Why so much hatin on entry level coilovers??

Post by **turboboost** » Tue Mar 21, 2006 8:59 am

hahah i heard that teins blow out on you very quick........

Post by **TrueSlide** » Tue Mar 21, 2006 9:09 am

ddgsxr504 wrote:Hey True what's I. Y. A. A. Y. A. S. ?? The only reason I ask is that since I am in the Marine Corps and I also work on the Aviation side of the house all of our ORDINANCE (bombs, guns. ect) guys have adopted that slogan and have used it as long as I have been here (7+ years) except theirs is a little different...

I Y A O Y A S... with the O obviously standing for ordinance so what does the (A) stand for?

Ammo, same thing as Marine Ordinance, but with the AF. We do almost the exact same stuff, same sayings, same pisspot. Maybe alittle bit different history, ours came from very early army days.

If You Aint Ammo You Aint s***

Post by **lrb_2000** » Tue Mar 21, 2006 9:53 am

well I like my Ksports, and that's all that matters!

Post by **onosqv** » Tue Mar 21, 2006 9:58 am

TrueSlide wrote:Wasnt it proven awhile back Megan and Apexi N1 were made by the same freaking company, megans are just rebadaged and afforable.

Only on the outside. Yes, they are made by the same warehouse.

However, I believe the valving and material used is different since some of that info is proprietary (or something like that) - internals, which are more important.

ddgsxr504 wrote:Where did the K sports rust at? they are pretty much all aluminum so any insight to your comment would be very appreciated so I know what to look for.

I believe there was signs of rust, or what seemed like rust, on the damper - the orange parts are aluminum, I'm not sure about the damper itself... but there was definately SOMETHING. Also keep in mind this is So Cal beautiful weather... no excessive rain, no salt in the roads, we didn't go to the beach that much at all...

turboboost wrote:hahah i heard that teins blow out on you very quick........

My other friend had his super streets (edit: or whatever is the equivalent to those) on his prelude for 3 years before it blew out. Not too shabby.

However, when it did, took him about a month of searching, and another couple weeks to get it rebuilt. Just one shock cost about 200 or so w/ a hook up.

For KTS: "hi spl, i blew my dampers, can you send me a replacement set of dampers?""sure, 550"

swap in and like new, sweet!

Post by **Sky240PWR** » Tue Mar 21, 2006 10:42 am

so you guys are saying the Megans are not good? I wanted coilovers but didn't want to spend over $900 for them. I'm not going to be drifting nor tracking this car, just daily driving and your occasional race. I did do some research before I bought the Megans(not on car yet) and it seemed everyone who had them, liked them and had nothing bad to say so I bought them! My quesion is, since I'm not tracking or drifting and on a budget, were the megans a good choice?

Post by **nismofly** » Tue Mar 21, 2006 10:52 am

you spent $20,000 on body work and your debating over spending another $200 on coilovers?

Post by **masticatingcow** » Tue Mar 21, 2006 10:55 am

Since you're not tracking or drifting, the Megan's were a bad choice because they are coilovers. You could have saved teh cash by getting a good spring/damper combo instead. But like anything else, it's ultimately your car... and your call.

I think that with rare exception, people getting in on entry level coils are either track n00bs or guys with daily drivers who just want to say they have coils. Just my opinion...

That said, I think most NICO members are exceptions to the rule in the first place since most of us actually CARE about our cars.

Post by **onosqv** » Tue Mar 21, 2006 11:06 am

It doesn't matter what coils we get, or if we got coils...

masticatingcow wrote:I think that with rare exception, people getting in on entry level coils are either track n00bs or guys with daily drivers who just want to say they have coils. Just my opinion...

I think most of us are track noobs. Of the 30k of us or so on here, I seriously doubt more than 1% goes to the track more than once every couple months.

It can be easily seen by the participation in the motorsports forum compared to other subforums.

That being said, it doesn't really matter which suspension you get because you probably can't use your car to the 100% or even 80% limit yet.

Megans work fine. Of course ppl who bought Megans are gonna say they are good, they just paid 800-900 for something for their car... it HAS to be good or else they just wasted 800-900 dollars. For the cost, I'm sure they are fine.

