Would it be a quality issue at all, Rick? I know nothing about either product, but maybe one's cheaper for a reason, compared to the other?

I'm not slighting the products in the group buy at all, just curious.
Who knows...

I mean, with Subaru, there's several coilovers to choose from. ScoobySport in the UK (and in the US as RallyPerformance.com), Subaru's most well-respected aftermarket company, arguably, sells Leda coilover sets and praises them up and down. Yet at one of the big rally events a while back, something like 15 sets of them snapped in two during the race. That ain't good.

I'm sure they'd be okay for road usage or a little rally, but even still, with evidence like that, it's a pretty big deterrent. They're pretty expensive, though. Leaving us with the usual DMS, Prodrive, Tein and Ohlins choices, plus maybe others I don't know about.

What's my point? I don't know. Felt like telling a story.
Heh... Seriously though, I'd venture to say you're right, there may not be justification for the higher cost. But you never know about some of the hidden reliability stories...

 

For aggressive daily driving, they should be great. Basically, Bilstein and TMS both told me that they're good to auto-x and hot-lapping duties, but not if I wanted to use them for something else. For those who track their cars, the Ohlins would be great. A set of A'pex N1 Pros would be nice too.

 

OK, so the bilsteins would lower the car how much? Also, there were talks that lowering the car would negatively effect the handling characteristics of the S2k. Any comments would be welcome. Are the bilsteins more rough or a smoother ride than stock?

 

-this is what I am wondering. Can I get a 1, 1.5 or 2 drop from them..

 

They're height adjustable coilovers, so u can set them to varying heights. As for the limit of how low u can go, that depends on the application, and when I asked them, it was for an M3. However, u don't want to be at the limit of travel anyways. I'm sure they'll go lower than 2".

 

The Bilstein PSS kit has a 45 mm adjustment range both front and rear. The PSS kit does have stiffer springs than the stock springs, so although the car is lower at static ride height, in cornereing the loaded corner of the car will not be much lower than that corner would be when cornering at the same g-loading with the stock springs. The PSS kit is designes as a street kit, but the springs used have a 60mm ID, which is the standard spring size in Europe and available through most race spring companies in the US, if you determine that the springs need to be stiffer or softer for your particular needs. The Ohlins kits are better in racing applications, I have some experience with the TT44 kit in the Porsche 996, but I believe the cost for the kit is somewhere in the neighborhood of $6000, and most remote reservoir kits you're looking at $5000 for the set of 4. I have also dealt with JRZ, ProTrac, and Moton shocks (we currently use Moton on our race cars) as well, and they are better for high end competition track use, however the rules packages for most racing series limits the use of these shocks to professional racing series, such as ALMS, Grand-Am, CART, Trans-Am, and SPEED World Challenge, where we run. As a street kit to lower the car and for non-competitive track days, the PSS kit is a great value for the improvement in handling it provides.

kfooote@
turnermotorsport.com/bilsteinshocks.com/shocksonline.com

 

kfoote: What's u'r impressions of JRZ dampers compared to the likes of Ohlins and Moton? It seems like the Ohlins offered by Comptech are less aggressive than the ultra-pricey full-race versions, at least by the price. $3000 for a set of Ohlins doesn't sound like it's a full-race setup that a pro-car would run.

 

Ah, the history of JRZ....

I worked rebuilding JRZ's and did a bit of design work on the ProTracs for a while, so I have some knowledge about this subject

JRZ is a Dutch company who was started by 3 people (J, R, and Z) in the mid 1990's, and were THE shock to have in the pro racing sports car ranks. in 1998, there were something line 58 of 70 cars that started the 24 hours of Daytona were on them, and the majority of the ones that weren't were prototype cars running either Ohlins or Dynamic Suspensions. About that time, J, R, and Z split up do to internal differences and went thier spereate ways. Z is the current owner of JRZ, R is the owner of ProTrac, and J is the owner of Moton. The JRZ's are the first generation, and when they work, they work very well. Soon after J and R left, there were some quality control issues that popped up with the assembly of the shocks (I saw some of these first hand). Overall, they work very good and are still used by a couple of the top teams. ProTrac took a new approach to give better control and added reliability of the compression and rebound adjustments, lowering internal friction and increasing the effectiveness of the shocks over endurance races. Basically, the shocks didn't get as hot and the fluid worked better than the JRZ's. Unfortunately, the ProTracs suffered from the same QC issues and because of the added complexity were much more difficult to rebuild. The design of the Motons are basically an evolution of the JRZ's and the way that they work is very similar. The biggest single advantage of the Motons is that there have not been the QC issues that have happened with either the JRZ's and the ProTracs, thus they require less maintenance, and the cost to have them rebuilt is reasonable. They also have tech support at most of the major road course races in the US (ALMS, Trans-Am, Grand-Am), which makes it the current choice for most of the major racing teams.

There are more teams going to the Ohlins, but the cost of the shocks is significantly more, and they are more difficult to get the setup on them perfect, and they are more complex to rebuild. They do work a bit better when set up right, however, and they have trackside support at most races as well.

The Ohlins kit available through Comptech is essentially a remote reservoir shock without the remote reservoir. There are a couple of other things that it looks like the things that the Comptech kit doesn't have that the remote reservoir shocks do, and it is less aggressive than the full race versions (TT44, 46HRC, 46DR) are, and do not have the adjustability that the top end race shocks have. The added range of adjustability and resulting complexity of the shock innerds is what causes the cost difference between the two. With the 46HRC's that were used by the team I worked for in 2001, getting the shocks perfectly matched to the conditions was one of the final subtle tuning devices and could gain as much as 0.5 sec/lap once the springs, alignment, and tire pressures were dialed in. It may not sound like much, but in the SPEED World Challenge GT series, 0.5 seconds could mean as much as 5 grid positions in qualifying. This level of tuning is not available in the Comptech setup, which is why it is being marketed as a street setup.

As a side note, I don't know of any teams running the S2000 in any of the major US racing series, so this added level of performance doesn't have much of a market potential here in the US, which is another reason why Comptech is marketing the Ohlins kit in the manner that they are.

kfoote@
turnermotorsport.com/bilsteinshocks.com/shocksonline.com

 

So can you organize a GB at that price?

 

kfoote: thanks for the great info! I knew Moton was started by a damper guru who owned another company, but didn't know it was J in JRZ. What is your impression of Koni's 28-series (2812/2817) shocks? Have you ever dealt with them in detail? Thanks.

Re S2000's in pro-racing, yeah, it's sad no one's running them. In SWC, they're far outclassed in GT, and not allowed in Touring just cuz of a lack of seats. They'd be a good match to the Touring cars. It's not like the s2k has more power than the rest of the Touring field.