I was wondering if anyone was gonna mention FA's

 

Have you had any track time with them? What spring rates did you get?

 

Also very important. Proper suspension setup is far more than just turning the adjustment knobs on your dampers. Alignment, sway bar rates, tire pressures, and even the particular course all play important roles in the overall equation.

Assuming you could adjust both shocks to have the same damping characteristics for both compression & rebound across the relevant velocity range, then you are correct that both shocks would have effectively identical performance.

However, you generally can't duplicate shock curves just by turning the compression and rebound knobs. This is especially true for cheaper shocks, where those adjustment knobs may not do much of anything, or perhaps the first 13 of the 16 clicks don't actually change anything, etc. One of the benefits of high quality dampers is that the adjusters typically provide wider and more linear adjustment ranges than the cheap coilovers.

But even then, a lot of the more significant damping characteristics are still controlled by the internal, non-adjustable parts. Cheap coilovers almost always lack digressive valving (The MR Bilsteins are an exception). If coilovers have digressive valving, you still can't adjust the high and low speed damping independently without a rebuild unless you have 3 or 4 way adjustability. Poor piston designs may have a lot of cross-talk or cause the rebound and compression adjustments to be more coupled than they should be.

Finally, lower-end coilovers may just not have the capacity to properly damp high spring rates. The more expensive coilovers have larger pistons to properly handle these higher spring rates.

None of this touches on longevity and the ability of the coilover to maintain settings over a long period of time. I guarantee Fortune Auto and other cheap coilovers won't last as long as a quality set of coil overs, despite what you may have read from isolated internet anecdotes.

Proper setup is important, but things like corner balancing are relatively minor. Having proper spring rates and damping in the correct ballpark to start with are key. The more expensive coilover suppliers will walk you through this before you place your order, and give you exactly what they think you need. With the cheap coilovers, it's one-size-fits-all, and good luck finding someone who will attempt to rebuild them to be something they're not.

 

i need to search my self

 

I have two sets of fortune auto 500s and they are great. Both are street driven and ride nicely. Setup is important though. I have ridden in cars with the same coils that ride like poop. Too much preload makes it too reactive and will cause you to bounce through a corner. I had zeal coil overs and they failed and became noisey. To rebuild just the front coil overs was more expensive then the entire set...... Fortune auto will do rebuilds and testing for reasonable prices and are made in the USA. Some of the parts are made in Japan so you get the best of both worlds. Good luck with your decision.

 

I would say before you decide which set of coilovers you want, decide if you need them or not. Unless you plan on doing more then a handful of track days every year, or just really like dialing in your suspension, realistically there isn't a need for coilovers.

How often do you plan on using the car for track AutoX etc.......? Is this your daily driver or a weekend track toy?

-Anthony

 

realistically there isn't a NEED for an evo. we don't NEED the performance, the turbo, the fun, the awd traction, spending thousands of dollars on expensive parts and knowing we'll never get that money back, pushing our cars to the limit on the track... we can live without it. see what i'm getting at? because we have evos, we probably have some kind of a chemical imbalance too. so let's not come on here and talk about what we NEED.

 

i need the lottery

 

I think j-c are good but p-diddys are best for the track lol jrz are the best but u might just buy a ferrari for the same money they sell this

 

Depending on the model, JRZs can be somewhat reasonably priced (depending on your budget) for what they are. You can usually find the RS Pro model for around $5500, and the twin-tube or single adjustable models are closer to $4000.

"Best" is also very subjective. It really depends on what you're using the car for and what you want to get out of it. I would lump JRZ, Moton, AST, Quantum, MCS, and Ohlins in the same category.

 

I get what your saying.........but hear me out.

What I'm saying is, say your a guy that will do maybe two track events a year give or take. An MR is hardly a sloppy jalopy out of the box (any evo for that matter). It was designed to be more then competent at the track right off the dealer floor. If your this guy, spending $2-$3k+ on coilovers isn't going to do anything but lighten your wallet and **** off your spouse.

Now on the flip side, let's say your a guy that's signed up for just about every track day he can make in a year. Somebody's who's driven the stock car to the ragged edge and just can't extract any significant amount of speed anymore with the factory bits, but still has to drive the car to work Monday. For this fella, spending the big chunk of coin on proper coilovers that can do dual duty makes a lot more sense.

This is what I meant by "need". Now I don't know which side of the coin the OP is on, but once we know that, we can get a better idea of what he should spend his money on or not.

-Anthony

 

the ohlins have always had my attention, but i have never known anyone who has had them

 

I'll let you know when I get my head back on and get to drive it

I have had Ohlins forks and TTX shocks on my last 2 motorcycles and without a doubt they make good stuff which is why I bought them for my Evo. They are still an off the shelf shock/coilover which is where some other high end shocks differ and may be considered better for certain uses. The largest factor in determining which one to get should be what the intended use will be.
As far as I am concerned and the research I have done I have found the Ohlins to be the best street/track coilover. There are always trade offs. Generally the shocks more suited and setup for a race track aren't going to be good for street driving, especially for people who are fast on the race track. The higher the spring rate you need as your experience progresses, affects the shock and the shock will need to be revalved to work correctly with higher spring rates which will make the car worse for street driving.
The Ohlins are sprung for more of a street car so they will need to be upgraded if you are a serious track guy but that is easily fixed since there are many Ohlins service centers and they will then custom valve/spring the shocks to your particular application.
A shock dyno graph will provide a lot of information and will tell you if the valving and spring rates are working with each other as they should.
Everyone's opinions will vary greatly but you need to decide what are the most important characteristics for your applicataion.

 

i have been considering some robispec k&w's

 

i never worry about that

i do get your point and it's a good one. but that still bring up my original point. setting the coilovers up properly. it's still not discussed much at all. just one person gave a thoughtful response on setup. does anybody else care or do they just want the "best" coilovers. that answer is simple. the best are the most expensive.

OP needs to call a couple of suspension shops to figure out whats best for him.