I've never heard anyone complain about Ohlins or Bilsteins - so you'll be happy I'm sure!

 

I was messing around with the Bilstein insert bodies, as you could drop them into 05-07 sti inverted strut housings, without knocking out the bearings.

 

Those sold budd

 

Have to agree comfort wise i would never consider a coilover for our terrible roads,

Especially cheap sub £1k sets,

These may well cope on a flat track but on rough road where the expensive ones shine bright over the cheepos, a basic stock setup will give just as much if not more refinement,

Yet to be in a car with coils fitted and think oh this feel comfy,

 

I had MeisterR coilovers on my last daily driver Subaru, they were not harsh, not crashy and gave a much much better ride all round than any lowering spring and strut combo I had used before.

I will be getting another set for my MY15.

 

Cant understand why folk remove brand spanking OEM hardware to fit chinese crap (Meister, BC, Yellowspeed)

Lowering springs are often horrific ride wise too H&R so far being the absolute worst ive experianced, KW being closest to acceptable

No doubt there are performance gains to be had but comfort is ruined,

Depends on what you want comfort or performance, its always a compromise,

 

I would have thought so too, but the MeisterR coilovers I had were a FAR better ride than the Pedders Ezifit STI suspension that was on my FSTI when I bought it. Was much nicer to drive daily and handling was like night and day. Honestly transformed the car. In my experience. It really surprised me.

 

Are the Bilsteins similar in spec to the Koni's, or something different?

 

Id class Pedders as worse than stock, protective coating is non existent & still relatively cheap,

Price up the full stock setup even KYB & well matched spring with decent rubber topmounts all new rubber perch seats etc and soon adds up at least 1k if doing it properly, compare that setup to any of the suggestions on road and id put money on the stock setup being the best for comfort,

 

The OP was still looking at a comfortable setup to lower his car though, so either way you are looking at lowering springs on a set of struts of some type, standard, pedders, kyb etc. which will always be compromised to an extent by the lowering springs.

I've just put decent (well reviewed) lowering springs on my MY15 STI standard struts and to be honest, compared to my previous older FSTI I really wish I'd have put MeisterR coilovers on my new car. I guess this really comes down to personal feel and personal preference at the end of the day.

 

Are all OEM springs same height ?

 

I'm trying to cross the Koni insert with the RB320 damper.
Reduce the Bilstein gas pressure.
Increase bearing area on the inverted struts.
Change the rebound to bump ratios at low/mid and high damper speeds.
My springs are made with a flat-ride calculation, so I should be able to reduce the critical damping ratios for comfort/compliance, but still maintain the handling. Rather than the damper, making up for ill-chosen spring rates.
That's the theory, anyway.

 

Thanks everyone for your comments. I've got a lot of info to go away and have a ponder about. As people have suggested - putting coilovers on my last widetrack STI completely ruined it for daily driving. It was great on smooth roads and looked very "scene cool", but awful round town and very crashy.

I'm definitely leaning toward going for an OEM type damper setup, rubber oem type top mounts, but with some good quality lowering springs. Inevitably lowering the car is going to compromise a bit, but it won't be anywhere near as bad as fitting some cheap (sub 1k) coilovers. My rear struts are tired at the moment and knock every now and then, and are VERY corroded. But I'm hoping they'll survive the winter and I can get a fresh setup on early next year to go forward with. I'll update this thread with my feedback on whatever I go for.

I'll start pricing up KYB stuff, PCA dynamics springs etc....

 

 

That sounds a good combination, particularly for those of us looking to keep the fast B road abilities of the Impreza. I'm already committed to the Koni's and very happy with them, but the RB320 suspension is pretty good from my brief encounters with it so if you're aiming to combine the best bits of both then I can't see it being a bad setup! I guess the biggest issue with upgrades like inserts is how many of the STI's still actually have stock struts on them to use as a base, seeing as most already seem to have been converted to coilovers! Is the travel going to be similar to stock, or are you closer to the Koni's which allow for a lot of negative travel over crests and depressions in the road?

 

Sorry I'm late.

