Blue Evo 8

iTrader: (40)

I'm thinking of getting some coilovers mainly for the reason of losing some more weight and also for the adjustability of ride height. I was looking at the Apexi N1 EXV coilover and was wondering is people who have them can comment on them... how you like it, how much you paid, how well it performs etc.

I am thinking of leaving it at stock height though for the streets of NYC but perhaps lowering the car for for track events if I ever get serious about it. But for the most part my car is a street/highway car....

I've seen some prices of online vendors selling these for as low as $1200-$1300...

please discuss

P3CC054N

from what I hear the apex coilovers are not really that good quality.
I have a set of stances and they are around the price that you are looking for and they are set of inverted monotube shocks [same stuff that moton and highend COs use].
And if you want to go lighter stance has aluminums that will drop a couple of pounds more per corner. Just a thought.



www.stance-usa.com

thatmr2guy

iTrader: (5)

most of the coil over solutions will be less weight than the factory and all will allow you to modify ride height. But no offense I think you may want to revisit why you want them and what you want out of them.

I have been researching them and I am no expert but I can tell you a couple of things:

if you just get them for those reasons and use price as the determining factor you may really put yourself into a pickle.

Now you can talk to alot people and each person has diferent taste.

But if you get a cheap coil over:
1) You can get a very rough riding setup that may torture you in NY.
2) You can get a CC that will ruin your handling
3) Lowering is really good for photoshoots but not always super for an EVO. You need that travel to absorb the impacts.

The best coil overs for a moderate price appear to the KW variants that you can get for about 1800 or have Robispec revalve them for racing for about 2K. Ohlins/DFV seam to be a good deal as well. You need to pay real close attention to the spring rates. too high and you will need dental work. Bilstiens PSS9 seam to be a more moderate as far as stifness and our also in that price range (around 2K), if you can reach Steve ZZyzx's are supposed to very nice.

But from what I have heard most of the asian co's are limited travel and not well suited to the fun of pothole cities.

If you really want to ditch some more weight consider just getting Swiftr springs they will lower and I am told they weigh less than other springs. GTworx//RCE make a very nice mild dropped spring, that I use.

Take the money you save and buy some of those really lightweight parts that Buschar sells: battery kit/mustache bar etc....

I really dont know crap except what I read and what people seam to be happy with. But I do know that making a mistake on coil overs can reall trash an evo's driving experience and really lighten your wallet....

Good luck man, also dont forget that all tires dont weigh the same either, you might be suprised that you can get those 2-5 pounds each just buy shopping rubber....

P3CC054N

+1 save money on some other parts of your evo. With suspension you dont want to go baller but you dont want to go cheap as well.

Anyway not to flame but just wanted to correct a couple of your statements because you dont want to MISINFORM somebody doing an inquiry thatmr2guy.

"But from what I have heard most of the asian co's are limited travel"
- not MOST Asian CO have limited travel. COs are built in different ways regardless of where it comes from. it depends on how the CO lowers your car as well as the shock travel itself. if the CO lowers with the spring perch then that is when you loose most of your shock travel. Look for a CO that adjusts with the lower bracket so doesn't matter how low you go the travel will be the same as opposed to KWvariants where you lower the car enough and there will be no travel on the shock and the car will ride on the bumpstops.

"Lowering is really good for photoshoots but not always super for an EVO."
- I have my EVO dropped at least 2 inches and the evo drove better than stock. and I live in Chicago [in the city, its not as bad as NY but still bad]

"You need that travel to absorb the impacts"
- You need that but you need proper valving matched with spring rate just as much as shock travel. you can have shock travel but without proper dampening you will still bottom out. Again my EVO is lowered and I only scrape on REAL bad potholes. And if the shock cant dissipate heat gets to hot and foaming ensues then you will just have a shock that will not dampen (just as if the shock is blown)

Do yourself a favor Blue Evo 8 and do some more research yourself and take all the opinions that you here in the forums with a grain of salt (even mine ^_^) good luck on the research and the shopping!

Blue Evo 8

iTrader: (40)

thanks, I even spoke to Jarrod at BR today and he told me that the Apexi N1 coilovers will ride stiffer than even the stock EVO 8 GSR suspension. I have an 05 EVO 8, ditched the stock suspension in favor of like new Bilsteins from a relatively new 06 MR.... I like the ride the way it is now.... soft, comfortable and civilized...I also like the stock height, too bad I cannot lose weight in the process....

thatmr2guy

iTrader: (5)

Dont worry P3c, you are not flaming me. I will be the first to tell you what a suspension noob I am LOL!

