I wouldn't literally put any of those coilovers on my lawnmower. The lowest price point coilovers I would by are Fortune Auto 500's, or Feal. They run around 1400-1500 dollars. Literally every single coilover you have listed in trash and will ride worse than your stock suspension.

Fork out a few hundred more dollars for something decent like the coilovers I mentioned above.

 

name-brand[/B]

Name-brand would be whiteline, ohlins, feal, kw, race comp engineering, etc.

Don't mess with those cheap ones. They don't ride well, they have poor travel, they don't last long, on a track they perform worse than stock suspensions, the ride height adjustments are rarely stable.

 

I own 5 cars.

I only use suspension components with established safety approvals. Look for a TUV!!!

If there is no TUV I don’t see why you’d trust your life to parts from a fly-by-night maker.

I use Bilstein and Kayaba on my cars now. I’ve also used Koni and Sachs. They’re all high quality.

Spend the money for actual parts or just replace your dampers but look T brands like this and not rubbish. You’ll still save money.

 

Fortune Auto 500 Gen 7s run for only $1300, Feals can be picked up for 1285. You guys are bashing the ones I listed for being the cheap ones when they're within 200 dollars of the FA and the Feals. Which means that Feals and FA's are also Mid-tier coilovers. Does anyone have any concrete input on the actual ride quality or adjustability of these vs the ones I listed?

 

Nobody will tell you any different. Go buy your chinesium suspension and tell everyone how smart you are as you cruise down the road in a suspension so harsh it gives you shaken baby syndrome.

There is a difference between a company with a racing pedigree and a Chinese manufacturer of crap. Kw has suspensions in that price range too, they are far superior in every way to anything you named. They actually have solid engineering behind them and are basic versions of their proven design.

Edit

My mind is so boggled by your response i had to come back. I assume that you have never looked up anything for those brands you've listed it's not surprise news that those companies fair poorly on shock dynos, don't last, and typically need rebuilt within a few thousand miles, if you can rebuild them. Many of them the rebuild kits were non existent or cost as much or more than the suspension themselves.

Companies like Feal got their start unfucking those cheap coilovers by rebuilding and revalving them to something that was actually useful. They decided to cut out the middle man and just build their own affordable set.

Your big mistake is reading cheap as a dollar amount. It isn't cheap is quality. Feal has their parts for the 441 made in Taiwan, however the parts are inspected and the coilovers are built here so you are already 100 steps ahead of anything on the market in that price range.

 

KW suspension parts should have TÜV approval on the box. There is a lower cost version too I think, called ST. I’d not look lower.

It’s your car. I’ve had Sachs, Bilstein, Kayaba — all these are established suppliers with approved components are they’re all OEM suppliers. People drive their children around on that stuff, millions of km if you add them up. I like safety. I can’t be killed, I’m too handsome.

 

Bc racing is USA made? This is news to me. Inspected maybe. However the design and component quality is historically lacking.

We are not trying to beat you down here, just letting you know there are great options in that price range including koni inserts and good quality springs. Coilovers come with caveats that many people ignore like ride height stability and longevity. Even known good versions like the KW mentioned previously will be shorter lived than a stock suspension by many magnitudes.

Back in my vw days I took a ride in many cars with cheap coilovers. They were brutal rides, and most of them couldn't corner well, and if you went hard you'd lift wheels. Nothing is sketchier than 3 wheels in a corner.

If you want something to daily and maybe hit a hpde try a set of koni yellow inserts and a good spring like rce. Eibach is also a good spring manufacturer I personally trust because i know their process and am a supplier for the materials they use.

 

Got it. I'll definitely do some further research, but I'll probably end up going for the FA 500 gen 7 (with radial bearings).

 

Check over at nasioc. I vaguely remember some shock Dyno results for several brands and the feal came out as the lone contender for the price. It is really hard to recommend many others even knowing fa does have some respect in the market.

Feal also has a 441+ or something that you can have custom valved and custom spring rate for your specific use. That's hard to beat for the ~$200 premium for them.

I would suggest calling Turn In Concepts in Cincinnati. They will not guide you wrong and will tell you exactly what to buy. They ship everywhere, ship quickly and have superior customer service to any performance shop I have ever dealt with. Seriously, do some searching about them here and on nasioc. They are the best.

 

I'll definitely check them out.

 

Alrighty. Reviving this thread because I've done some research. From everything I've found on NASIOC and on here, nobody has really posted anything constructive in terms of any comparisons between Feal 441, FA 500, ISC, BC, Silvers, etc. In the WRX group that i'm a member of, some people have the Silvers on their cars and said that they're definitely better ride quality than stock and have had no issues with them even 3 years in.

FA 500 gen 7: These guys seem to be the highest quality within this price range and offer a 5 year warranty. The gen 7s come with a newly designed spring and radial bearings as standard. However, I haven't found a single review on the actual ride quality or comfort of these, as they've only been available since early 2019. They are hand built to order and dyno tested in Virginia.

Silvers NEOMAX: With radial bearings upgrade and swift springs, these come out at around 1550. They do come with a substantial 18 month warranty which includes them shipping you a replacement part if needed so you don't have to be car-less when shipping an entire coilover back (like FA does). Every coilover sold here is hand assembled at their US facility and each one is also dynoed. (not batch dynoed, not random quality inspected)

Feal 441+: Swift springs. also have found zero reviews on the actual ride quality/comfort/performace

My thought process is that basically any substantial coilover replacement will be better than stock on the 2016 WRX, cause right now I'm getting thrown all over the place when taking corners that aren't smooth, and even when driving straight, the car really just doesn't handle bumps or cracks in the road well.

