THMotorsports

Disclaimer: I do work for TH Motorsports. I do sell these and other dampers mentioned in this thread (among many others). I am writing an unbiased review and my opinions are my own and do not reflect those of the company I work for.


User B Serious wanted to compare his Ohlins with my Fortune so we got together to set them up and compare notes.

So while there is no doubt that the Ohlins is a great damper (I've valved quite a few of these for mountain bikes and motorcycles) it is not without its drawbacks. One of which is that the Ohlins is extremely limited in rear stroke, something that the S2k already lacks. In order to keep from constantly riding the bump stops, people are using 15mm or more of preload. The problem is that once you add the preload, you also add height. The rear lower mounts can't thread up enough to get as low as most people want for track use. Now of course there are workarounds... one of which being the long stroke damper (at a substantial additional cost) and another being the billet lower mounts (still not really cheap).

The other problem is that the stock spring rates are quite soft for track use. Again... this is an easily remedied issue, but you're talking about ~$360 for swift springs. Now sure, stock valving profile is decent and will accommodate a fairly wide range of spring rates. But wouldn't you rather have one that's built with the appropriate valving to to start with?

So that's where the Fortune 510 comes in. At a cost similar to the off-the-shelf Ohlins DFV, we have a CFD (concave flow digressive) ultra digressive piston. What does this mean? Well this valve and damping curve is very similar to the Penske double digressive piston. This means that when you look at the damping curve, you will see that at low piston velocities (when the piston moves slowly, such as body roll, brake dive, etc) the damping force ramps up very quickly to control these motions. It has a sharp digressive knee, where at higher piston velocities (hitting bumps, curbing, etc) it blows off and tapers off the force so as to keep the wheels in contact in the ground and to retain compliance. I spoke with Terry and the guys at Fortune extensively to settle on an appropriate valving profile. We wanted to make sure there there wouldn't be excessive compression that may leave the tires airborne over bumpy surfaces and thus feeling unsettled. There is a wide range of tenability on the rebound side. I didn't want these to be unbearable on the street, and I do still occasionally drive it around Chicago on nice days.


So what's the difference between these and the Fortune 500? Well, the FA500 is more of a linear/digressive hybrid similar to the Bilstein PSS9 and other more street oriented coilovers. It DOES ride a little better on the street. The Fortune 510 is a true motorsports shock that can work double duty on the street. The FA500 also does not control compression and rebound simultaneously. Now, the FA510 is like the Ohlins where the single adjuster adjusts both rebound and compression at the same time. Both the FA500 and FA510 are built to order - bespoke suspension. If you're buying them off the shelf and they're ready to go, you're doing it wrong. Sorry. We don't just slap springs on pre-built shocks. We consult with each and every one of our customers to decide on spring rate and also on valving. This way we make sure they are appropriate for the intended use and so that they ride as well as they can. The shocks are hand built in Virginia and dynoed before leaving Fortune. This also means that we can send them back to Fortune for rebuilds, revalves, and upgrades. This was a big selling point for me. Quick turn around times for service and modularity were important to me. At this time, I did not feel that it was necessary to do 2-way or 3-way adjustable with external canisters, however, down the line, I can still upgrade these if I choose to do so.

Now on to my review of the coilovers. For reference. I have had BCs that came with one of my cars, stock suspension (because the BCs were so awful), Koni Yellow with GC sleeves, Eibach Multi Pro on another s2000, KW V3, and then most recently, Bilstein PSS9 with Swift 9/8 springs (after I had to send the KWs in for rebuild and it took forever). I went with the 12k/10k Swift springs. I went with these rates because I do autocross this car quite a bit in STR, and I also track the car a lot. I figure 12/10 is about appropriate for being on 200TW tires. I also didn't want the car to be unbearable as I do take it out on nice days. Also I live in Chicago, some say that it's basically just like Beirut. Gunshots, potholes that go straight to the center of the earth, speed humps almost as big as my ego. But the point is, our roads aren't great. So how does it compare to the other suspension? Well let's run down the list.

The BCs rode very poorly on my vehicle. They were oversprung, and underdamped. Bumps were very harsh and jarring. The vehicle occasionally felt airborne over large high way expansion cracks. I bought a vehicle with these, and before I even finished my 6 hour drive home, I had found some stock suspension to throw on.

Stock suspension rides well, actually handles very well. The problem is that the spring rates are very soft. You can feel the car pitch and roll excessively. This also led to extreme outside tire wear.

Koni Yellow with GC Sleeves: I ran these with spring rates that were at the upper bound of what they could damp. These have lots of rebound, but not a lot of compression, so it was necessary to run higher rates in order to combat that. They rode OK, but with the high rebound, it felt sluggish in transition and it felt as if I was driving behind the car. The rears are also a bit long and prevented me from getting down to the height that I wanted to be at. These can be shortened and revalved by Koni.

Eibach Multipro - rode very poorly, bodies were way too long. Since you set height with the spring perch position, in order to get low, you sacrificed a lot of your bump travel. They were good on track though.

