I just installed a set of Megan Racing coilovers and I figured since it was a fairly new product, I'd get it a review so everyone could get an idea about them.

First off, these things are beautiful. The craftsmanship looks to be top notch, everything is nicely finished, the welds on the shock mount look great, and the locking spindles have nice hard square notches so you get a good positive lock with the adjusting wrenches. They supposedly have 32 levels of dampening adjustment and you can feel an noticible click when you turn the adjusting knob. The adjusting knob is nice, its doesn't look like it can be removed so losing it won't be a problem, and it can be turned by hand so no tools are needed and theres no allen heads/torx heads/whatever to strip/round out. The allen heads on the camber plate are deep enough so you get a good positive fit with the allen key provided with the coilovers. The kit came with adjusting wrenches, an allen wrench, the coilovers, dissasembly instructions/parts list, and NEW HARDWARE for up top. They included 6 new nuts for the front, and 4 for the rear. The rears come in handy because I dropped 2 of the factory nuts behind an interior panel when I removed the old struts.

Install was a breeze, 3 nuts and 2 bolts for the fronts, and 3 nuts for the rears, in and out in 45 minutes or less with air tools and some basic mechanical ability. Just be sure that everything is tight, don't forget to tighten the bolts on the camber plate before you set the car down, they're just slightly loose from the factory and if you lower the car, it'll camber way in and you'll have to jack the car back up to reset and tighten them. Don't ask how I know.

I decided to leave mine at whatever the factory had them set at for the install, and adjust them later. The spring and height perches were set the same for both fronts, and the rears were also set at matching heights so I locked the rings down tight and put them in. The factory settings put the car at the perfect height for me, with no wheel well gap in the rear but no tuck, and maybe 1.5" in the front. *(important side note: if going from stock height to these, make sure to put some boards under your tires before you lower the car back to the ground. I ended up pinning my jack under the car and it was in an area where I couldn't jack it back up, had to drive the car onto boards dragging the jack along until it was high enough to remove.)*

Now, the one thing I found, was that there was almost NO tire ->spring perch clearance in the front with my wheels but didn't rub. I'm using a Borbet Type-S in 17x7.5 +35 with a Falken Ziex in 215/45/17 and I couldn't fit a finger between the tire and perch, and these tires have a very sloped sidewall. I'd imagine a square sidewalled tire would rub pretty bad if you could even manage to get it on there with a similar sized wheel.

With the coils installed and the camber plates set at 0, there was a lot more negaive camber than I would ever want to drive on.

My solution, to solve both the tire -> spring perch clearance issue, and the negative camber at the same time, was to slot the upper mount hole, where the coilover bolts to the spindle, in the coilovers about a 1/2" with a die grinder and some patience. I'm pretty sure I've seen other coilovers that came with the top hole already slotted, and this allows you to pull the top of the wheel away from the coilover while adding some positive camber. I pulled the spindle out until the rotors were pefectly level using a bubble level on a T-square, then locked everything down. This seems to have made the setup perfect. When my camber plate is on 0, I want there to be 0 camber and thats the way it seems with a simple bubble level (I will be taking it to an alignment shop and having them set the spindle to 0 degrees perfectly, then adjusting everything with the camber plates) I now have enough clearance between the coilovers and tires to fit a finger so I feel a bit safer.

They were pretty bouncy on the softest setting for about 2 days, but now they have started to feel smoother. The car handles a TON better, much more solid and controlled on the road, and it definately helps keep it under control when taking a corner at high speeds or just taking it agressively.

For just a little more than the price of getting performance struts, lowering springs, and replacing all the bushings in the strut assembly, plus the extra labor of disassembling the old strut, you can have a nice set of coils that handle good and won't bounce you all over the road, and with a little work with a die grinder/dremmel they seem like they'd fit almost any wheel.

If this review were going to be read by Megan, and my input was desired, I'd tell them they seem to have a great product, but that I'd either move the upper strut mount hole out a 1/2" or slot the hole so it could be adjusted based on wheel offset and so that 0 degrees on the camber plate was actually 0 degrees. That is really the only thing that I would change. They look to be well built, they bolt in perfectly, they handle nicely and make a huge difference, and for the price I don't know that you can beat them.

If anyone has any questions, let me know and I'll try to respond the best that I can.

Thanks for the write up. Sounds like a nicely setup product. I like the fact they gave you new nuts for the strut tops. Please keep us posted on how they are performing and what settings you found to be the best once they settled.
Modified by llamabeta at 6:38 AM 12/12/2004

i too ordered these and was wondering if you had any pics of them installed on your car? also what dampening "click" level do you like?

No pictures as of yet, but I'll see what I can do to show the height difference.

