Aftermarket suspension

[DBaldwin]

Slightly linked in with the about the best handling cars.

How much difference does uprated aftermarket suspension make?

I have a Citroen C2 GT which is a great little car but its coming up to 70,000 miles so surely the suspension must be pretty knackered by now?

Would i get a really noticeable difference if i bought some decent aftermarket suspension?

Also, whats better for handling, coilovers or uprated spring and damper kit?

Is it very much you get what you pay for?

Any advice and reccomendations appreciated

[Drive Blind]

coilovers are better but a decent coilover kit will set you back nearly a grand. I hate to think how cheap and nasty the 150 quid ebay coilovers must be.

[Kozy]

Depends how good the original stuff was to be honest. If a car handles brilliantly from the factory, it is all too easy to ruin it by fitting overly stiff and badly damped aftermarket stuff, however to some people tucking tyre and having your teeth knocked out everytime you cross a white line in the road means their car is basically a racing car and could out-handle a housefly.

I call these people 'Idiots'.

[P-Jay]

It can transform the right car. Turned my old MK3 Golf VR6 from a ship to a swallow.

Coilovers only offer more adjustment that traditional coils/dampers and a lot of the cheapest sets I've seen have been utter toss designed to help the McD carpark crowd's cars as low as possible. Best left to the racetrack/trackday IMHO.

I've always like Eibach stuff, I used Eibach springs with some Bilstein gas dampers which sharpened it up no end, but didn't mean you lost your fillings on the way to work in the morning. Didn't cost much, say £500ish all in.

[Prof Prolapse]

Don't do it. Wait until your old ones fail then replace them with OEM parts.

You'll save money on both the initial suspension kit and the resale. Aftermarket springs on a C2 screams "I've driven this like a maniac".

You'll also find most aftermarket kits will only adversely affect the handling and put unnecessary wear and tear on components, not to mention make your spine shorter everytime you go other a speed bump.

Your call of course.

[kambites]

The big manufacturers spend a lot of time tuning the suspension of their cars for a good balance of ride quality and handling. Any cheap components that you fit are likely to make the combination worse, although you might manage to improve one marginally at the expense of a big drop in the other.

[Thorburn]

kambites said:

The big manufacturers spend a lot of time tuning the suspension of their cars for a good balance of ride quality and handling. Any cheap components that you fit are likely to make the combination worse, although you might manage to improve one marginally at the expense of a big drop in the other.

+1 if you're comparing new to new certainly.

I changed my Elise from the standard Koni's to a set of Gaz Gold's, and while I've only driven it on them the once my first impressions were I actually preferred it before. Having since driven an S1 with the Lotus designed Bilstein conversion fitted I think I'll likely be changing either to the Bilsteins or a set of Nitrons once the cars back on the road.

[GPR13]

I put eibach springs on my old focus to lower it more than anything else. Coupled with the stiffer shocks from a zetec model they made quite a big difference. Only spent about £200 on the parts but the results were a much more capable car in the twisties. Just dont buy cheap crap off ebay, stick to recomended brands and you should see an improvement. Also, dont go too low.

[mattmoxon]

100% transforms the car.

When I got my mustang I was running springs that were nearly 2" lower than stock and everything else stock on the car.

Early this year I replaced allot of parts, BMR front A-Arms and lower control arms, Tokico D-Spec adjustable dampers and Roush springs (car is now only lowered 1".

I also had fitted adjustable caster/camber plates to replace the original strut mounts on the front so that the suspension could be aligned properly.

The difference is unreal it really is, go for it I don't think you'll regret it.

ETA: I agree with the above sentiments at all costs avoid cheap parts, buy reputable high quality parts.

Edited by mattmoxon on Monday 13th December 13:13

[RobM77]

Yes, it's true that manufacturers have to set their cars up for idiots and good drivers all in one, but it's generally not a good idea to fiddle with the suspension yourself unless you're tuning a car for a very specific environment. Ride and handling is one of the hardest parts of car development to get right, as Lotus show in how much better they are than other sports car makers at it on a very small budget. Most car manufacturers spend months sorting out the ride and handling on their cars, with access to all the suspension design data etc, and there's little chance of an aftermarket kit replicating this on a reasonable budget; at least for a variety of environments and situations.

Lotus' Elise and Exige are good examples actually - Lotus set them up so that the geometry changes on suspension deflection, and therefore lateral g, making the car responsive up to certainly loadings and benign on the limit. Similarly, it's a common trick these days to make cars very darty at moderate speeds, but ultimately understeer heavily when you really push them - the Alfa 156 started it and the latest Astra then did it too (and more pronounced). It's now common on ordinary hatchbacks; I drove a brand new Corsa the other week that did it too (although being such short wheelbase, if you do the right things they'll oversteer massively; taking that initial momentum across the limit). If you go and lower and/or stiffen such a car, then what you do is you completely mess up this relationship between lateral g and geo. Apparently, the ride and handling engineers at Lotus set the latest Exige up perfectly, but then spent ages on engineering it so that if owners fitted their own suspension they wouldn't wreck the handling of their car. Very specifally, the things that change on suspension deflection are usually camber and toe, which affect primarily grip and steering/stability respectfully.

