Installing Chinese coilovers on my Turbo.
01-15-2021, 03:55 PM
#16
RL Community Team
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Rennlist Member
You are a braver man than I.
01-15-2021, 05:52 PM
#18
RL Community Team
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Rennlist Member
I made some posts on one of the Porsche market places looking for coilovers and someone messaged me about this set they had for sale unused. I kind of dismissed them at first as one would do, but got to talking about them with him and they are actually a really nice kit. I spent a lot of time researching and I can't find anyone who has a properly installed Feal setup that does not like them. This is a small company in California who started out by rebuilding and revalving various shocks and then got into building full coilover kits themselves. These are hand built and tested at their facility. The shock body and shafts are made in Taiwan, supposedly quality parts made to their spec and standards. The valving is done in house with good parts, matched to the custom spring rate you order and tested on a shock dyno. The springs on my setup are nice Swift springs made in Japan I believe. The adjustments are all high quality stuff and these shocks are modular, they can be upgraded to external canisters with two or three way adjustability. My setup prices out at about $2200 and you get a lot for you money there including adjustable front camber plates, ride height, and 30 click soft/hard damper adjustment. The top spec with three way adjustability canisters runs around $5500. They seem legit and have great reviews all over so I thought I would give them a try. I thought it would be interesting to see what people thought as we all have name brand bias with this stuff. Definitely ironic that everyone is pulling their Ohlins out for quality control issues. I saw another Rennlister with these on a Turbo and a bunch of C2 guys have them, good reviews all around. If the valving is bad I'm going to know pretty quickly as mine is a street / track setup with really heavy springs 672/840 according to the guy I bought them from. I'm going to put these to the test and we will see!
Can you use OEM sway bar links with them?
01-15-2021, 06:22 PM
#19
Three Wheelin'
Thread Starter
He had them as backups for his track car but never used them. He was selling off various coilovers getting out of the hobby. They do come with front links. Not sure if the stock links will fit. I got one corner installed in the rear last night but it is way too low so I have to adjust it, did not fit the rear bar yet.
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Carlo_Carrera (01-15-2021)
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blazen244 (02-19-2021)
01-15-2021, 10:56 PM
#22
Three Wheelin'
Thread Starter
I've read good things about those too. They are probably similar to what I have, built from some good quality off the shelf parts but with custom valving to match the springs they choose.
01-17-2021, 02:03 PM
#23
Advanced
I have a set of BC Racing coilovers that were installed about 7,000 miles and 7 months ago and fully stand by them. For the price, they are extremely adjustable and give an excellent "road feel". It took a bit of fiddling to get the right ride height and rebound rate but it has enough flexibility to be tuned for light to moderate track use although I spend most of my time driving on the street at which it excels. It's smooth and stable on the highway and won't beat you up too much on rough roads although it is still considerably firmer than stock. Just make sure everything installed correctly and use Loctite on the bolts, I had what was considered to be a respectable indy shop install mine and they not only installed one of the top hats backward, but they didn't fully tighten down the lower connecting bolt, leading to a couple of unexpected failures over the following weeks and associated tow truck rides. I don't consider any of this to be at fault of the coilovers, but it's always good to double-check the installation of any aftermarket parts, even when it seems so hard to mess it up.
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Viper pilot (03-22-2022)
01-17-2021, 04:22 PM
#24
Three Wheelin'
Thread Starter
Looking closely at mine and at the BC setup, they are very similar. Mine look to be an upgraded version of the BCs with much stiffer springs and different piston valving. I have the rears installed, it was a challenge finding the right height I wanted but they look good. I'm working on the fronts right now. I'll test them later tonight or tomorrow on the road.
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01-17-2021, 09:19 PM
#25
RL Community Team
Rennlist Member
Rennlist Member
I've run the FEAL coilovers for 4 years on my car on the street and have run it once at a track day at Willow Springs on Advan A08R tires, and they work great. Nothing has broken, or loosened in 4 years of driving, and the roads here are close to intolerable due to pot holes, cracked concrete, dead skunks, etc. I think my install might have been the first since I helped them adjust the sway bar mount to a better location and orientation than it was originally at, and helped them better tune the dampening since it was under dampened at first. These allow you to run it at stock height, higher than stock height, or a lot lower than stock height. I run mine at about RoW height since the roads here really stink and it's mostly street driven. They also work fine with stock sway bar linkages.
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158Sierra (03-19-2022)
01-17-2021, 09:42 PM
#27
Rennlist Member
I have a set of BC Racing coilovers that were installed about 7,000 miles and 7 months ago and fully stand by them. For the price, they are extremely adjustable and give an excellent "road feel". It took a bit of fiddling to get the right ride height and rebound rate but it has enough flexibility to be tuned for light to moderate track use although I spend most of my time driving on the street at which it excels. It's smooth and stable on the highway and won't beat you up too much on rough roads although it is still considerably firmer than stock. Just make sure everything installed correctly and use Loctite on the bolts, I had what was considered to be a respectable indy shop install mine and they not only installed one of the top hats backward, but they didn't fully tighten down the lower connecting bolt, leading to a couple of unexpected failures over the following weeks and associated tow truck rides. I don't consider any of this to be at fault of the coilovers, but it's always good to double-check the installation of any aftermarket parts, even when it seems so hard to mess it up.
01-17-2021, 09:48 PM
#28
Advanced
what settings do you have the dampers set at? how many clicks have you found it to be acceptable for the street? i'm going to be changing the spring rates a bit going with the swift springs, but interested in your experience having them on the car already... the only reason i went with BC was because i will be installing aircups in the front to be able to clear the front nose when i enter and exit my garage... currently on H&R springs i am scraping everytime i pull the car in and out and it pains me to hear the crunching of the underbody panels...
01-17-2021, 10:05 PM
#29
Three Wheelin'
Thread Starter
I didn't get my fronts totally installed but I did take it for a ride with H&R Street fronts and the Feal rears with 840# rear springs, Eibach sways set on the middle hole too. On a bumpy road they worked really well on full soft settings, this is going to be totally streetable. I then clicked them over to full stiff and it was bumpy. The settings make a big difference but I am pretty happy so far. I will get the fronts in soon.