Megan Euro-Street damping adjustable Coilovers After 10,000 miles. Megan / BC coilovers often get dumpered on in forums so I thought I would share my impressions after some hard miles.

My current set-up includes, Mini Cooper S R56, Michelin Pilot Sport A/S 3 205-45-17 tires, Enkie 17 inch RPF 1 wheels, Powerflex purple polyurethane bushings front and rear, Rear adjustable anti roll bar the front is stock. Adjustable lower rear control arms, Megan Euro-Street coilovers, Wilwood front brakes, Wavetrac LSD. My own DIY alignment, current street setup, stock toe, ¼ inch negative camber front, ¾ negative rear measured off the rims. On steady throttle I get neutral, adding throttle I get a bit of over-steer, off throttle I get a bit of under-steer. I need to setup the pedals better the rounded shapes are not friendly to in turn throttle control toe hell stuff.


My tolerance for a harder suspension is probably a bit high I have almost always driven small light cars
and have tried all kinds of tires and suspension set ups. If I have to categorize shocks/struts I would divide them up into Street touring, Street Performance, Performance, and Race. The Megans for me fall in the Performance area. Note: I do not consider myself a skilled driver but I like to try.


The Quality of materials seems quite good, these have been through wipe outs and driven on some rough roads including highway nightmare de-structo speed bumps, some track time and a lot of spirited driving, I like the turns. The Megans still feel and perform like when I put them on. I will rebuild them at about 20,000 because clean oil is best and I dont like to have shocks that are even a bit worn.


The Damping is linear and adjustable 1 way, the useable adjustable range for me is a little more than one turn from 6 clicks to about 17 out of 32. these types of dampers are I believe designed to have some bypass bleed so I avoid locking them up or opening them all the way. The effect is noticeable but not huge, something like hard and medium hard, so basically I get two setups out of these.


Most of my shocks have been linear valved and the one set that I know was digressive was a Street Touring type, for Street touring I would only ever get digressive again, they had usable low speed damping for turns, were smooth and maintained constant tire contact even on the roughest roads, but they were not as controlled at speed and in turns so only good for easy driving. I cant comment on digressive performance setups yet, but I will be re-valving a set of Megan's to give it a try. As for linear on the Megans the turn ins and turn outs are where you get your lean or roll and its predictable and precise at all speeds up to the adhesion limits, the apex is steady and solid. Straight away stability is excellent continuing up to max speed and you feel ready to turn in at any time and the level remains constant even over moderate roughness. Dive in on braking at speed is moderate but controlled, some more low speed resistance/control here would be helpful for me.


Areas where these shocks could be better, I think some higher quality springs would add some range to the responsiveness Swift's are nice but there are other options on my list to try so I can get several sets.
At low vehicle speeds up to about 30mph these are not optimal. At about 50mph they are really working. Sharply shaped large bumps can cause some lack of tire contact and can be jarring but on good size rounded bumps its fine. I think some return rate rebound tuning would help a bit, For the street the final compression blow off valving is set a bit high I have given this some good but unintentional and unavoidable testing, they did prevent damage and there was no loss of control but over time I think there could be some issues if you have to torture the chassis on a daily basis. Anything that has separate rebound and compression adjustment would be better but to really tune shocks you need to adjust the valving curves and that requires rebuilding which you can try with these.


I like the ability to go low on these and maintain full adjustability, on the street I go moderate, for track I go as low as I can maintaining a bit more height in the back, somehow I feel this helps getting some rotation going. I know we cant do much to alter the center mass height but getting it low helps me. I have seen some newer setups with freer range and when they get in the turns they really rotate and the center of gravity is getting off the ground a bit. Take a spin in a purpose built club racer everything is low and tight and with a fraction of the power they can always get everything out of a good tire and are fast and fun.


Anyway I do like Megans on my setup and I drive the really long way to get the milk because I like the way my Mini is working even if there is more to try and work on. Oh I have been thinking these work a bit nicer when its warmer out and the shock oil is a bit warmer I wonder how the manufacturers tune and account for heat.