Having said that, it depends how bad your car is to start with! Some cars (for example the previous generation Fiesta) have such terrible ride and handling that modifications can be and large improve things. Some cars even have design flaws (like the mk1 Vectra) which only appear in certain situations (they used to oversteer unpredictably), and suspension tuning can make these situations more frequent. Secondly, if you're tuning a car for just track use, with some knowledge and time it is possible to do it yourself with great results; I've been doing this for years on my own cars, although I confess whilst I had a lot of success with my racing Metro, my racing Caterham foxed me (and a so called expert) completely and handled like a bag of spanners until I had someone who knew what they were doing set it up, after which it was beautiful; and with my present single seater race car I don't really know what to do to achieve what I want, although we have reasonable success tuning it. I wouldn't attempt a road car though, I'd just upgrade to a factory built faster version (e.g. Clio to a Clio 172, or BMW 3 series to a 3 series M-Sport).

Edited by RobM77 on Monday 13th December 13:29

[chris7676]

They do make a difference and many of them can be adjusted as well. I would generally stick to well known brands, for instance Koni makes good stuff, and their sports kit is quite inexepsive as well. I would say shocks are the most important part, normally would get these updated with matching springs - whether you call it coilovers or not - it does NOT matter.

[300bhp/ton]

Drive Blind said:

coilovers are better but a decent coilover kit will set you back nearly a grand. I hate to think how cheap and nasty the 150 quid ebay coilovers must be.

Coil overs are only better at adjustable ride height. But if you don't know how to set the car up you can make it far worse than stock.

Normal shocks and springs if setup for the car will be fine for 99% of people 99% of the time if it's a road car.

[The Nur]

My C2 was transformed when I fitted a half tidy set of FK coilovers. Handling difference was night and day.

Obviously it wasn't as comfortable as the standard set up, but I wasn't realistically expecting it to be comfortable whilst wound down as far as it would reasonably go. Without making clearance an issue that is. Never became uncomfortable though.

And that includes the 18's, I was a misguided youth, me

[300bhp/ton]

Prof Prolapse said:

Don't do it. Wait until your old ones fail then replace them with OEM parts.

You'll save money on both the initial suspension kit and the resale. Aftermarket springs on a C2 screams "I've driven this like a maniac".

You'll also find most aftermarket kits will only adversely affect the handling and put unnecessary wear and tear on components, not to mention make your spine shorter everytime you go other a speed bump.

Your call of course.

~What a load of rubbish

[Wadeski]

Eibachs + B6 Billies = gorgeous.

On my MR2 at least.

[curlie467]

Dont forget to check other items like bushes etc, relacing these alone can transform how a car feels.
I have a Corolla and am replacing all the suspension at the moment starting with replacing knackered bushes, i wont go for poly bushes as i dont want it too harsh but i will be going for eibach springs but on oem dampers just to drop it a bit.

[300bhp/ton]

kambites said:

The big manufacturers spend a lot of time tuning the suspension of their cars for a good balance of ride quality and handling. Any cheap components that you fit are likely to make the combination worse, although you might manage to improve one marginally at the expense of a big drop in the other.

That's not exactly true, many or most cars are built to a cost and built to meet the masses.

In fact many automakers will offer a "sports" or uprated suspension, which in affect is 100% that most aftermarket companies will do.

Revising spring and damper rates is not a radical evolution of a vehicle.

I agree some kits are crap and some stock cars are very good, but these tend to be the exceptions not the norm.

[rhinochopig]

A word of caution about just fitting lowering springs. A damper is designed to work at a specific stroke. If you shorten the spring, you shorten the stroke of the damper, which reduces the efficacy of the damping. What you'll get is a stiffer ride with less roll, but with much poorer damping qualities, which can reduce grip on anything less than a smooth road.

Regarding coilovers, they can make the car far better than OE, but the adage you get what you pay for is never more true. They also tend to focus the car in a particular direction, i.e. fast road - at the expense of comfort, or track - at the expense of road use. For example, try driving a car set up for the track on a back road and it will handle like a dog as wheel-road contact will be reduced.

Personally, unless you can afford £1500+ for a set of good quality coil-over dampers, I wouldn't bother.

[kambites]

300bhp/ton said:

I agree some kits are crap and some stock cars are very good, but these tend to be the exceptions not the norm.

I've never experienced a really cheap aftermarket suspension kit that does anything other than ruin the car. In my experience, expensive kits are expensive for a reason.

[EDLT]

If you get coilovers it would be worth taking it to someone who knows how to set the car up properly. Doing it by trial and error will just take forever.


If its just going to be a road car, a matched set of uprated springs + dampers will do the job well enough.