I <3 my KTS coilovers, I bought extra options for it that make it about 1200-1300. It works great bcs otherwise, I'd have wasted 1200-1300... in all seriousness tho, they do work great - ppl usually forget the other factors, like the rest of the suspension components & that most of them are never gonna see a track or even hard driving, and a lot of them can't even drive all that well.

However, I think Nismofly put it best:

nismofly wrote:you spent $20,000 on body work and your debating over spending another $200 on coilovers?

Post by **nismofly** » Tue Mar 21, 2006 11:14 am

ill say this, im turboing my car just to get more power, in no way am i actually concentrating on the engine, id much rather put 15k into my suspension than anywhere else

i think its really a matter of what part of the car matters most to you, and unfortunately for most people the brakes, suspension, tires, etc...are just afterthoughts that they do to get them over with

Post by **lrb_2000** » Tue Mar 21, 2006 11:29 am

just to clear it up, megans and apexi exv, are the same inside and out. there was a thread on it a while back, and someone contacted the acual company that makes them, and confirmed that they were infact the same.

Post by **onosqv** » Tue Mar 21, 2006 11:36 am

lrb_2000 wrote:just to clear it up, megans and apexi exv, are the same inside and out. there was a thread on it a while back, and someone contacted the acual company that makes them, and confirmed that they were infact the same.

good to know, and if the original poster went to the Apex'i sale the other weekend, he would have been able to get those coilovers for 500-600 dollars, , cheaper than some springs & struts!!!

Post by **nismofly** » Tue Mar 21, 2006 11:38 am

regardless of brand name, theyre bargain coilovers

if i wanted to spend $900 on suspension id get custom valved koni yellows and ground control sleeve overs

Post by **TrueSlide** » Tue Mar 21, 2006 11:39 am

well I think its just a name brand thing. Kinda like NISMO and Hotshot, same header, wayy different prices. Stillen even does stuff like that, just rebadge things and reprice them.

Paying for a name.

Post by **nismofly** » Tue Mar 21, 2006 12:02 pm

regardless of the name though

its not that apex'i evx and tein basic are good coilovers, any better than megan and k sport, if you bought those then yeah you are paying for the name

its that theyre all poor quality, and theres much better available than any of them

its that for another $250 you can get KTS which are much better, thats not a paying for the brand name thing, its proven

paying $5,300 for a set of moton's isnt paying for the brand name, god knows theyre a ton better than anything

were not hating just on megan and k sport, we dont recommend basics, jic's, anything

i wouldnt recommend apex'i evx any more than id recommend megan, but id only recommend them in the first place if much higher quality coilovers werent available for another $200 or so, which they are

Post by **lrb_2000** » Tue Mar 21, 2006 1:03 pm

Yeah, KTS acually went down in price I believe.. they're about $1100 now.. when I was about to buy them, they were $1200 and on special order.. I didn't want to wait.. so I didn't. :\ I should have gone with them though.. i'll know next time.

Post by **nismofly** » Tue Mar 21, 2006 1:06 pm

they go up and down $100 or so, ive seen them range anywhere from like $1,015 to a hair over $1,200

Post by **onosqv** » Tue Mar 21, 2006 1:10 pm

nismofly wrote:they go up and down $100 or so, ive seen them range anywhere from like $1,015 to a hair over $1,200

Well, it cost me more cuz I got the adjustable height camber plates & z32 rear mounts

I need to get a couple more misc things for them that either fell off cuz I didn't tighten them, or maybe a couple luxury items (helper springs) that are not available via the site, but from spl.

