I got KWV3 coilovers for my 5th Gen Legacy 3.6R through Shaggy (Shaggadelic on this forum) at Servco Subaru Wai`alae. Good price. Shaggy knows Subie mods. I had the coils installed at Island Brake and Alignment (Aiea), who have been aligning my cars the past ten years or so. Coils really transformed the car's handling.

 

The question is what are your intenstions for going to a coilover setup.

Without going too much into the scientific part of spring-strut/coilover system,

I'd say first take notice of the roads that you will be most frequently traveling, roads here in hawaii takes a toll on cars with modded suspension. Then go on NABISCO to do your research on coilovers vs sprint/strut combo.

Chad/spinplay01 is right on all points. the generallity is that you get what you paid for... Also Most suspension companies dont do shock test or shock logging to see the behavior of the coilover system under different conditions, thus providing different spring rates availibilties like 8k,6k,10k, 12k and so fourth. They just piggy back off of other designs. the real suspension companies will provide you with these " shock test", I dont know the real name they call it, I just call it "shock test", via scatter charts.

 

Dyno plots.

 

When i had my 76 280z track car my Coilover setup was about 7k which was cheap compared to others. The cars real only purpose in life was track use. But just getting coil overs without any mods to the rest of the suspension components will damage things because, there is much more stress on parts. Stress that was never intended from the factory. You can put coil overs on but again what are you going to be doing 99% of the time. I honestly think a good strut spring combo will do wonders vs. Coilovers. But thats my 2 cents. Also like chad said its only a matter of time till they start to leak or seize.

 

This is something anyone who mod's anything should keep in mind. The car is a system, change a part of the system and you change the dynamics. Better to improve the whole system a little than one part a lot!

On the topic of coilovers... Unless you will be racing (AutoX) or you just cant stop yourself from herrafrushing, there are much better options for your money. Namely, a decent aftermarket drop spring and a FEAL revalve on stock struts. This combo is really amazing performance for the money, and you won't be having to visit your chiropractor if you have a lapse in attention and happen to hit one of our island sized potholes.

If you really must get coilovers, for your money Feal 441 Coilovers would probably be your best bet. They use Swift springs (arguably best quality spring that is made) and valve to match spring rates in-house.

If you haven't, I would suggest riding in a car with coilovers for a good while ( 30+ minutes) before you think any further about it. It's likely that experience alone will be all you need to make your decision.