BikeOr?

Here is my concern; I’m getting ready to pull the trigger on a set of Ohlins DFVs. I have an AP1, no track usage, but very spirited street driving is its only usage. Not a DD, garage queen, trips to The Dragon, meets and pure enjoyment is what I own it for. My goal is a more refined ride, not necessarily the ultimate in handling, but do not want to degrade the handling either. My concern is the limited rear stroke of the Ohlins. I live in western PA and the roads here are some of the worst that I’ve seen. We DO have some twisties here, but the road condition is generally abysmal compared to West Virginia or North Carolina. PA seems to be focused on straightening out all the fun stuff and letting what they don’t go to hell. The idea of reduced travel makes me a bit nervous although I very well understand that a little well controlled travel can be better than six inches of harshness. I am not interested in slamming the car, I will be riding on a staggered set of 17” Enkeis with Conti Extreme Contact tires, 225 and 255 widths, so I will be able to optimize static sag to take the most advantage of the available stroke. I’ve considered PSS9s but I know Ohlins from a lifetime of motorcycle riding and pretty much appreciate their engineering. Fortune Auto also caught my eye but I don’t like to gamble my money. I see that Sakebomb sells a set of long travel Ohlins for a mere half again as much money and I wonder if anyone is using them, and are they worth the added cost?

Shift9303

The issue of preload only really matters depending on how low you want to go and spring rates. With 10/8k springs and 12-15mm preload I got down to 1.5-2 finger gap in the rear on stock cups. To get down to a 1 finger gap I had to install aftermarket shock cups. If you're happy with that kind of ride height then you likely will be happy with the stock cups.

Pic from back then, ran a 10 mm rake at that time, that's why the front looks so low.
Attachment 140965

I'm in the midwest and some of the back roads around here get pretty shitty as well. Lots of heat-thaw cycles and poor maintenance lead to many broken up and grooved roads. The Ohlins ride similar to OEM and soak up pot holes very well. However the one point that still makes me groan are "wash board roads." You know, the kind of roads that just have this constant uneven undulation going perpendicular to the driving direction. These type of roads pretty much forced me to run the Ohlins near full soft. To be fair though, I'm not sure what can handle these roads aside from a WRC level suspension. Even driving them in my CRV is trash. I don't believe I every hit the bump stops on these roads, I'm not sure if adding more preload would have helped. Also one aggravating factor for me as well may have been my wheels as they're 17x9.5 and the slight stretch will increase NVH.

I think some may recommend the PSS9s if you only want to do pure street driving. I don't have extensive experience with FA but I have butt dynoed my buddy's FD with them and they rode pretty good. There are others on this forum that will chime in with more experience. Another option if you don't want to mess around with preload are KW V2/V3s. The 2 way adjustment on the V3 might sound overkill but the spring rates are on the soft side so that should be fine if you're not planning any serious track work.

B serious

how low do you wanna be?

Fortune auto's are definitely not a gamble. They're quite good. But you gotta wanna be low. The front cup will hit other suspension parts if you're not moderately low.

Ohlins work great if you're fine with a conservative drop. You just dial in a buncha rear preload. I think their newest version addressed some of the travel issues.

Bilstein PSS9 work so well on the road. But, again, only when conservatively lowered.

BikeOr?

For where I live and the places I get into, I only look to lower the car minimally, if at all. Hell, even with stock suspension I have to make a well planned maneuver just to get out of my driveway without scraping. What I hope to achieve is improve my enjoyment of the car. That is why I am interested if anyone has experience with the long travel Ohlins that Sakebomb sells. It’s a lot of added money, but I only want to do this once.

Fokker

My personal experience with coilovers has been it's fine for street as long as you're not dealing with roads that undulate a lot. The only thing that's lacking in most coilovers for the S is droop, which you'll feel/notice on roads that have a lot of uneven elevation changes.

Car Analogy

If you're only going to lower it a minor amount, there won't really be much benefit from the added travel.

B serious

Not quite true. The added travel does help with big dips and undulations since you have rebound. If the shock can rebound longer...then the "landing" is also more gradual and softer. Think about trophy trucks.

There's no hiding the fact that Ohlins standard are short stroke shocks in the back.

They do a remarkable job with the travel they do have, since the damper reacts so fast and the damping profile is set up so nicely.

And adding rear preload will help a lot with ride qualitu.

But similar to there being no replacement for displacement, there's no workaround for rebound...or...something like that.

I don't know if the SBG spec Ohlins are any good because I've never tried them. But the extra travel would be nice.

Bilstein are just straight up long travel shocks though. Not a bad way to go for a street car.

BikeOr?

I’ve seriously considered the PSS9s because of the travel and decent reviews. Why I’ve focused on the Ohlins is the high speed valving. Multiple spring disc stacks for compression and rebound. I know from motocross racing that that is THE best way to build a shock. I have been unable to find out if the Bilsteins have the same valving or not. My guess is that if they had a complex high speed circuit, they would brag about it and they do not. A well done straight compression/rebound damper can be acceptable, but never really great.

BuggyofMildDiscomfort

Almost any shock will be running spring disc stacks, bilstien included, I'm not sure what you're counting as a defining factor there? Any OE shock for the past 40 years will be the same.

B serious

He's referring to Ohlins' 3rd bypass path. DFV.

It pretty much "deletes" harsh cracks and roughness by just bypassing fluid at a certain piston speed while keeping the base damping simultaneously for slower movements.

Key word is simultaneously.

A lot of shocks have "blow off" valves to bypass extremely high speed movement. But not the same functionality as Ohlins. It takes them some portion of a second to recover from that event.

That's how I understand the DFV...and in real life, the Ohlins do actually do a really good job of deleting out all the really high speed chatter.