S2Ko0o

I was in the market for a coilover system, but I had a fairly strict budget because I had just purchased a house and two cars this year. So this narrowed my search down to a few different brands mostly under $1500 price range. I had originally owned a 1991 Toyota MR2 which I had joined a group buy for Fortune Auto coilovers because I had heard many good things from other platforms, however, during the group buy I had sold my MR2 and purchased an s2000. I was still very interested in this company's coilover product but had noticed that there were not many reviews or anything in the s2000 community.

So this thread will be my review of the coilover system and give those who have not heard of this company another option in their coilover selection.

I purchased my coilovers directly from Fortune Auto themselves. Their website is www.fortune-auto.net , overall my experience while dealing with the company was excellent, emails and questions were answered very quickly and they were very friendly.

MSRP $$ 1099.00 for most applications

On to the coilovers, the 500 series is the bottom line coilover that Fortune offers. Here are the coilover specs from Fortune Auto:

Fortune Auto 500 Series Coilover Specs
DIGRESSIVE* All Fortune Auto shocks use a superior DIGRESSIVE piston. This technology allows for stiff, progressive (linear) damping at low stroke speeds. This helps to control vehicle body motion like roll, dive and squat. However at fast stroke speeds (i.e. high speed bumps) the suspension is kept supple in response to bumps and irregularities in the road.

Dyno tested***
Mono-tube shock design
IP synthetic 5w or 10w shock oil (prevents cavitation and promotes superior heat dissipation)
Stainless steel body / piston
30-way adjustable dampers
Pillowball mounts
Forged aluminum locking collars
Dust boots on all pistons
Digressive* 50mm piston-57mm piston housing (beyond the industry standard of 44-47mm)
Anodized aluminum camber plates** on front upper-mounts
Fully anodized body
1 year Manufacturer's Warranty
Height adjustment independent of preload
ISO 9002 certification

***Every Fortune Auto coilover is extensively dyno tested and matched with in specifications to insure a consistent and uniform set of coilovers. This rigorous testing has earned us our ISO certification.

Furthermore we incorporate features only found on our coilovers such as Seamless stainless steel monotubes, Forged lower mounts & proprietary nitrogen gas chambers

Fortune Auto also provides a shock dyno for the coilovers:



Now I had read as much as I could on the coilovers from other communities such as the evo community and also the 240sx community. Every review I had read had been positive and I could not find one bad review, this peaked my interest so I decided to place my order.

Now for my order I opted to go with 10k/10k spring rates Front/Rear, which you have the option of changing between 6k-13k. This is how they came packaged up:









The packaging was very nice, from order to shipping only took 5 days, which is very good considering it came across the border into Canada.

I did the install in a couple of hours in my tiny garage on jack stands, it was a very easy and straight forward install. Here are a couple pictures comparing the stock struts with the fortunes and also some pictures of it installed:













These were installed on my 2006 s2000 w/ 36,000 kms, there were no seized nuts/bolts or anything so the install went very quickly.

For quick reference the torque specs for the top nuts are 36 ft/lbs, the bottom strut bolt is 47 ft/lbs and the Top suspension arm in the front is 75.9 ft/lbs.

I lowered the car ~2" and I am on the stock ap2 v2 wheels without rolled fenders, I have zero rubbing issues and the ride is beyond my expectations. I had driven in other vehicles that had aftermarket coilovers including cusco, buddy club, and ksport and none had driven as well as these Fortunes do. I set them to 23 clicks from soft all around and they make you feel planted, yet they absorb the bumps and dips amazingly well. They are also not bone jarring or bouncy. I would say that they ride better than stock.

I have not had the chance to get to the track with these coilovers, but I have been daily driving them for the past week and a half and they are superb for everyday driving. With the planted feel on the street I can only imagine that they will be great on the track, which I will add my input next year when the track season is open again.

Now for some pictures of the ride height before and after,

BEFORE:


AFTER:


Any questions about these coilovers don't hesitate to ask, I would recommend them to anyone and purchase them again, especially for their price point. People on other platforms even claim that they ride as nice as KW V3s.

//steve\\

Thanks for the review

I have no affiliation with Fortune Auto but they located within 15 minutes of my house so I've gotten to know the owner a bit. I see things out of this company that I would not expect out of any other vendor offering coilovers in this price range. I've recently thought about trying a set out (would most likely be 500s with the Swift springs upgrade) just to see how they do. For reference I'm currently on KW Clubsports. If I knew I could make my money back on them I'd do it just for the sake of experimentation.

Redline S2K

I also have these coilovers, and love them.

S2Ko0o

Yeah I had considered the swift spring upgrade, I was going to have them on my MR2 but I decided not to on the s2000. I am not sure if I would really notice the difference between stock and swift to realize the added benefits. But as far as quality goes these coilovers are top notch and feel very nice.

RedCelica

Has anyone tracked these coilovers? Is rebound adjustable independent of bound?

User 121020

Dyno plot above shows the rebound adjustment range. Though the range is on the small side, it does show there isn't much cross talk between rebound and compression, i.e., the rebound adjuster only affects rebound.

RedCelica

OP where did you order from? I was looking for someone with the 510s and no one seems to carry them :/

//steve\\

These are single adjustable. For 99% of us out there driving our cars (myself included) we aren't talented enough to really need double adjustable suspension. I currently have KW Clubsports which are double adjustable and I've found a compression setting that feels best and I haven't touched it since and probably won't play around with it very much either. Compression for most of these types of suspension is dialed in for the spring rate that's on the car and it doesn't need to be adjusted. I do know that sometimes on really cheap coilovers adjusting the rebound does all sorts of goofy things to compression but I don't think that's the case here.


What I need to do is find someone that wants to buy a set that will let me install them on my car for a test drive and do a comparison against my KWs.

JEEBS

I am looking into getting these after winter. They look like a perfect application for my driving style (dd) and very reasonable for the price. I think I might end up upgrading to swifts just because I prefer a stiff ride and I prefer a higher spring rate to mediate ride that I am looking for.

//steve\\

^You can go up on spring rate without having to upgrade to Swifts. Swifts are just a superior spring. They are lighter than the standard springs and seem to move more freely and have more consistent rate throughout the compression of the spring.

Whether or not I pick up some of these I'm still planning on upgrading the springs on my coilovers to Swifts.