Post by **nismofly** » Tue Mar 21, 2006 1:18 pm

im just ordering shelf units with a 7/5 setup and camber plates this summer, the rest of the suspension bits will come later

Post by **chmercer** » Tue Mar 21, 2006 2:09 pm

as nismofly and others already said, nobody here cares about brand names. if you do, you're probably a ricer. entry level coilovers are mechanically inferior. it dosent matter if its endless cusco whatever. the base model zeal coilovers are going to suck. base model kei office is going to suck. what you pay for on a coilover is the DAMPER. the extra little stuff like dual height adjust, aluminum brackets, pillow ball uppers, that stuff is nothing. thats the stuff they throw on a taiwanese truck damper so they can call it a coilover and sell it to uneducated people.

guy who said im angry all the time - i wouldnt be pissed off if people actually did some research once in a while before spamming up the boards all the time. same threads over and over and over.

guy with Ksports who might like to consider upgrading them -

http://www.qa1.nethttp://www.afcoracing ... oducts.com http://www.jegs.com/webapp/wcs...Id=-1h ... m/...earch

obviously you can order eibachs, hypercoil, swift blah blah as well. just measure the diameter of the springs on your current coilovers and get that size. good to go. also taller springs are generally better as long as you have room on the damper for them (ie so it dosent take up your height adjustability)

american parts are awesome. about 30 bucks a spring.any rate you want.

heres some D2s with rusted springs.

this... to

Post by **steve s14** » Tue Mar 21, 2006 2:58 pm

i agree mostly but, i don't think that all entry level coilovers are the same.entry level endless/zeal coilovers would be the b6's. at $2,335.00 a set, i wouldn't say that's an entry level price. also, i don't think they can really be compared to the entry level tein, jic, etc.i wouldn't say that they are worth that price, actually that's msrp, you can find them cheaper than that. but there is a quality difference between b6's and even jic's highest model flta2's.

Post by **nismofly** » Tue Mar 21, 2006 2:59 pm

chmercer wrote:as nismofly and others already said, nobody here cares about brand names. if you do, you're probably a ricer. entry level coilovers are mechanically inferior. it dosent matter if its endless cusco whatever. the base model zeal coilovers are going to suck. base model kei office is going to suck. what you pay for on a coilover is the DAMPER. the extra little stuff like dual height adjust, aluminum brackets, pillow ball uppers, that stuff is nothing. thats the stuff they throw on a taiwanese truck damper so they can call it a coilover and sell it to uneducated people.

exactly, buying a name is paying $1,500 for an ARC intercooler when you can pay 4 or 500 and get a precision thats just the same, bar and plate, very well built

buying a name is paying out the *** for an endless brake kit when stoptech and ap racing are just the same for 1/3 of the price

however brakes are similar in that rotora are not the same, and youre getting better pieces with stoptech and ap for the same price

if it was the same thing and youre paying $2,000 for zeals and $750 for megans, thats one thing...like i said paying $1,300 doesnt make those evx's or tein basics any better, but that means theyre charging too much for inferior parts, it doesnt mean megan is giving you a deal for good parts

but these are far from the same thing

Post by **TrueSlide** » Tue Mar 21, 2006 3:49 pm

haha, those d2s look like ****! someone needs to take car of there stuff.

Post by **Sky240PWR** » Tue Mar 21, 2006 4:06 pm

nismofly wrote:you spent $20,000 on body work and your debating over spending another $200 on coilovers?

cause I didn't have 20K all at once to put in the body, I still don't have all the money. I pay rent and bills and I save everything else, any money left goes into my car, there's alot of stuff I would like to buy(new clothes,new furniture,ect...) but not before my cars done so that extra 3-4 hundred I saved by buying the megans can go toward the rest of the body. I asked the company where i bought the body kit from, what were they using on their demo car and they said coilovers, and they recomended I do the same so I did. If my car was done and I was buying coilovers, yeah I'd buy better ones but for right now I just wanted the best bang for the buck, not the best quality.

Post by **steve s14** » Tue Mar 21, 2006 4:59 pm

i'm just going to repeat what other people have said because it is also my opinion as well, take it for what it's worth.

1. if you are looking for the best bang for the buck and you intend to do mostly street driving, coilovers are probably not the best choice. hell i'll go as far as to say they aren't even the second or third runnerup as a good choice.go with a good spring and shock combo.

