What To Look For When Buying Coilovers

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Categories: Ksport

Four key components to consider before purchasing coilovers.

The suspension of your vehicle is what ultimately determines how well it will handle. If your vehicle came from the factory with softer suspension, it will most likely handle poorly until the suspension is replaced with a performance setup like coilovers. Worn out suspensions have a negative effect on handling. If they are old, replace them. This is especially important if it is used for spirited driving where handling is key. Continue reading to learn what to look for when buying coilovers.

Coilovers help set up your vehicle’s height and damping. This allows you to lower your center of gravity and stiffen up your chassis for better cornering and control. Not only does your car look sportier, but it also helps transform your car into a performance machine. Further transferring your modifications into tangible wheel horsepower.

There are many different coilover brands and types on the market, so picking the right one can be daunting. Here are four key things you need to look for when buying coilovers.

Spring Rates

Springs are integral to your suspension set up. They control the vehicle’s ability to bounce, absorb bumps and create low body roll when loaded. Higher spring rates require more force to compress the spring, which reduces the amount of suspension travel. The body of your car moves when you accelerate, brake and turn. By reducing body movement, you make handling more predictable and effectively spread the cornering load across all four tires leading to better grip. Most aftermarket coilovers use significantly stiffer springs than OEM suspension, which improves handling and gives the driver more feel for the road and their car when performing spirited driving.

Spring rates are determined by the amount of pressure that it takes to compress the spring 1”. If your spring rate is 300 lbs. per spring, that means the springs will compress 1” per 300 lbs. of load. If you add another 300 lbs. to the springs, the spring will compress another inch to which the load on the spring is 600 lbs. while the rate of the spring stays its constant 300 lbs. per inch.

The ideal spring rate is different for each application. Drag racing, street driving, or drifting, the suspension you choose will change your car’s performance. The selected coilover application changes internal shock valving to match the modified spring rate desired. Our Kontrol Pro Coilovers for example, use stiffer springs overall which, in conjunction with our monotube design damper, significantly improves handling. If you’re in need of stiffer suspension, we offer a wide range of variations of spring rates built to handle specific uses such as drifting, drag racing, rally, auto-cross and more.

Spring and Valving Adjustability

One of the reasons anyone purchases a set of coilovers has commonly been to lower their car. The lower center of gravity will help reduce excessive body roll and improve performance. Having the adjustability for ride height, spring preload and damping are essential features of a high quality coilover. Adjusting your coilovers can help you fine tune how your vehicle handles. It also gives it the perfect ride height for your application. The ability to replace the springs with stiffer ones is also an important feature. This is because track cars need much higher spring rates than street cars to gain grip, improve handling and reduce body roll. If you swap for a stiffer or softer spring, match your spring rate with your damping to avoid a bouncy ride. This is detrimental to handling. Moreover, all Ksport coilovers have ride height, spring load and damping adjustment as standard features.

Top Mount

On top of the coilover is a mount that holds everything together and bolts the top of the coilover to the car. This mount is the “Top Mount”. Between the mount and strut assembly are two different types of bushings, rubber or pillowball type.

Moreover, OE manufacturers use rubber bushings because it deflects more and is a primary cause for the failure of suspension precision. The rubber you will find on most OEM struts is soft and allows a lot of energy deflection. A stiffer rubber mount improves longevity and reduces energy deflection.

A pillowball bushing is a metallic spherical joint. Rather than deflecting from the cornering forces like a conventional rubber bushing, pillow ball mounts do not move at all. This translates into a far more precise feel from the suspension and steering. The metal bearings will transmit far more vibrations from the road. This may make the vehicle less comfortable for daily use but is essential for increased performance in racing applications.

pillowball-top-mount-pillowball

Monotube vs. Twin Tube Damper

Inside any coilover there are two designs of dampers you will come across, monotube and twin tube.

The twin tube uses an inner and outer tube, twins if you will. The inner tube holds the piston shaft, valve and oil while the outer tube holds damper oil and nitrogen gas. It functions as follows. Firstly, when the suspension is compressed, the piston forces oil out of the inner tube by its valve and into the outer tube. Once the piston moves back into position, the oil is sucked from the outer tube back to the inner. Most OEM suspension utilizes the twin tube damper set up because it allows for more suspension stroke and improves ride quality.

Alternatively, monotube dampers hold the gas and the shock in one tube. This separates the liquid from the gas with a floating piston. The design pushes the damper piston through oil, and the oil through chambers through the valves in the piston itself. This compresses the gas and allows it to react quicker. An detail about the monotube design is its ability to be used either way up, unlike most twin tube dampers. Compared to the twin tube design, the monotube holds more fluid, has better heat dissipation and improves the responsiveness of the damper.

For the best performance on the street or track, the monotube design is an upgrade to the twin tube design.

Summary

Above all, it is important to buy coilovers from a proven company who stands behind their products with warranty and good customer service. Good spring rates, spring and valving adjustability, pillowball top mounts and a monotube design are all great ways to spot a high quality coilover.

We hope this helped clarify what to look for when buying coilovers and the options when it comes to choosing a setup that is right for your build. If you have questions on what you might need for your setup, don’t hesitate to contact our team.