KWv3 - used to be a crowd favorite. I had the older one with the 90nm springs and the stiffer rebound shim stack. They rode well, handled well, lots of tunability - which is good if you know how to adjust the compression and rebound appropriately. Unfortunately KW will not revalve these for stiffer springs.

Bilstein PSS9 - I originally ran these with the springs it came with, they are close to stock CR spring rates. These coilovers can also get very close to stock height. On the street, they rode very well. However, in autocross situations, I found that I kept getting really loose and tank slapping around slaloms. I found that I was running out of rear stroke as the soft rates would allow it to bottom out, and the high rebound damping would cause it to pack up and... well... not rebound when making those fast inputs. The high amount of rebound force seemed like it'd be fine for running some 9k/8k springs. So that's what I did. We've run springs as stiff as 12/10 on these and they still ride very well on the street. The higher rates also made them perform quite a lot better on track and at autocross. These dampers also have a fixed base and adjust height based on the spring perch. They have VERY long stroke to allow adequate bump and droop, however, again, I couldn't run them too low because of the long bodies.

Now FINALLY, we get to the gen6 FA510. Honestly, I went into it not knowing what to expect. I'd driven some off the shelf gen 3 FA500s that I thought really weren't that great on a friend's car. And then one of my co-workers runs Gridlife Time Attack on some gen 5 FA500s on his STI and has been mopping the floor, even with quite a few miles on it. I've ridden along in his car, and it actually felt pretty decent around town. With the double digressive nature of the FA510 and the higher spring rates that I had selected, I was not expecting a great ride. To my surprise, I was wrong. These ride as well if not better than all the aforementioned dampers in MOST situations. Over bumps, potholes, manhole covers, etc, the ride feels very compliant. It's not harsh, it's not bouncy. I am still playing with damping to figure out exactly where I want it. I think I have it set slightly stiff at the moment as the rear end seems to step out easily, but I also haven't re-aligned. With the higher spring rates though, of course there is some trade-off. Over washboard type stuff when the pavement is wavy - more with rounded edges rather than sharp or square edges, the higher rates and the high damping force does tend to rock the car back and forth a little as it seems to ride along them instead of sucking them up. On the highway, it sucks up the expansion cracks well. It does not feel jarring, the rear end doesn't feel unsettled over big bumps at high speed. I will be shaking these down in a couple weeks at Gridlife at Gingerman in Michigan. Around off-ramps the body motion feels very controlled. Turn in feels a lot sharper (again, due to the high damping force and the higher spring rates). I am pleasantly surprised at how well these ride on the street. Compared to the Ohlins, I've ridden in Sarosh's (B Serious) car with standard 10/8 springs. He has the billet lower mounts and quite a bit of preload added to keep it off the bumpstops. His car is also lighter in the rear than many other s2000s since the soft top was gutted. His car rides very well, comparable to my outgoing Bilsteins, though with better control of body motion, Bilstein doesn't have a ton of low speed damping force. I have another friend with a stock s2000 and 13/11 on his Ohlins. I think that his rode a little rough over speed bumps and such, they felt as if they could've used a little more rebound in the rear.

Now to compare to the Ohlins. Yes, these are also a cartridge style damper with a threaded lower base. So the preload is set independently of ride height. We measured rear stroke to be 3.5" with a .5" bumpstop. The fronts have 4" stroke with a 1" bumpstop. The lower mounts on the both the front and rear are a pass-through design similar to the aftermarket mounts sold for the Ohlins. So they can get as low as you want, and they will get LOW. At their highest height, they are about 1" lower than stock. I am running both front and rear springs with about 1/8" of preload just to keep the springs seated. Base on calculations and measuring, with my spring rates. I get approximately 1.36" of front compression (920 lbs of weight divided by spring rate of 672 lbin), and (875 lbs of weight going into each corner divided by spring rate of 560lbin) 1.5625" of rear compression at static ride height. The high pressure monotube also acts as an air spring. Figure this adds about 50lbin or so. Even so, this leaves PLENTY of droop and bump travel. Even with softer rates, it will not be necessary to run much preload to retain adequate bump travel.

I like that the Fortune includes a front brakeline mount that can be adjusted for height, angle, etc. This is a nice touch. However, the stock shocks and Bilsteins both use a welded nut on the back of the tab for the bolt that attaches the brake line. The Fortune tab does not include this, and they do not include a nut for the bolt either. Not a big deal, but worth mentioning.


The lower clevis mounts are aluminum, as such, they do not have a welded nut. No big deal, they do include a flange nut with the same thread pitch as the stock bolt. Excellent.

As for the top mounts, the OEM nut has a smooth bottom, the one Fortune includes is a serrated flange nut. I don't much care for serrated as it will chew up the paint on your shock towers. Not a huge deal, you can re-use the originals.