2. if you must, for some reason, need to drive with coilovers on your car for street driving, buy a steel bodied entry level coilover but know that you are not getting the best bang for your buck. the reason for that is because most coilovers are overkill for the street. they usually have high damping rates and linear springs= bone jarring ride(as opposed to progressive).most of the cheap entry level coilovers may not have been engineered and tested to come up with the best damping + spring rate combination for superior handling improvements on the street. they are just some cheap knockoffs of what other manufactures are making.

do some research and see what other people are happy with in your price range but be aware that unless you have had first hand experience, what people tell you may not be fact but more opinion.

Post by **efrain240sx** » Tue Mar 21, 2006 5:04 pm

where can I get KTS coilovers

Post by **chmercer** » Tue Mar 21, 2006 5:09 pm

TrueSlide wrote:haha, those d2s look like ****! someone needs to take car of there stuff.

they look like **** because they are ****. the powdercoat on the springs is real crappy, and the metal is cheap (soft). and obviously the threads arent teflon coated.

http://www.splparts.com, main US supplier of KTS products, give them a call or an email! say charlie sent you

Post by **dfw240_EE** » Tue Mar 21, 2006 5:22 pm

Personally, I am saving up a few grand to throw into the 240SX's suspension. I fully intend to eventually, after getting my master's degree, to do some HPDE's. I found one locally that is $275 per weekend to go on the road race track at Texas World Speedway. When I say a few thousand, I mean everything. Bushings, control arms, coilovers, anti-roll bar, the works.

Until I can afford that sort of money, what else do I have better to do than research? I will look for coilover dyno charts, but google search is proving to be somewhat stubborn in this manner. I did manage to find a shock dyno for the KTS coilovers on the http://www.splparts.com site, but it's for KTS vs Tein, and the graph is in monochrome, so I can't read it very well. Plus I don't know how to interpret a shock dyno graph right now.

I did find these dynos on this Gentleman's CarDomain page: http://www.cardomain.com/ride/742393/5

and I found a page on how to read shock dyno's here:http://www.koni-na.com/presentations/civic/

I will post more as I find it. I also intend on buying a few books to help me along.

Post by **efrain240sx** » Tue Mar 21, 2006 5:31 pm

thank you chmercer I will contact them asap and ill let them know that charlie sent me. Also what do you guys think of tanabe sustec pro s-s coilovers. thanks

Post by **TrueSlide** » Tue Mar 21, 2006 5:44 pm

chmercer wrote:
they look like **** because they are ****. the powdercoat on the springs is real crappy, and the metal is cheap (soft). and obviously the threads arent teflon coated.

http://www.splparts.com, main US supplier of KTS products, give them a call or an email! say charlie sent you

ya they are ****! I have had mine for awhile and no problems with them what so ever. They have been beat on severly and everything. When D2 first came out, they had severe problems, they have actually stepped up and fixed those problems.

Post by **jeff13** » Wed Mar 22, 2006 10:39 pm

I got to agree with most of the stuff on this thread (including the comments that coilovers are overkill for the street) - however, no one has mentioned how important it is to find out if these entry level coilovers can be rebuilt. I know some can and others cannot be rebuilt, even the entry level coilovers. I had a set of JIC in my car that can't be rebuilt after it started to leak - they can only rebuild the 'premium' stuff and nothing else. In any case, I think we will all agree that proper suspension settting is more important than the brand. So if getting a set of coilovers and playing with the adjustments (rebound, compression, etc.) leads to a better understanding what it all those words means, how it affects your car and handling, then great, mission accomplished.

Why so much hatin on entry level coilovers??

Re: (ddgsxr504)

Re: (TrueSlide)

Re: (TrueSlide)

Re: (brokeAs240sx)

Re: (masticatingcow)

Re: (lrb_2000)

Re: (brokeAs240sx)

Re: (nismofly)

Re: (nismofly)

Re: (chmercer)

Re: (nismofly)

Re: (Sky240PWR)

Re: (nismofly)

Re: (TrueSlide)

Re: (dfw240_EE)

Re: (chmercer)

Re: (chmercer)

Nissan Forums

Infiniti Forums

Datsun Forums

Technical Forums

Classifieds / Marketplace

Nissan Motorsports

General Forums