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Whats the difference between springs and coilovers?
I'm a noob in suspension and i was wondering what the difference was between springs and coilovers. Im just a daily driver just looking to lower the car, but at the same time improve my cornering abilities.
Besides the HUGE difference in price (roughly $100 to $300 for a set of springs VS roughly $1000 to $3000 for a set of coilovers)……
Springs are mainly designed to lower the center of gravity of the car and stiffen your ride a bit (Little performance gain)
Coilovers actually contain springs, struts and upper mounts that are designed to work together as a system, replacing your stock suspension units as a whole. (Huge performance gain)
Also, you can adjust the coilovers base on your needs. (Including ride height adjustments and many others, there are so many things that you can adjust that it literally makes your head hurts.)
I am sure you won’t need a $3000 set of coilovers, if you are just looking for a little performance gain and a lower ride height, so springs are the way to go!
(If you feel you need more performance than springs can give you, you can always buy a set of struts with your springs)
Experts out there:
Please correct/add if I am wrong or missing something important.
Besides the HUGE difference in price (roughly $100 to $300 for a set of springs VS roughly $1000 to $3000 for a set of coilovers)……
Springs are mainly designed to lower the center of gravity of the car and stiffen your ride a bit (Little performance gain)
Coilovers actually contain springs, struts and upper mounts that are designed to work together as a system, replacing your stock suspension units as a whole. (Huge performance gain)
Also, you can adjust the coilovers base on your needs. (Including ride height adjustments and many others, there are so many things that you can adjust that it literally makes your head hurts.)
I am sure you won’t need a $3000 set of coilovers, if you are just looking for a little performance gain and a lower ride height, so springs are the way to go!
(If you feel you need more performance than springs can give you, you can always buy a set of struts with your springs)
Experts out there:
Please correct/add if I am wrong or missing something important.
He's right....the advantage of coilovers are they are designed from the ground up to work as a cohesive unit. There's no worry of trying to pick a damper to match with a certain spring. All the testing has been done on the product, so you don't have to. Some coilovers can be rebuilt as well and the dampers themselves will generally last longer than a random spring/damper combo. This is what will happen if you ONLY put springs on a stock strut. A stock strut (whether stock, KYB, Koni, or whatever) is designed to work with a stock spring. When you lower the springs, the strut has to work harder to control that spring and the harder you drive the quicker it will wear itself out. By merely installing a lowering spring, you're compressing the damper itself when the car is not even moving. Then while the car is in motion and during aggressive driving, you're losing some compression/rebound characteristics of the internal valving. Here's a good analogy; you can get up out of your chair, walk to the fridge, get something to drink and sit back down relatively easily right? Now try it like this. Stand straight up, but bend at your knees so you're about an inch shorter and just stand there for about 5 mintues. Now try to walk that way. Do EVERYTHING that way. A bit more difficult isn't it? That is similar to installing a lowering spring on your car and the effect it has. With that said, lowering springs are not the devil. You will have less body roll and a slightly stiffer ride and plus your car will look cool!! And as far as it not "working" with the factory strut, well, you may not even notice it unless you're a regular track guy (you'd never see a track car with "just" lowering springs anyway). It's not a bad way to enter into the realm of suspension mods. Springs are relatively inexpensive so buy 'em, try 'em, and just know your struts will wear faster and you'll have to replace them eventually. Then you can sell the springs on ebay and move up to a coilover setup. The one problem with coilovers that I've personally found is while they are highly adjustable, 90% of the time you'll never adjust it once you find a comfortable setting (unless you're an avid track guy). However, for a street car, it's just too much of a hassle. Do you really want to get ready for a night out, get out to your car and say, "Oh ****, I need to lower it an inch, hold on." You probably won't adjust them as much as you think. That said, Tein's EDFC system is nice for at least you can adjust compression/rebound on the fly (you'll still have to adjust ride height manually though, unless you go with a full on air suspension). Another good one is H&R's Cup Kits. These are ride height adjustable, but the dampers are not, they're already valved for the specific vehicle, so that's one less adjustment you have to worry about, especially if you're not familiar with compression/rebound. And ride height adjustment is a bit easier mentally-speaking, it's merely up or down....not 2 clicks up from full soft or 3 clicks down from full stiff.....One last thing, remember the lower you go the harder it is to get a proper alignment. Most cars can be lowered about an inch or so and still maintain factory alignment specs. However, once you enter into the 1.5 to 2 inch range, then you're looking at using camber plates or other necessary alignment parts just to maintain a safe alignment that won't wear out your $800/set tires in 5000 miles!!.....sorry for rambling!!!!!!!!!!!