OEM vs Fortune's serrated flange nut


The adjusters are nice, they have nice solid detents that make it easy to feel the changes. Turning the knob has a noticeable effect on damping.
Pillowball mounts: Nice? Yes. Necessary? Eh, not really. Sure, sphericals allow more articulation and prevent binding, and as such prolong seal life and reduce heat and hysteresis. How much of a difference does it make? Not much. S2000 shocks don't see significant side load or deflection. Note most dampers for this car do not use sphericals. Rubber also does a better job of isolating NVH (noise, vibration, harshness).



Fit and finish: there is no doubt the machining and anodizing on the Ohlins looks better. Even their packaging is fantastic. These have a nice green anodized lower mount and top mount that seem to resist scratches well. The lock collars are anodized blue. Everything fit together as it should. No massaging or modification required. Finish wasn't very high up on my priority list since I'm concerned about performance and I'll never see them anyways, but I figured it was worth mentioning. The Ohlins also feature an aluminum body. This is an optional extra on the Fortune. I did not opt for it. Aluminum bodies do shed some weight, and they are slightly better at heat dissipation. They also make corrosion a non-issue. I don't drive this car in rain, and saving a couple pounds of unsprung weight wasn't at the top of my priority list. I figured I'd save the money and spend it on something else. These are quite a bit lighter and have a much nicer adjuster than the outgoing Bilsteins.

B serious

I felt like the 12K/10K sprung FA's rode pretty well on Chicago streetzz (that's street, with two Z's, player).

The obvious thing to say is that my 10K/8K OTS Ohlins that have 13mm of rear preload to obtain 1" of free travel ride better. Duh.

But the FA's didn't crash into stuff or irritate me. They rode great.

The FA's start with miles more shock shaft travel than the Ohlins. I think we ended up with like 1.5" of rear free travel (before bumpstop) and about 2.X" up front. With like 1mm preload (I'm gonna call it 0 preload).

They also come with pass through aluminum rear mounts.

So, the FA's definitely win the useable features war.

The problems I see with the FA:
-The bumpstop is a cheater bumpstop. Its like 0.5" long piece soft poly/rubber. Ohlins, Tein, and others use a progressive, foam bumpstop to slowly ramp up resistance.

You have plenty of travel. But if you had to use the FA bumpstop mid corner, I think you'd upset the car (this is just a theory).

-The HUGE amount of travel is a bit dangerous. Even at 0 preload, if someone over-lowered the car using the lower case adjuster...the wheel can easily travel til it causes damage to something. To remedy this, one would need to leave space between the spring and top hat (leave the spring loose). Or use a helper spring.

-These spring rates with this amount of damper travel should probably come with helper springs.

BUT...as a whole....good damper, and a great base to start on. Slightly more geared toward track use, but still very streetable.

THMotorsports

1.64" of bump travel before hitting stops up front PLAYER. And 1.36" of droop up front. I think this is sufficient droop. But helper springs can be added if desired. I can also make these in a long stroke version if even more stroke is desired, but this hardly seems necessary.

I agree that they skimped on the bumpstops. I may replace these with FCM bumpstops or similar if I find at Gingerman that I'm using up all my stroke.

B serious

Helper springs can be used to "eat up" some compression travel so that the bumpstop engages earlier.

One could also just leave the spring loose.

Again...this "too much" available travel is only dangerous if you lower the car more than you should. You'll end up sending tyre into fender or tub before the shock stops moving. Basically, you'll make your fenders your bumpstops.

That's the worry.

Ohlins has all kinds of publication suggesting ride heights and preloads so that the bumpstop is 100% active before suspension components or wheels/tyres eat fenders.

"Be careful with your setup" is all I'm saying.

I would recommend taking some measurements with that tape measure you stole from me

s2000ellier

I've run FA 510 for the past 2 seasons with NASA doing TT. They are very capable shocks. My car has the current TT4 track record for Sebring International Raceway.

This is that lap driven by Todd K. on 225 Hoosiers R7s and FA 510.

THMotorsports

So I got to shake these down at the Gridlife season closer at Gingerman Raceway. I went on an alignment that I did in the parking lot. Even with the ride height a bit off from where I want it to be, I have to say, I'm very happy with the coilovers. 3 hours each way on a mix of city streets, highways, and country backroads and the ride was very good.

On track, the car felt a lot more stable, and it lost the floaty indirect feeling that I felt during transition before. Gingerman doesn't have big curbs, but it just sucks them right up.

So even with a terrible alignment and less than -2 degrees of camber up front. I managed to drive the car to 1:46. My previous best had been 1:48. These instilled quite a bit more confidence. I have no doubt that with a better alignment, some fresh tires, and some fresh brake fluid, I can shave some more time off of that. I'm by no means an expert, but I know how to go out and have fun.

B serious

I propose a battle.

THMotorsports

I already proposed a battle you chickened out and sent memes from 2 hours away all day.

proracer07

THMotorsports

Haha, we go way back. It's all in good fun. He's a much better driver than me.