Essentially, from what everyone is saying, the key factor in coilover ride comfort (within the 1500 budget realm) is upgrading to swift springs and adding radial bearings. So. Comparing these two options

So again, does anyone have direct experience with Silvers NEOMAX, FA 500s, or swift spring upgraded 'cheaper' coilovers? If you have, please let me know.

 

There is a shock Dyno thread at nasioc. What did you learn from that? Do you understand what the shock dynos are? Have you contacted any performance shops and explained your needs and got their recommendations.

Springs are a portion, but a crap damper is going to make your ride harsh and your suspension travel crap. That's the key component here really.

I've personally never used coilovers, I've been in many vehicles with them ranging from kw variant 3 down to 500 dollar bc. I prefer a more compliant ride that's still capable on a track. They are all harsher than the factory when setup properly however some custom valved and higher end models have low and high speed dampening adjustments with a wider range.

If you are looking for a less harsh ride, no coilover is going to fit your bill, however I've been down this road with people before, you'll install them anyway, and claim the ride is better as your teeth are chipping from chattering over every pebble on the road.

 

"So again, does anyone have direct experience with Silvers NEOMAX, FA 500s, or swift spring upgraded 'cheaper' coilovers? If you have, please let me know."

 

So you didn't read a word of my post so I'll sum it up for you.

Yes, that's why i won't buy cheap coilovers.

 

Yes, I read your post. "I've personally never used coilovers."
I'm looking for someone who's actually used or is using any of the brands that I wrote about so I can hear what their impressions of them are.

 

If you have a concrete solution that you'd suggest for the same pricepoint that isn't coilovers, I'm more than willing to look into it.

 

Rce blacks and koni yellow inserts.

 

Shock dynos tell the full story.

Manufacturers that don't publish shock dyno results from the dampers aren't worth considering.

 

I wanted to expand on something earlier when I suggested to avoid manufacturers that don't publish shock dyno plots. More specifically, the calculated force vs. velocity damper curves. Usually when these aren't published it's one of two reasons.

1. The dampers and valving aren't quality and therefore the plots show poor rebound and compression damping (non-linearity)
2. The Manufacturer hasn't invested much R&D into the design and therefore simply has never put one of their dampers on the test bench

Either reason warrants an immediate rejection of the product IMO.

Case-in-point:

KW Variant 3 coilovers which are widely considered the pinnacle of a street coilover

https://www.kwsuspensions.net/products/coilovers/variant3

In the low-end segment, Fortune Auto is one of the few that does publish the results of their damper curves.

Fortune Auto 500 Coilovers - Race Proven Street Friendly Suspension

Coilovers, Developed on the Track Optimized for the Street. High Performance by Design. Hand-built Coilover Suspension at Production Prices. Fortune Auto Adjustable Coilovers.

fortune-auto.com

Companies like FEAL and BC BR do NOT publish the damper curves. Independent tests have shown BC BR to perform very poorly, typically much worse than a stock damper.

 

Feal did for quite a while, did they stop?

 

An OEM supplier like Kayaba or Koni will have the resources and experience to generate products that do what they are supposed to do reliably. That's just one reason I absolutely prefer OEM suppliers. It doesn't really matter to me whether Kayaba or Koni actually assemble their own stuff or outsource or both. Neither are saints and neither make the perfect damper (I've seen inconsistencies a while back on plots posted online for samples from both) but at the end of the day automakers -- who do this stuff for a living -- hire these firms to develop components for them that will be fitted to entire fleets and will be used globally. People put their families in those cars and trust their lives to the components without even thinking.

So, OP: Who in the hell are the companies you've mentioned again?

Granted my view can be seen as elitist or even geriatric, but then again my view increases my chances of actually getting older -- because I select stuff that's proven safe for my cars...

 

Let's backtrack. OP wants to lower the car somewhat. I believe earlier cars had slightly different perch arrangements, so that fitting 2010 Konis on a later car would lower the later car by about 1 cm? Is that right? Or is OP's car too new for this to work (have the parts been revised a third time, in other words?).

 

I know that was true for the change between the narrow-body GR and the wide-body GR, but I'm not certain that applies to the VA chassis.

I do remember that the perch height on the VA is MUCH different from the GR, but my memory is fuzzy. Something about a major difference in the front and not rear.

I will say this -- if my fuzzy memory has any merit still -- I recall that a revalve on BC-BR coilovers made them a decent option, but then you are looking at spending roughly the same amount as entry-level KWs or Bilsteins.

Yeah I'm elitist, but when people say they have "upgraded suspension" and follow with BC Racing, they get side-eyed. Sorry, but if they claim it "improved performance of their WRX," it's always followed by anecdotal evidence AT BEST. Ain't cognitive bias a bitch?

 

OP, here is a decent option that RCE bills as "entry level." They won't win you a LeMans trophy, but looks like they offer some improvement over stock.

A Racecomp Engineering Superstreet-1 2015+ WRX/STI

INTRO PRICE Features *20 clicks of adjustable rebound damping *Lowering front camber plates *Lowering range 10-30mm *Sealed camber plate bearing *Zinc coated *Road and Track spring rates 455/400 *More compression travel than stock NOTE: Shipping delayed until August 7th, 2020

www.racecompengineering.com

To quote the great and late Colin Chapman

Make the suspension adjustable and they will adjust it wrong -- look what they can do to a Weber carburetor in just a few moments of stupidity with a screwdriver.

 

I like that those offer actual travel and I also like the ad mentions KW explicitly.