I am on the suspension part of my car now and I have decided not to get full coilovers because tein SS cost waaay to much for me. So now i'm going to get a set of ground controls and i'm leaning towards pairing them with the illuminas because I have never heard anything bad about them, they're adjustable, almost similar to koni yellows IMO, and i'll save about $100 and another $35 because the GC for illuminas are $35 less.

But my question is, will I be happy with this set up for daily driving and how much of a difference would it be if I got illumina's instead of koni's. Would I regret it?

Can the illuminas/GC be compared to yellows/GC with little to no difference?


Modified by redDAinteg at 10:57 PM 8/1/2005

 

bump

 

i did alot of research before and after i bought my suspension right now i still kinda regret some of the things i bought but i would say you cant go wrong with the yellows and gc combined if you get the illuminas you will later on say damn i wish i spent a little more for the yellows trust me save up get the better things

 

Yellows arent all that superior to Illuminas.

 

Aren't the yellows rebuildable, and the Illumina's lose their warranty if dropped more than 1.5 inches? Sounds like the Koni's are far superior if this is correct.

 

Comparable? Maybe. Depends mostly on you. However, technically speaking the Koni is the better shock, there's just no debating.

 

I have Eibach springs(GC Coilovers) on my illuminas and I couldnt ask for anything more... just make sure you specify to get 8" springs for the front of whichever kit you buy or you will be fuked.

Not too bad of a price either ~$600 shipped.

You could also go with the full omnipower coilover system as I have heard great things about it, but I didnt becuase I have had bad experiences with Omni coilovers coming with junk/falsely marked springs.

 

For daily driving, you will see no difference.

 

I had the tokico illuminas with ground controls...I personally liked that combination better than any other coilovers I tried (skunk2, weapon r, obx). The only reason why I would go with the koni yellows over the tokico illuminas is because the strut itself has an adjustable perch so if you were to run sport or race springs (besides coilovers), then you can actually adjust your ride height, and still get great ride quality.

 

so the GC/koni setup is far better than the GC/illumina setup? or just a nudge better ?

 

considering the konis can be rebuilt to whatever specs you want, are not position sensitive, and carry a lifetime warranty (not including bottoming out, of course), i would say they're a helluva lot better than most, if not all OTS shocks out there. hell, i'd personally get a custom GC/koni combo over any $1500+ tein or zeal coilover.

on a daily driver though, adjustable springs/shocks are probably overkill. just get some H&R springs/bilstein shocks and call it a day. don't forget to get that alignment afterwards

if you're still stuck between illuminas/konis, i'd still go with koni. if you're gonna spend ~$700 to lower your car, might as well go all the way IMO. I've had my konis for 5 years now (paid $600 back then), and used GCs, tein, and H&R springs with them. They're still as good as the day i first installed them.

btw i'm pretty sure it was KYB that voids warranties for >1.5" drops.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by ingrate &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">on a daily driver though, adjustable springs/shocks are probably overkill. just get some H&R springs/bilstein shocks and call it a day. don't forget to get that alignment afterwards</TD></TR></TABLE>


what do you mean its overkill? I mean I AM going to daily drive it, but since i'm going to get GC I just want to know what I should get.

could I use GC coilovers with stock shocks or at least untill I get my konis ?

 

I don't think it's overkill. The ability to adjust a drop is nice. Most lowering springs don't give a totally even drop and I've seen some that are obviously uneven side to side or front to rear. You have to deal with higher spring rates if you get adjustble height springs/sleeves/slip-on coilovers whatever you want to call them, but it's not bad if properly dampened.

I wouldn't install GC's on stock shocks for two reasons. 1, they wouldn't be properly dampened and will be very bouncy after a short while. 2, when you get the shocks, you'll just be redoing all the same work over again. Just save it up and buy everything at once. That way you will only need to get one alignment when it's all done.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by redDAinteg &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote"> could I use GC coilovers with stock shocks or at least untill I get my konis ?</TD></TR></TABLE>

does that mean you're going with koni?

as you know, you need koni-specific GCs, so you're probably better off just installing everything at once.