BC Racing BR series Coilovers

By: Charles Juckett (Charlesj)

Introduction

When we first got the opportunity to test out the new BR series coilovers, I must say I was a bit skeptical.  Having not heard much about the company and with a typical street price of only $1000, I was not expecting much.  After doing a little research, it turns out that BC Racing is actually a large manufacturer that produces several well known brand’s suspensions including some that are quite a bit more expensive.  The BR Series is the companies first exclusive product with a design entirely their own.  The BR series features a mono tube design, 46mm piston/53mm housing, 30 way single adjustable dampening, front camber plates, rear pillowball mounts, and separate height and preload adjustments.  The standard spring set for the Lancer Evolution is a 8k front and 6k rear, however customers may choose any spring rate from 6k to 12k at an additional cost.  This may prove to be a beneficial option for those looking to maximize performance at the cost of ride quality.

Our initial inspection showed no surprises.  Build quality appears good all around and all functions work smoothly.  The body is a powder coated steel with aluminum adjustment collars.  A nice features is the adjustment knob which requires no hex wrenches or special tools to adjust and functions perfectly with 16 distinct clicks.  Although rebuilds are not currently available in the US, replacements are.  If your strut are in need of a rebuild, BC is currently replacing them with new damper unit for $95/each. 

Installation

The installation went pretty smooth with one small note.  The threads for the front brake line tap where powder coated making it a little difficult to thread.  After a call to the BC Racing office in Orlando, they noted this for future production.  Complete coilover installations are a straightforward process since you are completely removing the old suspension and replacing.  A couple notes to include however would be to start by removing the nuts on the strut towers and then work on the bottom.  In the rear, you may have to apply downward pressure on the suspension to remove the OEM struts.  When installing the coilovers, set the preload so that the spring is under no tension, but is snug in place with no play.  Your height adjustment will probably require several adjustments to get the vehicle even, so start with an initial guess making it even side to side and install the coilovers.  Leave tighten the two upper collars against each other and leave the lower one loose for height adjustment.  Turn the entire strut body to make the suspension expand or contract until the height is adjusted properly, then tighten the lower collar.

Once installed, it is imperative that you get a quality alignment and should also strong consider have the vehicle corner weighted for optimal performance.  Without a proper set, it is possible to actually decrease your handling performance

Street Testing

We have put roughly 1,000 miles of street driving through varied roads in our testing.  The results were actually quite surprising.  Despite our expectations, the BR series performed quite well.  The damping level seems to be work very well for the spring rates with quality dampening even over very rough surfaces.  The ride is firm, noticeably more so than stock, but not overly harsh.  All but the larger mid corner bumps where absorbed without upsetting the vehicle’s balance.  The bounciness or under dampening found in many budget systems was not to be seen in any significant level here.  Instead we found ourselves comparing the BR series to several more notable and more expensive mid levels systems such as the Tein Flex Mono which would probably be the most direct competitor in terms of our overall impressions.  For such a budget minded price, we can think of few systems that would have noticeable advantages without spending significantly more.

Track Testing

Previously the test car for this review was running a higher end more track oriented system and alignment (3.25 camber front, 2.5 rear).  For this testing, the spec were set as close as possible with 2.75 front, 2.5 rear.  Testing took place on the 12 hour course of Sebring Raceway, known for it’s rough surfaces.  Again as an inexpensive street oriented setup expectations were not high, although our results on the street were promising.  Again, we were surprised by the ability and consistency offered by the BR series.  While lap times were slower by approximately 2-3 seconds from the previous setup over the 3.7 mile course, the impression were quite good.  After several tests, we left the dampers at +8 front, +10 rear for what seemed to be the best results.  The majority of time seemed to be lost in the few very high load, high speed, rough sections such as turn 17 where exit speed was down slightly.  While there was an advantage with a more track oriented (and more expensive) coilover setup, the BR series proved worthy for occasional track events which fits perfectly into their design goals and target consumer.

Conclusion

While its easy to make snap judgments on parts such as this based on price and where they are made, the BC Racing BR series has broken our expectations and proved itself a worthy street and occasional track system at a great price and a strong competitor for systems cost $500-700 more.  Additional, BC Racing has announced a new inverted mono tube setup for a bit more performance that will be available shortly.