Duckferd

Hi, this is yet another question related to suspension.

I got my '02 S2K with a set of Tein Flex Z suspension, running 10K springs front and rear. The car is set up on square 245s with about 1" of drop (only other mod with this involves driveshaft spacers and slight fender tab roll for clearance). I love the way the car looks and sits, no issues with scraping on daily use and want to keep it. The previous owner had the car set up to do autoX, but I had readjusted alignment back to close to factory specs (since he was nuts enough to do rear toe-out). With some dampener adjustment, the spring rates are actually pretty comfortable for the street, but obviously with Tein… dampener tuning, trying to adjust the dampeners to something streetable also means that when the highway has a large depression, your ass is launched off the seat and mid-corner behavior seems to allow more movement than I want.

I plan on daily driving the car mostly, with up to three HPDE runs per year. Not out to break lap records necessarily, more just having a confident and "safe" time. I am looking for an upgrade that would allow for great ride comfort on the street but also allow confidence on track. I heard a couple of suggestions from browsing S2Ki, one being that I'm probably going to be looking for 12/10K spring combo, the other being that the choices of products comes down to maybe FA500s vs Ohlins DFVs (Open to other suggestions of course).

Here's the thing: pre-pandemic, I would have just went with Fpsport Ohlins DFVs, filled out their suspension form and called it a day; but looking at recent prices they're essentially a thousand bucks more than FA500s. I am wondering if the ride quality of FA500s are comparable to the Ohlins DFVs with equal spring rates? They are put together and custom valved in the USA which to me is a huge plus- but I also know there are potential downsides with the FA500 setup (not able to run stock height due to fat body width; large range of adjustability means that if you're not setting it up right you can do dangerous things like get a wheel to wack the body). Would you just bite the bullet and go for the Ohlins regardless of the price difference?

B serious

I have one S2000 with FA500
And one with Ohlins.

My FA's are on a car who's only purpose is track use. I'm impressed with how good they are, considering their price. They're tremendous. I'm on 14/12K springs, which I believe is the sweet spot for today's 200TW tires (no aero or just junior aero).

The FA has, hands down, the more feature rich, and in most ways, better setup. More travel, more adjustment, pass thru cups, etc.

But...the Ohlins is better shock, no denying that. More refined, more planted, and way more forgiveness over track curbing, as well as shitty roads. Less things will upset the car.

My Ohlins are on a car which has previously seen track use...but will *never* see it again. They worked really well for both purposes.

I used to track them with 10/8KG on RE71R and it did totally fine. I stepped up to 12/10...and...yeah, it went a little faster. 12/10K is the borderline between streetability and track use. You'll be compromising at both ends.

I am using the 10/8kg springs now. The car is my summer/fall commuter and I love driving it every opportunity I get. It drives friggin beautiful.

The FA510 is on par with the Ohlins in terms of price, but they have tons of useful features. Have you considered those?

Duckferd

Thanks for your thoughts. Getting back into this thread nearly two months later (lol, been busy), it seems your daily S2K is using the stock Ohlins and not Sakebomb's FPSport 11k/11k kit. Would you recommend the stock kit for a daily driver even for a car with a square setup (245s all around) and any pitfalls I should consider (other than doing math/consulting when installing and setting them up in the car)? And did you have to revalve when you went to 12/10?

B serious

I have no real complaints about the stock kit except that the rear travel is so short. If it were longer travel, it would ride better.

No need to revalve for 12/10K.

I don't see the point of 12/10K for a street driven car. The 10/8 is fantastic pretty much everywhere on the road.

SakeBomb Garage

We agree here... the only big benefit for the 12/10 (we move the 10kg springs to the back on the standard kits and offer an additional 12kg spring for the front if needed) is that we can use 10mm more stroke from the limited amount available for droop, versus needing to give a large amount of total travel to compression (nearly 20mm) on the 8kg spring to avoid riding the bump stops). That works but most customers require our lowering cups for any reasonable amount of lowering.

B serious

^SBG is a good place to buy your Ohlins. They will help with your setup and they sell a lot of the customization parts like lower cups, etc

Duckferd

Thanks- yeah I was looking at buying from Sakebomb and I think B Serious really convinced me that Ohlins are the way to go for street driven (even biting the bullet with inflation pushing prices up). But the only question I have left is whether to go for the 10/8 stock Ohlins or the FPsport version (11/11), but there doesn't seem to be a big consensus here?

A lot of folks seem to compare performance on track (where I'd prob just go with something else like the Fortune Autos), but for street comparisons I think I've seen only a few opinions, with those folks leaning towards just getting the stock Ohlins and perhaps picking up some 10/10 springs.

B serious

10/10 didn't ride very well for me. I don't think this car favors a matched or higher frequency on the rear wheels because you're pretty much sitting on the rear wheels.

Of the setups I've tried, the ride quality/comfort rating from best to worst is...

10/8
12/10
10/10

Staggering the springs seems to settle the car over bumps. Less bucking and jumping.

SakeBomb Garage

Thank you so much for considering spending your hard earned money with us! If you'd like, please shoot us an email about your setup and we can help get you pointed in the right direction.

In addition, our Black Friday/ Cyber Monday sale is still going on! We're offering 10% off on our entire store, which should help ease the blow and make the experience of getting new coilovers just that much better! :^)

azn akira

I had the FP Sports but was not impressed with the valving at all and have since revalved them to FP Spec valving. They were too soft and I needed to run them almost full stiff to control the rebound otherwise it would feel a little floaty but then they would be a bit harsh. I'd say go with standard Ohlins or step up to FP Spec