PainlessCandy
Well-Known Member
I know this subject has been beat to death to some degree, but I am looking for some advice on coilovers. I have the HFP suspension for my '13 Si Coupe, and while it is a huge improvement over the stock suspension, I want something better; I have always wished it was stiffer and had less body roll when taking corners hard and I want my car to be a little bit lower which isn't possible with my current setup.
I have read the coilover threads here and understand what most of my options are, but in doing further research on the individual manufacturers I noticed there are a bunch of different levels of products being offered. For the most part I am seeing anyone upgrading to coilovers getting the entry level setups, and I am curious if anyone has experience running the other product lines. In particular, I am looking at the Road/Asphalt Rally series setups offered by a couple of the top brands I see fitting our cars. The harshness of the roads in my area and my driving style seem perfectly suited to this application, and each company touts this version of coilover as more resilient to abuse, which (if true) would be a good choice for dealing with potholes, etc. There is no way that I could live with a track-only style setup as far as ride quality is concerned. The other thing that pulls me toward that product line is the increased travel of the shock/dampener. The main complaint I see from entry-level coilover buyers that are not happy with ride quality stems from a much shorter shock travel than stock or aftermarket spring/shock paired systems. I want it to be stiff and very responsive, but not feel like I'm killing my car when I go over the few hiccups in my highway commute, which are more like speed bumps where the road has been forced together at the joints. (The HFP suspension has been feeling a bit rough recently, but I suspect that's due to the 50k miles of abuse and light unintentional offroading it has seen and not a shortcoming of the original design since it used to feel more steady.) One of the key issues I see with the Rally setups is the rear suspension being combined into a single strut tower much like the front instead of the separate strut and spring that the multi-link system uses at with the stock and entry level setups. I have yet to determine if this is an issue with fitting wider wheels or not.
I am also curious about spring rates. I am having a hard time finding solid numbers on the spring rate of the HFP setup in order to compare to coilover options (hence why I want to add the HFP details to the main suspension thread). If anyone has any experience with different spring rates and what you felt was too harsh or too soft for your Si, or worked better at the track than others, I would appreciate hearing it. Swift springs seem like a no-brainer for the slight increase in price, so experience with them on a 9th Gen is also welcome as I didn't see much of that in my research.
Lastly, are there better coilovers out there for our cars? I see very few manufacturers offering all their product lines for our cars, including some with Rally options like I mentioned above, but not for our cars specifically. And in my research I have come across several "don't waste your money on X suspension, spend the money for a better system from a better manufacturer" posts based on experience, but the X is a top priced brand for our cars from what I can tell. I know you get what you pay for, so I am not opposed to spending an extra $1k to get really good suspension that will handle the abuse of Cleveland roads as opposed to getting entry-level coilovers and having to spend money to rebuild them every 15k miles (I put 25k miles on my car per year, so I'd like to keep from rebuilding anything more than once a year).
My only other concern is over the climate my suspension will see. All the top end brands seem to have similar features to protect them from the elements (dust boots, anodized or electroplated bodies, etc), but I live in a climate where they salt the roads so any experience with rust or structural longevity issues are also appreciated.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N910A using Tapatalk
I have read the coilover threads here and understand what most of my options are, but in doing further research on the individual manufacturers I noticed there are a bunch of different levels of products being offered. For the most part I am seeing anyone upgrading to coilovers getting the entry level setups, and I am curious if anyone has experience running the other product lines. In particular, I am looking at the Road/Asphalt Rally series setups offered by a couple of the top brands I see fitting our cars. The harshness of the roads in my area and my driving style seem perfectly suited to this application, and each company touts this version of coilover as more resilient to abuse, which (if true) would be a good choice for dealing with potholes, etc. There is no way that I could live with a track-only style setup as far as ride quality is concerned. The other thing that pulls me toward that product line is the increased travel of the shock/dampener. The main complaint I see from entry-level coilover buyers that are not happy with ride quality stems from a much shorter shock travel than stock or aftermarket spring/shock paired systems. I want it to be stiff and very responsive, but not feel like I'm killing my car when I go over the few hiccups in my highway commute, which are more like speed bumps where the road has been forced together at the joints. (The HFP suspension has been feeling a bit rough recently, but I suspect that's due to the 50k miles of abuse and light unintentional offroading it has seen and not a shortcoming of the original design since it used to feel more steady.) One of the key issues I see with the Rally setups is the rear suspension being combined into a single strut tower much like the front instead of the separate strut and spring that the multi-link system uses at with the stock and entry level setups. I have yet to determine if this is an issue with fitting wider wheels or not.
I am also curious about spring rates. I am having a hard time finding solid numbers on the spring rate of the HFP setup in order to compare to coilover options (hence why I want to add the HFP details to the main suspension thread). If anyone has any experience with different spring rates and what you felt was too harsh or too soft for your Si, or worked better at the track than others, I would appreciate hearing it. Swift springs seem like a no-brainer for the slight increase in price, so experience with them on a 9th Gen is also welcome as I didn't see much of that in my research.
Lastly, are there better coilovers out there for our cars? I see very few manufacturers offering all their product lines for our cars, including some with Rally options like I mentioned above, but not for our cars specifically. And in my research I have come across several "don't waste your money on X suspension, spend the money for a better system from a better manufacturer" posts based on experience, but the X is a top priced brand for our cars from what I can tell. I know you get what you pay for, so I am not opposed to spending an extra $1k to get really good suspension that will handle the abuse of Cleveland roads as opposed to getting entry-level coilovers and having to spend money to rebuild them every 15k miles (I put 25k miles on my car per year, so I'd like to keep from rebuilding anything more than once a year).
My only other concern is over the climate my suspension will see. All the top end brands seem to have similar features to protect them from the elements (dust boots, anodized or electroplated bodies, etc), but I live in a climate where they salt the roads so any experience with rust or structural longevity issues are also appreciated.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-N910A using Tapatalk
Last edited:
