BC Racing coilovers - review

[eddyvr4]

PS - you absolutely MUST get a wheel alignment after you put in the coilovers. I swapped out these with my old teins which had been aligned less than 2000km earlier, had the height about the same and assumed the alignment would be pretty right. Incorrect. cambers were fine, but front toe was way out. (figure that out) so the low speed tramlining and twitchiness i had put down to the stiffness of the suspension is now gone, and feedback through the steering is a bit better. It always gets me how much better the car feels after an alingment. Is reading about 1.6 & 1.8 degrees negative camber front and rear respectively.

 

[Guest]

What alot of work the front coilies were to put on by myself! The multipoint suspension really makes it hard to install the front where as the rears very easy.

OK, ive fitted the BC-BR 10kg/6kg with ball joint front. 17x8.5 36 offset wheels running 235 RE-01R tyres.

Lowered the car to a point where the top of the tyres are at the same height as the guards. Set damper to hardest front, 10 clicks from hardest rear and test drove the car down canterbury RD (bankstown) doesnt scrape the guards.

1st impression. Wow its not as unbearable as i thought it'd be. Really quite ok for my standards. Will do more driving after a wheel alignment and post further reviews.

 

[Guest]

Forgot to mention that the car handles like a dream. Cant wait for a wheel alignment.

 

[eddyvr4]

pleased to hear that phong.. look forward to your further feedback. im suprised your damping is ok on the hardest setting, must be valved much softer than my set. you were definitely on the hardest, not softest setting?

 

[eddyvr4]

Update: Had the opportunity for an extended run through some tight and windies and am increasingly impressed by the cars improved roadholding and the driving enjoyment with these coilovers. The fun ended abruptly when a repeated 16psi eventually blew the plastic plenum of the intake manifold... (and did i have any tools with me? .. )

Previously even with the 12kg fronts, at my only 1 inch ride drop i still had had occasion where the front tyre touched the plastic inner guard on heavy mid corner bumps when heavily loaded. So i Dialled up the damping a little further to 12 from softest front and rear to see how that went. this seems to have solved that problem.
But i think it does indicate the 12kg fronts (in this brand) are not the overkill one might otherwise assume when running at a lowered ride height.

Wife was not impressed with the ride when she has taken it out, although i hadnt dialled the damping back down. I do find myself driving to avoid potholes etc around town that the commodore would thumb its nose at, but when you do hit something its not offensive, but it is noticible.

there are no problems, or knocking/leaks etc of any kind with them to report at this (admittedly still early) stage

I will try putting the damping right back up again, i had this thought maybe the damping was all out of whack (too firm) when i initially drove the car due to the units being horizontal in the box and the damping fluid not settled in the right spot? Just a theory..

 

[J-B]

They keep sounding better and better, are you going to be at the cruise next weekend? I would still love a ride in your car to see how these feel

 

[eddyvr4]

Unfortunately now, 95% no. My wifes recovering from surgery and so ill be looking after the kids and her. Thats a real dissapointment... If you ( or anyone) is really keen you are welcome to come up late of an evening (after 8, kids in bed) and i can take you for a run so you can get a feel for yourself how comprimised/acceptable the ride is. (running 18s anyway)

 

[eddyvr4]

Humm.. very interesting, my hunch was correct..

I put the damping back to 12 from firmest, ie the factory settting that i whinged about in my first review on page 1, as bouncing me all over the place. Well now it is very firm on that setting, but not bouncy and totally ridiculous like it was. So unless proven otherwise, im going with the theory that the oil was not settled correctly in the dampers when i went out for the first ride, because the dampers had spent their whole life horizontal in the box and not vertical as they should be.

I feel a bit guilty about giving them a bad rap about that, but there was no warning in the manual about it, and it took me this long to dare go back to that setting. Anyway its a good outcome anyway..

The other thing that supports my theory is im finding myself running stiffer (12 from softest) as a good peformance/street setting now, wheras initially only 8 clicks from softest felt enough.. but once the dampers settled (softened) now it needs a bit more damping to feel right.. (If that makes any sense)

i theorise it probably only needs 10 - 100kms to settle them in, ie not much, but i made an assessment at much lees than that as they were atrocious as soon as i got in it, and i didnt think to 'run them in' on that first drive, i fiddled immediately. (As you do)

 

[Hotwire]

Eddy - Im now very much considering the BC Coilovers for my Liberty based on this and a number of other writeups. Did you have any reservations about ordering from NZ at all? I have been liaising with "Performance Guru" and he seems quite helpful.

My only concern is the Legacy/Liberty coilovers have pillowball fronts which is going to kill me with NVH i believe when combined to the whiteline ALK I had installed the other week.

Keen to know how you're finding them still

 

[eddyvr4]

Hi Lee, I hope you got the softer ALK rubbers, when i put the standard ALK rubbers on my old liberty RS turbo i was horrified with the extra harshness, swapped for the softer rubber ALK and the compromise was much better.

Yes id be worried about the pilowball uppers too... maybe install your own rubber shims on top??

I still hold the view my set with the 12kg fronts and 18's are a bit harsh if the bulk of your kays are city commuting, but as long as youre prepared for that, bang for buck peformance wise, once you hit some clear twisties, it is so much more fun to push hard, its is completely transformed from stock. I imagine the liberty fronts are 8 or 10s so it should be better than mine NVH wise.

Even in the wet they still feel good, although with the firmer setup now i doubt my own ability to predict and catch a sudden oversteer event in the wet, and also being a motorcyclist, im a 'paranoid' driver in the wet and dont push too hard.

In short you will love the transformed handling, the only issue is whether you accept the trade off in ride.

I had no issues with order from NZ. ive had no mechanical trouble with them to report, not that ive looked recently...

 

[Hotwire]

To be honest Im not sure which rubbers were installed, it was done by S&J as I dont have time/patience at the moment! NVH is not too bad, but am just worried that the ALK combined with Camber tops would ruin the daily driving pleasure.

Spring rates for the Liberty are 6kg front, 8kg rear... a combo I'm still finding odd when compared to the Legnum.... Overall weight distribution must be rather different with N/S config rather than E/W of the legnum with trans & transfer case all so close to the front wheels....
Comparing to Tein rates, most Tein combo's have 6/6kg, so the extra 2kg in the rear must be to try and cover different valving, but this is ok, as when I load her up to go on holidays, should hold the extra weight well

 

[Hotwire]

Oh - and are you coming on the cruise this Sunday? Im finally making it to one so would be good to catch up

 

[eddyvr4]

S & J supplied the harder ALK to me first, but that was yrs ago..

Yes I imagine the liberty would have a better F-R weight distribution...

Those spring rates sound very civilised, and a nice stiff rear to dial out the understeer may save you the need for a bigger rear swaybar too. I say go for it (but its your money!)

 

[Hotwire]

Just heard back from the factory (very helpful!) and the V1's can come with rubber top hats at the front. The only difference between V1s and the BR's (according to them) is the piston size and associated cartridge. Some of their comments:

They both are in the same length but in different sizes, which results in different damping force. BR still use a larger piston.
...
The greater adjustment is only in hard direction. There is no big difference in compression.

So it seems that the V1s may be a good option for me - now just need to find some at a decent price. Justjap.com sell them for $1229 delivered for V1s but dont list the legacy. I have contacted them and waiting for a response

 

[naughtika]

hi Eddy, just wondering if you have any more updated feedbacks or comments about this suspension kit..

I am considering this kit between the tein super wagon, tanabe sustec pro (if anyone can source it for me)..

how do you find your 12kg front and 6kg rear after driving it for a few months?

I messaged the seller on ebay and said that I can customize my own spring rate.. so I was gonna ask if they can provie 8 or 7kg front and around 4.5 to 6kg rear.. thought that should make the car feel more comfortable but still be able to stiffen it when necessary...

 

[eddyvr4]

Hi - it’s a very good question.. And ive had a few more kays to reflect

If I could buy mine again, I would go with 10kg fronts and 6 rears. (nothing apart from same $ stopping me swapping front springs for 10s i guess, but im happy enough..)

As ive already covered, whichever way you go, you are going to compromise something, and the reason im forced to stick with the high spring rates is that I want to have the car about 25mm lower than stock, and I drive fastishly on poor roads. By lowering the car I compromise the ground clearance, the available travel and also the clearance between the tyre and the inner guard. So to make up for these problems I created by lowering it I need to run a much higher spring/damping rate. (when I ran this height with the tein basic wagons I was smashing the underbody of the car on big bumps, and also the tyres were chewing the guard liners when hurling it through bumpy corners.)
I think the ride is acceptable but borderline for a daily driver, and probably the 10kg fronts would be a noticible improvement on my 12s for NVH, but probably not feel much worse handlingwise. Also with my setup (with the higher rates) the car is very neutral and I don’t really have any desire for swaybars, which is a good cost saving.

Because I spend much more time looking at the car in the garage than actually driving it, having the dropped ride height is important to me, so I accept the compromise ive created.

But, and its just my opinion, if you were prepared to run at the stock ride height to allow for the full travel, I think the best allround peformance/ride setup would be to run something like 8kg fronts, 5 rears, AND the swaybars. It would would be better on really rough roads than my 12/6/ setup, and better NVH. But it would cost more, and wouldn’t handle better on good roads, and wouldn’t look as good.

So there is no right or wrong setup here, take what you can from my advice.. Theres a lot of happy people running 8/5kg rates out there, its going to be a big step up from stock. I would say definitely dont go for less than that in terms of spring rates.

Also you could buy the BCs and a set of swaybars for probably the same price as just a set of teins.... ....

Im very happy with the BC product, but ive only put 5000km at most on them so i can hardly vouch for long term durability. Also, get the dial extender kit for the rears.

 

[naughtika]

cool.. thanks for your feedback.. much appreciated it..

I was narrowing down on the Tanabe Sustec Pro (NF210) which it seems to be really hard to get hold of, so I might get these instead.. but with the same spring rates as the Tanabe's or maybe a little customized... say 8kg fronts and 5.5kg rear..

what do you think? or what do you guys think?

 

[eddyvr4]

Sounds like a sensible choice of rates to me, (can you get 0.5kg increments??) Are the tanabes damping adjustable, and is the height adjustment independant of spring preload like the BC's? Ease of damping adjustment in the rear with the dial 'extenders' for an extra 40 bucks or so is a big plus with the BCs. It means you do actually bother to adjust them, as all 4 can be done in under 60 secs.

 

[unclepaulie]

hey christian, you get isc coilovers from SA, linkylink

theyre 1500 bucks
any spring rate you want
rebuildable
warranty
and made in oz so parts are close,
plus u can buy secondary springs with differnt rates for $150

just another option for you, ill be gettin 10 and 6 kg BC's around christmas time tho

 

[naughtika]

I was looking at them too.. but I think I dont want to spend any more than $1200 for a set of coilovers..

I can probably get the Tokico Illumina or KYB AGX & was gonna match it with Tein S or H Tech springs for around $850 including shipping for the whole set..

I thought for an extra $500, why not do it once do it right.. also at least I know it'll fit without any issues... just the matter with the spring rates..

@Eddy.. the Tanabe's are damper and height adjustable..