Right now I'm still running on the softest setting, and after 3 days of driving around both being gentle and being agressive, they seemed to have gotten passed the really bouncy stage. The first night I had them installed the ride was really bouncy, now its just a bit harsher than stock. I'll probably crank them up a few notched at a time over a period of a few weeks, and when I hit a setting that I just can't stand, I'll back it off a bit.

im guessing you had an s14? right?

Nope, S13

realy? underground said tat the s13 install had no probs to it???

where did youget these from?

There is no problem with the S13 install, I reamed the holes based on my own personal preference because my wheels were sitting way too close to the spring for me to feel safe with.

All I did was ream the upper hole towards the outside of the car so I could pull the top of my wheel away from the coilover. This will not necessary with a properly offset wheel.

BaliLover wrote:There is no problem with the S13 install, I reamed the holes based on my own personal preference because my wheels were sitting way too close to the spring for me to feel safe with.

All I did was ream the upper hole towards the outside of the car so I could pull the top of my wheel away from the coilover. This will not necessary with a properly offset wheel.

could yuo please take a pic of this for me. as i too have this problem, and would like to see just how big you made the hole. after installing the coilovers i had to leave the height actually higher then stock due to the fact that i don't want the tire and perch to rub. thanks for the help.

BaliLover wrote:...If this review were going to be read by Megan, and my input was desired, I'd tell them they seem to have a great product, but that I'd either move the upper strut mount hole out a 1/2" or slot the hole so it could be adjusted based on wheel offset and so that 0 degrees on the camber plate was actually 0 degrees. That is really the only thing that I would change. They look to be well built, they bolt in perfectly, they handle nicely and make a huge difference, and for the price I don't know that you can beat them...

First of all why in the world would anyone want 0 degree camber? Stock camber is -1 deg. Other than that do you have any updates?

pics???

I didn't say I wanted 0 degrees camber. I wanted to have 0 degree camber when the camber plate read 0 so that the numbers on the plate were able to be accurately used for adjustments.

anyone using wide tires / wheels with these? I have 16x8 advans with 245-50-16?

Also looks like they are discontinued. Any truth to this?

would you have rather gotten the track MRs insted?

the calibur of intelligence that buy MR products are ALL in this thread....im favoriting this ****

yokota180sx wrote:the calibur of intelligence that buy MR products are ALL in this thread....im favoriting this ****

jealous yokota?i could buy you some Megan's if you real really want em that bad ya know...

.. quick question..what does yokota mean?i know it isn't your name since your from MB..

i work at yokota abq

yokota180sx wrote:i work at yokota abq

hmm..intersting...nice ride up.

do they still have any bounce or has it gone completly away?

i always pondered which coilover set i would want and i decided on either stance gr+ or megan street coilovers. thats really cool you liked your megan set up. where did you get your set? im trying to find them cheaper than ebay.

I just got a set and I love em. I got mine from Phase 2 it only took a couple of days for shipping.

Nice review...

let me add mine if you don't mind.

Adrian's Review on Megan Coilovers:My cousin got the Megan Streets. We installed and played with it at my house.

Install was basic cake. They have pre-load, so they can go pretty low... but Edgard (I forgot his username, i think its like Articdragon or something liek that), I think he had Stance, and his went even lower than what Megans went (we pretty much maxed out the coilovers to as low as they can go, haha).

As far as the feel. They're ok. I consider them bouncy though. And by bouncy, I don't mean the stiffness of the springs (8/6), I mean you can feel the car pull down with the shock rebound, regardless of damper settings. Its kinda hard to explain... but if you were to take a ride down the 91 freeway here in socal in a set of Stances (same spring rates), then ride Megans, you can tell the difference. As far as performance... my cousin loves them. They get the job done..

It's bouncy because they are oversprung, and have crap valving. Welcome to cheap crap coilovers.

That involves just about all of them.

I just installed a set of Megan Streets last night

It ended up taking 4 hours, due to a lack of power tools & my S13's bolts/nuts being rusted together. I used half a can of PB Blaster to free them up & still broke two of my tools in the process

I will report back with my initial review of these coilovers, since the thread was started years ago... they may have made some changes to the product

buy aragosta you cheap ****s

yokota180sx wrote:buy aragosta you cheap ****s

I hope you were being sarcastic $4,000 for coilovers?

Anway, the Megans are (so far) a dramatic improvement over the stock springs, shocks and struts. Are they as good as Ferrari's stock coilover systems (what I would call the Holy Grail)? Nope. But we're talking a huge price difference here.

UPDATE

After my first test run, I was thinking the naysayers were right. Ride quality was odd. BUT I realized that they shipped the coilovers set to the highest setting! So I was running hardcore track damping on the street

I set all four to "25" which is closer to street damping, and now I am in love

Megan Street coilovers are awesome

yokota is just too baller for everyone.