Pic vs. Koni/gc

 

If I had a dollar for every piece of junk Ksport or D2 I've seen break, and $.10 for every complain I've heard about Ksports dampers going out I could buy a set of Buddy Clubs coilovers.

I'm assuming "BC" means Buddy Club, as opposed to an abbreviation of some other cheaply made system.

Even then, if I weren't buying top end Buddy Club, I'd look somewhere else. The low end Buddy Club stuff doesn't offer much. The $1500+ range Buddy Club stuff is commonly used by avid road racers.

 

BCracing BR coilovers are decent but for the price there are better options like Koni/GC. BTW Libertariat... BCracing is the brand he's asking about... he's not abbreviating Buddy Club.

 

By and large, they'll be similar as Bor-Chuann (BC) manufacture both brands as far as I am aware.

BC have a fairly good rep this side of the pond as far as Tiawanese coilovers go. With people that don't have any idea about suspension, admittedly, however there's enough users reporting no issues that they can't be considered totally rubbish. They might not be the last word in damping technology but they'll offer adjustable ride height and a range of damping between seriously underdamped and tooth shattering to suit your tastes.

If you don't know about suspension, you can certainly do far worse. At around £700 over here they're not exactly bottom of the range.

I don't really have anything on the KSports. Similar design, but lesser known over here.

 

Well I've had a set of Koni/GC and a rear strut blew with a mild drop (wasn't rollin dumped). Customer support was a joke so i junked them.

BC =/= Buddy Club, my budget is a little shy of the cost for a set of N+ buddy clubs. Several friends have BC type BR on their wrx's and sti's, but the civic application of the type BR doesn't include the typical commodities like the camber plates etc. (the hatch they're going on already has front and rear camber kits, rear toe kit as well).

How about F&F? is there any significant difference from type 1 to type 2? F&F themselves claim type 1 and type 2 are made from the same material/design.

 

throw them all on the ground and close your eyes then point at one cause they're all the same

 

to an extent, you're correct, lol. I should mention I plan to autocross the hatch so i want somewhat decent coilovers, while also having a good bit of adjustability to get proper fitment of a 16x8 +20 when not at events.

there has to be a 'best bang for your buck' and it seems most run koni/gc, which isn't my cup of tea, or F&F, which seems a step down from Ksport and BC BR's.

 

If you're going to autocross, the best bet for you is Koni. As you get better you can up the spring rate and increase damping, and eventually you can revalve the shocks for higher rates if need be.

Why are you against Koni/GC?

 

I bought a set of koni yellow/gc first thing when i got my coupe. daily driven and after a little over a year one of the rear struts was blown. wasn't sure if they had any warranty or whatever, called koni directly and just got the run around, so i sold the coils and front struts and got a set of skunk2 proS (gen 1). almost 4 years now, and even though i must admit the ride is terrible, they haven't given me any problems.

My concern is that koni/gc is a coil sleeve on the strut, so wouldn't adjusting spring preload for lower applications be almost obsolete? which was why I was contemplating a full body coilover instead.

 

^ buy them used?

 

nope, they were NIB. didn't have the extended top hats, but it wasn't too much of a drop

 

Did they ever warranty it? Just curious, not that it has anything to do with this thread.
Koni does offer a life time warranty to the original buyer of the shocks.

 

Seems most people on HT are pro-koni/gc. maybe i didn't have the dampening adjusted correctly for whatever spring rate my set had, I'm not sure. Still contemplating BC coilovers, my only dislike about the koni/gc is the coil sleeve on strut design, as opposed to a full body coilover.

Wouldn't a koni/gc setup have no spring preload adjust, without adjusting the ride height?

Anyone pro-Koni/gc, chime in to elaborate what i must be missing here.

 

I'm surprised Koni didn't honor the warranty! They have a life time warranty, of course they have a list of things that void it though.

I'm not trying to be a dick by saying this, but give me a "pro" of going with a "full coilover" over a Sleeve/shock.


I know quite a few people with Koni/GC without any issues. I personally would have gone Koni/gc, but I made the choice to go with AMR's.

 

I've had my Koni/GC's for about 2 years now. 450f/350r, not sure on drop but slight tuck in front/no finger gap rear, Koni's 75% stiff front/50% rear, no extended top hats. Daily driven (roughly 80 mile daily commute round trip for just work, not including school and all the pointless driving I do just to drive my car), driven HARD as hell in the canyons, probably put close to 30,000 miles on them already. no issues whatsoever. None, Zip, Zero.

 

Why do you think a 'full body' design is better?

Can you explain why that would matter?

The reason I ask, is those sound like second hand opinions. If you can answer those yourself, then you should see that both are non-issues.

 

"1 piece coilover and preload." People don't have a clue why they think these are better. Just parroting what they've heard on the internet. These are indeed "non-issues".

 

full body coilovers have spring preload adjustment separate from ride height, which I am not parroting, it simply looks more thought out than a sleeve on a strut design. My concern with preload is in a full droop situation, the spring possibly not seating on the perch correctly.

Not looking to go tucking tire or 'stanced out', would extended top hats be useful or pointless?

 

It's not really, the purpose is so that one design fits 100 different applications, with nothing more than different mounting lugs welded on. It's marketed (well) as being something you absolutely must have, to cover up a cost cutting exercise.

A well matched spring/damper combo, with the correct length springs, will not have a problem with droop or unseated springs.

 

And why do you need this? Why is that important? Better yet what is preload all about anyway? For my Progress setup the only thing preload was used for was making sure the spring was securely mounted against the top hats. And the only thing different between the Progress setup and the "full bodied" coilover is that they didn't come with the top hats.

All that preload talk they've been spoon feeding you people is pure marketing hype. Nothing more.

 

lol okay. all spoon-fed logic aside, koni/gc is in my price range and seems to be the ideal setup. I guess this one would fall under 'parroting', but would it be advised to run stock camber plates up front with extended top hats? I have a set of skunk camber plates laying around, however i heard aftermarket camber plates limit shock travel more than just not running eth's. Is there any theory to justify this?

if i run a really stiff rear spring will i not need rear extended hats?

 

These cars don't have camber plates.
Camber kits limit suspension travel because they are taller then stock and will hit the shock tower sooner.
Really becomes an issue when you slam the car.

 

Yeah i think i mentioned it earlier in the post, Im not trying to slam it. Just trying to get a good, responsive setup ideally to autox with. The car has an ebay camber kit in the front i want to get rid of, guess ill run oem ucas as opposed to the skunks. Just not trying to run into camber wear issues...

 

run oem camber arms. Only thing that may be beneficial is a rear camber kit on the 96-00 chassis because it has such a steep camber curve when lowering the car. Otherwise, no need for aftermarket "camber kits". Just buy sticky tires, get the car corner balanced, get a good alignment with the specs you want, and for alignments it is a definite plus if they are a race-bred shop that knows what they are doing (i.e., Evasive Motorsports gets my vote).

 

yeah, definitely going to align it afterwards. I have a rear camber kit, though its an eg, not ek. So then if i have OEM ucas in the front, eth's are necessary for the front?