I got some really good time today behind the wheel of my Evo X MR with the Ohlins DFV setup. Let's look at my mods first, shall we?

Susp-

DFV (installed, corner balanced, and aligned by Chris Hoover at Moore Automotive)
Perrin rear sway bar
Perrin rear sway bar endlinks
Bridgestone S-04 pole position tires

everything else -

Intake
CB exhaust
Dyno tune



I love the idea of coilovers - but I hate the harsh ride that comes along with them. On my Mustang GT (2012) I have KW coilovers and while they do make the handling far superior to the awful stock springs and dampers, it comes at a cost. The ride is very bumpy and harsh. I hit one bump and my entire body has been thrusted through the roof.

This car stock (The MR) handles tremendously well. Despite the decent amount of body lean, the stiff chassis manages to be unflappable and sticks like glue to the road. It handles bumps nicely, and even when you approach the limit the AWC will save you from death! (Unless you come in way too hot).

However, great is never good enough for me. I was able to find the stock limits of the suspension fairly quickly. There is a corner I like to take every performance car I drive to - it's a corner which isn't banked in any which way, yet it is a sweeping corner which is very sharp. Stock, my Evo took this corner at 41 before the tires started to break slowly away. The 5.0 can manage this at 45 before telling me to stop! (Keep in mind this car also has sway bars, panhard bar, and other handling mods in addition to some Potenza RE-11 tires). My BMW 328 can do this corner at around 35-36 before giving me trouble. I am NOT a professional driver, but am someone who has Autoxed before, done HPDE days and also drives spiritedly on a very normal basis. "Above average", like most of the guys driving these cars. Keep in mind, I also put Swift Spec R springs on the car which if anyone wants em ($180 almost BRAND NEW) can have em.

So let's fast forward - coilovers are installed and everything was done right. With full fluid weight as well as some other extra items in my car (adding like 40 or 50 pounds or so), the MR toruing edition with leather seating tipped the scales at 3,584 pounds. That's heavy. Because of this extra weight over previous generation Evos, Mitsu had to strengthen up the chassis and advance it's AWD system to keep up.

I did not test these coilovers whatsoever on my long ride home from the shop. I was too tired, it was too slick, and there was too much traffic to try any real driving out.

Today was the day. My lunch break and after work was comprised of back roads, clover leafs, and other fun activities....

WOW. Initially, I wasn't impressed. I hit a turn I don't normally take fast and thought "meh".

Then, the fun began. I started throwing some real speed at these bad boys. I threw the car into a hard left turn at around 50 and there was absolutely zero protest. The car remained flat as can be and it scared me. Was this the work of the Swedish suspension gods, or was this some sort of sorcery? 41 degrees farenheit, and leftover salt on the roads from a week ago. Not an ounce of protest.

Let's stop right here for a second. I'm about to share with you how fast this car took my favorite turn but allow me to explain more about it. I've taken an E92 M3 through here, an RS4, RS5, an E60 M5, a built Civic Si, a Carerra S and that's just to name a few. The M3, RS5, and Porsche all hovered around the lower 40s mark for reference.

Ready? 50. Yup, 50. And that wasn't much of a hassle either. The car remained poised, flat, and sharp even at an incredibly ludicrous speed. Maybe the tire change along with the sway bar change helped too, but my god was this incredible.

The rest of the day I had a grin on my face. Even after an extremely stressful day at work. I kept pushing and pushing and pushing and could not find any fault with these things. The Swift Spec R/Bilstein combo was a nice upgrade from stock, but this is on an entirely different level altogether. This is on a supercaresque level. Watch out GT-R, here I come.

After a long time of trying to upset this suspension, it didn't work. I called it a day.

Another thing to take note of is the incredible ride quality these provide. I had mine dialed in rather stiff (13 or so clicks) as opposed to the 10 clicks they recommend, but they still ride very well. Bumps are only say 5-10% harsher than stock, and dips are even better. It rides VERY well still.

If this suspension took a price hike to $5,000 I'd still buy it at that. It's just that incredible.

More to come after I get some heavy track time with these.

 

Great review, but what setting did you have it at and what was your height set at? i'm assuming this was set right out of the box.

 

Thats great to know as i have just purchased a set too!! cant wait to pick up my new car now

 

I have had mine for the last couple months, drove across the US and performed great. I love them. Setup with 11k swift front, 10k swift back. And just a little lower than stock height.

 

OP, what are your spring rates?

 

The stock rates unless he has changed them are 572 in/lbs front and 400 in/lbs rear. Mine are installed, just have to set the car down on the ground and loosen all the suspension mounting bolts to allow all the bushing to reset to the new right height. Next will be some adjustable sway bar links if need at the new ride height

 

^lots of people get different spring rates than what comes out of the box, thats why i'm asking about his

 

Thanks for the review. I too somewhat judge my cars based on a few places I go. I judge ride quality by hitting this perfectly laid out set of manhole covers that easily upsets most cars. They are raised about 1 inch and come in sequence first hitting the front right tire, then the left front, then the right front again all in quick succession. They are spaced such that by the time you hit the last one, the first one is hitting your back tires too.

This combo particularly upset my 97 Mustang Cobra which would basically lift the rear tires and slide the whole rear end to the left about 2 inches without applying any gas. If gassing it you'd chirp the tires. If WOT the rear would start to slide forcing you to let off.

I've taken a Porsche 968 over the same road, a 97 Cobra, a 2011 Mustang GT 5.0, a 2006 Evo IX, and my 2012 Evo X GSR.

So far only the Evo X has been the only car that is completely unaffected and even my Evo IX would slightly "shift" when hitting these at about 45mph. I can go WOT over it without any issues in my X. First car I've driven that's able to handle such an upsetting road obstacle. I haven't heard of any official test to judge a vehicles "stability" over such upsetting conditions, but I have to say the X compared to the IX, is really hard to upset without trying over this patch of road.

With our bad roads here in Michigan I've really noticed that the X is just superb in rough conditions more so than my IX was. I'm glad to hear someone else doing basically the same thing to get a better understanding of handling/performance.

 

I had Ohlins on my last car and they were the best coilovers I have owned.

Where can I buy a set for an Evo X? I searched vendors but gave up.

Thanks

Jim H.

 

I have just finished installing the Ohlins DFV shocks in my car. I got them from CBRD. Chad offers great service. The only notes on my installation are I flipped the bracket that has the stud for brake line upside down. Also there is no provision to reuse the plastic bracket that routes the abs sensor wire. I used a piece of fuel line to protect the abs wire. Here are two pictures. One is the drivers side shock and the other is the detail of the fuel line installed on the abs sensor wire. I still need to get the car aligned and corner balanced so I haven't tried the shocks.

EDIT

I set the camber bolts to supply maximum camber, I figure I would adjust the camber using the camber plates.

 

we do alot of ohlins- and they are fantastic to work with-

Let us know if anyone needs anything!

If you are spending the money to install coilovers I definetly recommend adding the Perrin PSRS castor kit- its fantastic- whereas we've had quite a few wear issues with the whiteline roll center kits etc--- two different things- but PSRS in my opinion is one of the best upgrades you can do-

cb

 

^care to elaborate on the whiteline roll center kit wear issues?

 

Any updates from those who have this suspension?

 

we just installed another set yesterday-

cb

 

???

would you not recommend getting a whiteline roll center kit?