Last edited by BlackedOutSTi; 12-25-2004 at 12:11 PM.
Well, i have Tien or Tein springs on my 03 wrx and it rides very nice but i heard that it's only good for about 30,xxx miles on stock struts, correct me if i'm wrong. But i've had it on for more than 30,xxx miles and it still rides ok but i am upgrading to Jic FLTA1 Or FLTA2, still deciding. What you guys think?
Me peronally, I doubt I would change my ride height. The moment I found the right ride height for my daily driving characteristics I would probably just leave it alone. But my friend on the other hand was tellin' me that if it were him, he would be constantly changing his height because he's a spontaneous person. I mean, one day I may like my height to be average. Then later down the road I may want to drop my car. Then soon after than I may want to lift back again.
Bottom line is, I was just wondering if it was true that you would have to get your wheels aligned each time you played with your height settings.
Origami posted by supertek75
Bottom line is, I was just wondering if it was true that you would have to get your wheels aligned each time you played with your height settings.
Bottom line is, your car only needs re-alignment if you want to retain optimum settings especially for track use and even tire wear on the street (these settings may be different). Camber settings change with ride height.
If alignment settings don't matter to you and the coilover ride height is selected for boulevard looks only, then forget the alignment.
Bottom line is, your car only needs re-alignment if you want to retain optimum settings especially for track use and even tire wear on the street (these settings may be different). Camber settings change with ride height.
If alignment settings don't matter to you and the coilover ride height is selected for boulevard looks only, then forget the alignment.
Alright, thanks for the tips. I'm a straight noob, so it didn't really clarify too much on me. So I'm gonna see if I can get this straight. Each time you adjust your ride height, it has the dendency to change your camber settings. So, if I were hitting track, it would be important to keep conscious about my alignment. But, if it were just for street use, Then each time I played with my ride height settings its not too important to keep in my mind the alignment? Or did you mean that if I left the setting the way it was for street, then just do the alignment once, and it will be just fine.
I guess what I'm really asking is, if I played with my ride height alot, does that mean I have to keep getting my alignment done so that my tires don't wear out in 5,000 miles of street use?
Each time you adjust your ride height, it has the dendency to change your camber settings.
Yes.
Quote:
But, if it were just for street use, Then each time I played with my ride height settings its not too important to keep in my mind the alignment?
But again, how often do you think you'll be doing this. Not a lot, i imagine. Most coilovers have an optimum range of adjustment and these ranges aren't too terribly wide.
Quote:
if I played with my ride height alot, does that mean I have to keep getting my alignment done so that my tires don't wear out in 5,000 miles of street use?
Yes.
To truly understand the answer to your question, you have to understand how to subaru suspension works. it does have dynamic camber in that the lower you go, the more the wheels will camber in. At full extension, the wheels tend* to have positive camber. Go find a copy of "How to make your car Handle." It'll help.
A well built coilover will handle track day use AND street driving at or around the same ride height level. Riding around half an inch lower then normal for one day doesn't make a huge world of difference in camber settings.
with the way you will be treating the car (set-it-and-forget-it), you are driving it on the street mostly; get the alingment done once, then simply get it checked-up one or twice a year. Easy.
DO NOT simply "forget the alignment." It is an important part of the way your car behaves, much less the cost of tires as you burn through them.
Well, i have Tien or Tein springs on my 03 wrx and it rides very nice but i heard that it's only good for about 30,xxx miles on stock struts, correct me if i'm wrong. But i've had it on for more than 30,xxx miles and it still rides ok but i am upgrading to Jic FLTA1 Or FLTA2, still deciding. What you guys think?
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