Cool. let us know man. I would send him a link to this page too. is fortune auto based out of FL?

The thing about the zip ties is that they could melt and you would never know, until its too late. That is the biggest issue i have, and i cant be checking them everyday.

I have had the FA 500 series coils, swift spring upgrade and rear helpers on my 2011 GSR for about 4 months now. I daily drive the car as well as road race/autox on the weekends.
The brake line bracket was my sole complaint as well to Terry. Hell I can't stand BC Racing and even their coils have the lousy bracket. I was told FA has a bracket in the making and will
be providing them to existing customers using the "ziptie" method. Let me know what Terry says to you SonicEvo..

What do you risk buying used coilovers from a company that warranties their parts for life like KW? Really, the price difference is ~300 to new ones (I have been quoted 1800 on this site with shipping). For $300 KW is likely a better get.

Spring rates are 8/9 which is the same that Robi uses for his streets...he does change the valving but I have off the shelf KWs on a second car and they are great.

Do I believe you could win against someone with cheap coilovers with huge spring rates against KWs or even Ohlins? sure depending on the car, driver, tires, swaybars, how low, Roll center corrected? bumpsteer corrected.....A lot of different unknown details....I do think you can basically lock out the struts with huge springs, almost completely closed valves and it would handle decent on a smooth autocross course if it was smooth. However, driving that car to work the next day is a completely different matter and the difference between crap and good coilovers. The good stuff can win an autocourse event and can be driven to work comfortably the next day.

After a revalve, camber plates, and swift springs the price will be close to 3k for those coilovers. And no off the shelf V3's are 9k/6k well that is what it was for 8's and 9's. FA's with 8k/10k are just as smooth of a ride as my tanabe spring/bilstein strut combo was. You would have to drive a car with a set to believe it. As stated before you cannot compare the two as they are for people with different budgets. My argument is not whether lower budget coilovers can handle better than higher budget coilovers but that out of all budget coilovers these will stick out compared to others in its class. Just because the parts are outsourced doesn't mean they are built cheap. My iphone parts are made in china but does that mean it is crap? NO!

According to GT worx who tested the KW struts for the X, your data is incorrect. They went more aggressive than they did for 8/9, the rates are (ironically) 8/9. The Streets set up from RobiSpec is $2400, if you add camber plates (not needed) you add more but the fortune auto does not come with that so it is equal.

Besides, he can do what I did...I bought a used set of KWs for 1400 and sent them to Robi to be revalved and resprung for 600.

Sorry my knowledge of X rates isn't on par but to add to your other comment yes Fortune Auto does come with camber plates.It is needed if you want to run more than 2 degrees of camber. Also add in the $400 swift spring upgrade since that is what you are comparing price wise for the FA coilovers.

no there based in VA

Not sure what Robi uses for springs or KW for that matter....I know they are good (maybe Hyper coil? Does not matter, the big difference is not the springs anyway it is the quality of the valving and durability. All of which KW has done well with.

My point is the same, if Fortune cannot be bothered to even design the strut where you can install it without ghetto rigging the brake lines, my confidence in the internals is limited to say the least. For the same price you can have H and R with Bilistien internals, for $2-300 more stock KWs or HKS and for as little as $500 more, as I pointed out, you can have Robi spec tuned struts...easily worth the price difference.

You lost me on that sentence. Why disregard springs and then recommend another brand. What shock body are you talking about putting bilstein internals in? If you like bilsetins go with PSS9's which we all have seen are so reliable . HKS is junk so keep those out of this argument. I set up my buddies car identical to mine except he has HS hypermax coilovers and both of us prefer my FA's. He is a little pissed he paid twice as much for his. Fortune Auto is a small company that is still establishing themselves in the market and doesn't have a fraction of the resources as a company like Bilstein or KW so give them some time to work out all the kinks. I bet those bigger companies ran into a lot of issues when they released their products to the market also. I know I would trust a company more for supplying me with proper rates and have to worry about a bracket than get improper rates and having to invest more time and money to have it altered and for years KW had that bad rep.

Enough of this back and fourth I would like to hear more about your racing background and your budget. What coilovers you have raced on and can use as a comparison. If you are just speculating from reading threads then all you are doing at this point is slandering a companies name for no apparent reason.

To note I am not supporting every single budget coilover, just these. I was not a fan for BC's and was not a fan for megan tracks. Lets not even get into the subject of tein flex coilovers. My next event I will have the luxury to take out a bilstein/swift combo car which is the number one comparison towards budget coilovers.

you don't need a camber plate to run that much camber in the X.
Here is my none Robi spec KWV3 wheel alignment sheet before International Rally New York in 2009.


