How bad do coilovers ride?
RL Community Team
Rennlist Member
Rennlist Member
Joined: Oct 2007
Posts: 28,601
Likes: 8,393
From: Clemson, SC
My B16s ride better than the stock suspension with actual rebound dampening. You can feel the suspension move instead of it just feeling hard all the time, and no more rear end wallowing over high speed dips and humps.
Burning Brakes
Joined: Jun 2022
Posts: 943
Likes: 380
I'm doing a full refresh with OEM everything almost, B4s, and Techart springs (which have slightly softer initial spring rates than stock and firm up as they're progressive). Little bit of an experiment but supposedly it's good, I'll let you know! Remind me
Rennlist Member
Joined: May 2024
Posts: 1,973
Likes: 1,020
From: SoCal
Are you using the stock B16 spring rates? And how soft/stiff have you adjusted your dampers - primarily the rear?
Instructor
Joined: Feb 2024
Posts: 150
Likes: 38
From: PNW
In theory a coil over should be the same as an OEM style assuming the spring rates and damping are similar, and that combination is up to your vendor. However it seems to me that a stock spring has that nice big rubber insulator whereas a coil over is more of a direct ie solid mount, at least all of the ones I've seen. This may slightly increase NVH.
I'm sensitive to NVH (taken other cars too car in the past) and so I originally left all the rubber oem bits in the suspension. But I recently changed the strut mounts from OEM rubber to a Elephant racing mono-ball. At the same time I also replaced the rubber caster pucks with solid adjustable caster pucks, and this change while making the car feel better and more direct didn't seem to adversely increase NVH at all, best of both worlds. I mention this only to point out that maybe the stock spring using an insulated rubber perch may not really make any difference compared to a solidly mounted coil over.
My personal combo is Bilstein B8's damptronic with a DSC controller and TechArt springs and street ride is good, I might even say great considering its still a sports car. FWIW my car did not come with PASM, I installed the DSC as a standalone unit.
I'm sensitive to NVH (taken other cars too car in the past) and so I originally left all the rubber oem bits in the suspension. But I recently changed the strut mounts from OEM rubber to a Elephant racing mono-ball. At the same time I also replaced the rubber caster pucks with solid adjustable caster pucks, and this change while making the car feel better and more direct didn't seem to adversely increase NVH at all, best of both worlds. I mention this only to point out that maybe the stock spring using an insulated rubber perch may not really make any difference compared to a solidly mounted coil over.
My personal combo is Bilstein B8's damptronic with a DSC controller and TechArt springs and street ride is good, I might even say great considering its still a sports car. FWIW my car did not come with PASM, I installed the DSC as a standalone unit.