Ok. first thing. Ride height. Low cars drop the roll centre so much you need stiff springs to stop body roll. Consider going back up to near standard. Standard cars roll into the back corner, so to stop that ideally 5mm-10mm lower at front is the way to stop that. It is perfectly possible to get a set of BC's specced to give you all you need. A basic set of BR can come with +60mm shock travel, divergent damping and 5kg/4kg springs. This allows you to run from above to below standard ride heights and you get a set of helper springs thrown in. The down side is BC don't give you springs that are long enough, hence the helpers. You really need much longer springs and no helpers.

However and to echo slightly, ST-X's experience. I had a set of basic BRs, and a better set of adjustable ER's and on 5/4kg they gave a far worse ride than my current set, the ZR shocks. These are running 8/6 right now, down from the 10/8 supplied, but they are still lovely and plush with 15 clicks of rebound and 2 clicks of slow compression with high comp would off. Thus it's the quality of the damping that really matters. Like all things from the Far East, if you pay more you get far better quality. they have a linear quality factor. Budget models are designed to be cheaper. Even though most parts are interchangeable.

Where I've really seen the light though, is I run Neoprene socks over my coilovers and keep them spotlessly clean.

The more you pay the better the ride.

 

If you took the bump stops out of the equation and using the koni 3mm thick white circular bump stop spacers, but kept the upper spring perches in place, then:
The rear newage inverted sti struts have 2mm more compression and the koni rears have 7mm more in extension.
The front newage inverted sti struts have 16mm more in compression and the koni fronts have 33mm more in extension.

 

I saw some Ohlins ones on the US LegacyGT website - I thought they looked like a useful piece of kit - I got Richard at SumoPower to price them up... apparently £45 a corner... Can you recommend any that are a bit more wallet friendly please?

I have seen the Tegiwa ones at £33 for 4 - any experience? http://www.tegiwaimports.com/tegiwa-...0mm-350mm.html and lots of nylon or canvas ones on ebay...

Thanks

 

Ohlins at 45 a corner? gni introduce me to your guy

 

https://www.demon-tweeks.com/uk/kirk...-cover-244240/ at £30 a pair seems reasonable. Cheaper than that and if you can sew you could probably source the neoprene material and some velcro to make your own fairly easily. I'd highly recommend dousing everything on the struts with a thick layer of Bilt Hamber Dynax UC wax.

 

Coilover covers lol,

Not the actual coilovers themselves ,

We wish there was a 45 quid a corner set of ohlins

 

 

I use those Tegiwa ones. No problem at all. It's just neoprene with velcro sewn into the ends and looped edges with zip ties threaded through them. Nothing you can't make yourself frankly but really does the job. My suspension is coated in ACF-50 from top to bottom anyway. Good stuff.

 

My BCs are running 8kg/6kg springs right now. They are set to 15 clicks from in, rebound, and two clicks on low compression with high comp fully wound off. Lovely ride.

 

Waiting for Smurf............

How can cheap coilovers be comfortable???

I got shot down when I suggested my MeisterR coilovers were a great comfy every day ride. Glad someone else has a good experience with cheap-ish middle range coilovers too.

 

I think the key here is understanding what people's ideas of 'a lovely ride is', as well as seeing the state of roads that people are driving on. Smooth A roads are not the same as rough, rutted and potholed C roads. That said I do think there's an argument to say that in stock form the BC's possibly react better to the stiffer springs than the softer as it stops them blowing through their limited travel so readily.

 

Pretty sure Markyscoob runs the Gucci BC's, not the standard issue 700 quid filling removers......

 

Technically speaking the MeisterR filling shakers are £850 a set and the cheap BR BC's are around £760 I think. The BC RM series is £940 and the BC Gucci ER is £1,350 a set. The MeisterR GT1's are around £1,850 a set.

It doesn't necessarily follow that the more you pay for suspension the more comfortable it becomes though does it?

In my experience it would be wise to actually talk to the manufacturers like I did. I found them to be very helpful and very candid and honest about their own kit. Pedders advised me not to purchase their coilovers for a road car as they would be too harsh and advised me to look at alternative suppliers.

 

Pretty sure he runs the ZR's so better again

 

https://www.lancerregister.com/showthread.php?t=480914

Cracking thread from the darkside forum,

Cheap for a reason, id rather 2 sets of maxspeedingrods & one to keep for when they fall to bits