Yeah I prolly over generalized "all asian' CO's. The threads I have been watching on coilovers indicated that alot of the asian coil overs were limited travel. Not all. I think they were specifically referencing Tein/HKS etc... Again since I really am just learning myself, its obvious that information can vary from any source.

As far as ride height and suspension geometry I think a 2 inch drop may really effect your geometry are you running the whiteline kit to change your CoG ? I have read quite a bit of negatives about dropping evo's that much... BUt again I really dont know. I am just going by what I read here.

They are very complicated thing for sure. So dont take researching them lightly. There are some very good suspension guys on these forums. Personally I like dealing with the great guys at Gtworx and I am trying to work with Robi as well ( I have high hopes).

Good luck and keep those chompers

thatmr2guy

iTrader: (5)

Robert from Robi is going to Buschar racing in august for a tuning week. Buschar also resells Robispec KW Variants. I spoke with Jarrod earlier today myself

GTWORX.com

iTrader: (35)

I have yet to find a coilovers that adjusts ride height at the lowering bracket that has more overall travel then a single height adjustable coilover like KW's or AST's.

So it really depends what ride height you're at for bump travel. With a single height adjustable coilover, when you lower the car you trade bump travel for droop travel. At a normal lowered ride height, you still have a ton of bump travel, but also a lot of droop travel....so you won't be lifting a wheel. A double height adjustable coilover might have close to the same bump travel (they usually don't in my experience), but no where near as much droop. Kind of important. You might not be lifting a wheel because your car is very low, so you don't need that much droop....but we'll get to ride height soon.

This has been the case with every single coilover i've come in contact with for both EVO and STI, only exception being Ohlins DFV Sportlines for EVO which has a pretty good amount of travel for a dual height adjustable coilover. And zzyzx's old custom built Koni based coilovers. Those were nice. I have yet to look at Stance's or see any numbers on them.

KW's are not very close to bottoming out most ride heights. Far from it. Yes, if you completely slam the car, then yeah....not much travel left and the dual height adjustable coilover will be better. But you don't want to do that if you care about handling anyway. See below.

Since you have dual height adjustable coilovers, bump travel is not the issue and you'll get close to the same ride quality whatever height you're at.

The other issue is suspension geometry....it gets seriously messed up when you lower an EVO too much. You may not feel a difference from the driver's seat (many driver's can) but it does have an effect. Going too low actually makes your car roll more. The Whiteline roll center kit helps fix this, but only to a certain point. There are ways around it but most of them aren't "street friendly."

This isn't to say dual height adjustable coilovers suck. Ohlins Flags are dual height adjustable. They don't have a ton of travel but they still kick ***. You can make them work very well.

I have no personal experience with Stance but would love to see a shock dyno and some travel numbers. Really, I'm not opposed to them in any way, but would like to see some data, because i'm a nerd.

Anyway, dual height adjutability is not the number 1 feature a coilover should have in my own opinion. Just look at Moton, Penske, KW, AST, Koni, Bilstein, etc.


- Andrew

P3CC054N

- this is because shock travel is one thing but pairing that with the proper spring rate and valving for the car is what completes the solution. you can have all the travel but again if its not valved right or the springs are to soft/hard you will have issues.

- with a dual height adjustable CO you have the same amount of travel how high/low you set the car. that is why you dont sacrifice bump or droop travel. any height the car is at the shock travel will be the same.

-let me see if I can get some numbers and dynos from the guys at stance. I just know that they have cars that are on stances that have won several races in 2007.
from their brochure:
-Sequence Garage Nissan S14 - 2007 Canada GT Touring Car Overall Champion
-Enjuku Racing Nissan S13 - 2007 Nopi Drift Champion
-Relentless Auto Doubledown Z - Fastest Time Attack 350Z in North America
-Team Origin/FINS Nissan S13 - 2007 D1 Street Legal
- and the list goes on.

- so if the ride quality is good to begin with, with a dual adj CO then why use a single adjustable twin tube shock that will have varied ride quality depending on the ride height?

- from my experience on my car, the car rolls less than with the stock shocks. But that is just me. The RCA kit corrects suspension geometry and sets it closer to stock i agree with you on that but there is not just ONE EXACT suspension geometry for the EVO there is a range that is acceptable. for instance springs and shocks sag after years of use and they are still at the acceptable range.

-Yeah look at most of their TOP OF THE LINE suspension systems and they are dual ride height adjustable. That is just my take on this. But for daily use you dont have to get the best or the top of the line. because with daily driving you will not push the CO to its limits.

GTWORX.com

iTrader: (35)

All Motons are single height adjustable, so are KW Competitions, JRZ, etc.



If you could get the Stance guys to provide dynos and numbers that would be really cool.


- Andrew