You cant Compare the FA to the KW, even in value. The difference you pay , is much less then the advantage you get from the KW. The camber plates are a nice bling in these case.
You need camber plates if you are really run tires which are requires or can handle that much camber , if you dont have those tires you basically using camber plates as a bling.
Also to get to the point you need camber plates you need a supportive coils for that too. Which you wont find under $2k period.
Also the base KW V3 spring are more then sufficient at that level for street and light racing.

I run -3f/-1.5r camber on my car for autox. Impossible for a IX to be set up like that on stock hats. Can you guys get 3 degrees camber stock?

i am not sure about that. 3 degrees are a lot. If i have to guess i would say; no.

ZK on this site had the HKS for the X, has a lot of racing experience with a Evo 8 or 9 on Ohlins and was pretty happy. He did wear them out after a little over a year but for a cheaper japanese coilover seemed to do pretty well. It was only through his recomendation I would even consider it if I just could not get to the money for known good coilovers. The one caveat is that his were the early versions with helper springs so the new versions may not ride as well due to reduced droop travel. THe Hand R are made by Bilstein. From reports, they are a little harsh but they are cheaper and should be good quality for internals.

Notice I did not buy any of these.

Budget? I don't have JRZ or Penske money to spend. I bought barely used KW Clubsports and had Robispec revalve them and put new springs on them to bring them up to his standards .

My racing experience is this, I road raced on a national level seriously for about 10 yrs inclulding going up the kart/open wheel feeder ladder until the point where I did not have the money and influence to avoid being passed over for drives by guys that I had beaten on a regular basis but who had connections to Ford, Porsche, or were son of a famous driver etc. Also ran stock cars a couple of times as I am originally from down south.

I had a sponser had us run executives around a track a in race prepped BMWs which would be the most seriously prepared raod car I have been in (had KW or Konis on them I think). I have driven cars belonging to several running autocross etc who run a variety of coilovers, spring/strut combos... Most were on cheap coilovers like Megans and similar. Some do OK or even win on local autocross weekends. But, they had very high spring rates and where horrible to drive on the regular road.

Not sure how well local autocross clubs predict coilover quality anyway. There is too much variety in driver ability, tires/wheels used, setup competence, sway bars, powertrain mods, questions of how legal the cars really are for each class so not sure if the coilover is the biggest factor. That said, I have not ridden on anything that started life near the Asian pacific that I both had good ride quality and handled well. Not saying they don't exist but have not experienced it myself. Additionally, everyone I have known with BCs, stance, D2 etc have had either ride qualitiy issues or reliability issues requiring replacement within 1 yr. Enough that I have only looked at European coilovers for my cars,

For european stuff, I have ridden/Divien on Konis, Ohlins, KWs and JRZs. All pretty close actually IMO. I have KWs on two cars right now and very pleased. The biggest complaint is that there is a trick to setting them up correctly which made it difficult for the first 6 months or so I owned them. I went with Robi spec for the Evo because he actually tests his stuff and knows it is faster. I don't have the money to do what you should do with parts for a car that you want to get time out of....test every part availble back to back on the best tire compounds for different conditions. The OEM setup for the Evo X from the factory is actully pretty good and has reasonable ride quality. His setup is faster than stock and his setup does well locally and nationally which is something I see very few back up with actual results. Several doing well with JRZ and ASTs so believe those can be really good. For all the hype, don't see anyone posting wins on Ohlins but then again I am not investigating it very hard right now.



I have seen the Shock dyno maps from Fortune and they look like they have a good bit of crosstalk...that with the fact they don't take the time to tailor the strut is enough to make me doubtful. I don't buy the excuse that they are "a small company". AMR is a small company basically run by one person and they have all the brackets. Have no direct idea about quality but some here have been happy...but you get the point.

Buddy Club racing specs were the same way, but they were a GREAT coilover. the brake line thing is a pain, but if you set them up right, you don't have to worry about it becoming an issue.

Fortune Auto makes really good coilovers. I ran Buddy Club racing specs on my EVO for 150,000 miles, on the street, and on the track. the top hats up front got a little noisy, but other than that, zero issues. never blew a shock, and they were still working when I sold them and replaced them with FA 500's. for the few months I drove/raced on the FA's I loved them. as far as I know, the guy who bought my car hasn't ever had any issues with them.