enough to convince you, but I have crazy plans of stripping the gold anodized color of it and getting the aluminum polished and get the springs chrome dipped. I did say crazy plans right?
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05-06-13, 07:28 AM
#10
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any of you getting wheel bite at all? I set mine up so that there is about an inch of damper threaded into my sleeve. I have about an inch between my tire and my fender well (that is bare fender well, no lining and relocated harness) and it hits going over bumps. What did you do to avoid this issue. I thought that the stiff dampening would reduce this travel, but it still seems to scrape.
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