Originally Posted by ShawnAwesome, they will copy someone else's design.
Which would not be that bad if the original design and engineering was excellent.
Straight up, the Road Magnet springs were designed around the Hypercoil parameters. The Hyperco Gen I springs were designed and tested by Mike K, Chriscar, and the Hyperco engineers. Then they were tested, retested and sent back to Hyperco to come out with the Hyperco Gen II's. Which have been fully tested by Dave Coleman and Mike Kojima in an issue of SCC. They work superbly with shortened strut bodies, and because of the engineering parameters and testing, they also work quite well with AGX's by design.
The Road Magnets are now a legitimate linear spring option to the Hypercoil Gen II's which are progressive wound (and rarer than a sober Lindsay Lohan).
The Progress coilovers, purposefully developed around a shortened strut body, were designed, engineered and extensively tested by Mike Kojima and Progress.
Tokico, which provided the OEM stuts for Nissan on the B13, came out with a HORRIBLE suspension package for the B13. Why? Because they did not do any research whatsoever into what would actually work. And those bastards certainly knew the OEM parameters of the suspension.
You know what 90% of the commercial spring manufacturers say when I tell them that the B13 only has three (3) inches of suspension travel and their springs lower the car by over half the OEM travel?!? "Oh. Wow. Well, uh...geez. Uh...wow." Then I tell them that the optimal performance handling/comfort trade-off is with the spring rates of approximately 300 front and 200 rear? "Oh. Wow. Really? Ours are 20-30% stiffer than stock..."
You know what they say when I tell them that the customers will in fact be slamming into the bumpstops? "Well, uh...geez....uh...."
Progress and one (1) other company actually said "Then you would need to shorten the strut body." The rest of them had NO answers. No clue. No research. Technicians recognized the problem when I explained it, yet no reasonable explanation from them for why in the f*ck their stupid springs (Tein S-Techs for the B14, for instance) lowered the car "1.9-inches" and had a "20% stiffer rate." I've called all of them. I got off the phone with Tokico yesterday to confirm spring rates on a B14 Suspension Package (that was never actually produced).
How the f*ck do you engineer suspension components for a living and design springs without even knowing the OEM suspension travel of the vehicle?!?
You know how much R&D and testing goes into those K-Sport, Megan, and that entire lot of copy-cat coilovers? None. Not a bit. Zero. Nada. Zilch. They're not even smart enough to copy/knock-off the Progress coilovers. Nor do they give a f*ck how your car actually handles. They know that youngsters are more concerned with the price, "the drop" and "a bazillion features" than actual performance. "It's slammed, and stiff, so it must be better than stock."
The knock-off manufacturers are literally picking the spring rates at random by guesswork or hypothesis (if they even think that hard). If producing coilovers, pairing them with some off the shelf, stock length dampers, and calling it a day on their so-called engineering.
I feel better now that I have ranted.
Best of luck with these new knock-offs.
Shawn B
tight..
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