Which suspension?
 

Hi guys

I need to know your opinions on this question.

I am looking for a new suspension for my Type R.
I will need this on the road and on track. It needs to be soft enough to not kill me during long drives in the racing seat and hard enough to be competitive in slaloms, hill climbs and on track.
It should be fully adjustable and damping rates adjustability should be easy accesible.

I have had an old Tein HT (only height adjustable) and two Tein Flex so far.
I liked the easy adjustability with the EDFC but all three of them had issues after some time and needed rebuilds.

I have the following in mind so far:
- Tein Mono Flex
- Tein Super Racing
- HKS Hypermax Pro
- Quantum RS
- Ohlins
- AST
- Exe-tc

Would be great if you guys could let me know about your experiences with some of those suspensions.

Thanks

In my humble experience, AST.
I would have to write for ever covering the reasons why, and i have a stupidly long thread all about it in projects if you might be interested.

They can be tuned to give road manners and track manners if you get the matching parts all correct.

Which AST version do you have?
And have you switched stuff on them besides the MRT top mounts?

I started to go into your thread but it is quite long.

I first had the simple 'one way' adjustables with 50/40 spring rates and adjustable top mounts.
I already had 22mm front/24mm rear bars with solid links, poly bushes, lower front brace,lower rear track arms and subframe locking kit all from Whiteline + camber bolts all round.

Car was great.

Then had the very fanct AST 3 way adjustable units with 60/50 rates, everything else the same and the car was 'OK' but needed a lot of playing with to get the 3 damping rate /corner right.
Once sorted the car was raced faster.

Went back to 50/40 rates on the 3 ways and did the damping all over again and found an improvement.

I tried a few other things since, inc a 27mm FRONT roll bar and roll-centre mod kit from Whiteline. No real improvement to speak of.

Back on 22/24 bars now.

AST end of

I use to have the tein on my car now I am on ASTs. On comparison I think the Tein are better but they are just to stiff for the uk roads.

Which Tein did you have?

Anybody any ideas on the other suspensions?

I have exe-tc on my sti5 (not type R)
Made a world of difference compared to the standard suspension

Its got 40 way adjustment so you can set it so its no worse than your original suspension

I set it at about 25 clicks on the race circuit...... It is fine on easy circuits like Donnington, Snetterton but it bottoms out a lot at places like Coombe - not sure if its too low - I may raise the height about 10 mm's as its been set up at about 40mm lower than std rise height which is maybe a little too low
(Banging on the stops on the rear going over the bumps at Coombe a little disturbing!)

I have experience of riding in a car with non-adjustable Teins - Teins were crap in comparison

I also have experience of Leda C on one of my previous cars - Exe-Tc is worlds ahead

I cant comment on AST's

There were 3 reasons I didnt go for AST and went for Exe-TC

1. Convenience as I was having the gearbox done at the same time
2. If its good enough for RCM its good enough for me
3. Heard bad reports about slow speed kocking on the AST's - which put me off

You get some noises in the rear from the Exe-Tc's but you do with most and definately Leda

Would I repurchase Exe-Tc - Yes

Would be nice to go in a car with AST's to compare

One comment from an old instructor at Coombe (the main ex-racer) said that the suspension set up was 'perfect' for the Coombe circuit and liked the point and squirt ability of my 500bhp sti5

Any more expereinces with suspensions?