My Cooper is now my dedicated track car. I'm thinking about moving from the JCW suspension to coilovers. What's the best track performer out there right now? PSS9? Cross? AST with the 80 kg/cm (448 lb/in) spring rates?

Stuff like Ohlins and Moton are out of my price range.

I don't car how low the car can go, I care about how quick it can get around a corner.

Street comfort is not a concern, so bonus points are not given for a more comfortable street ride.

It's all about lap times.

 

Wrong car if your worried about lap times, doesn't your arm get tired pointing folks by .... lol

 

I am a BIG fan of the BC Coilovers, very good performance, adjustability (includes integrated camber plates)

take a look at these for the price

http://www.minspeed.net/BCCO.htm

 

bump

 

i still stand by my regard H&R RSS is the way to go...

 

I was blown away this weekend during my first track outing with Cross coilovers installed. They did an amazing job of covering up all my mistakes Waylen had the suspension dialed in so perfectly that it felt like the car was psychic The only problem is that my wife now wants them for her car, and nobody has any 2-for-1 deals going

 

What suspension were you using before? What was different with the Cross coilovers compared to what you were using?

 

I have a freshly rebuilt set of Leda's which are excellant for the track. We should talk

Randy
M7 Tuning

818 497 4341

 

I started with an R53 with H-sport lowering springs and stock swaybar, then added an H-sport comp. sway bar and adjustable camber arms and IE fixed camber plates.

After that I switched to an R56 with stock springs, H-sport comp. sway bar and IE adj. camber arms.

And the current configuration added the Cross coilovers with the included adj. camber plates, and WMW adj. end links for the front and rear (didn't use the front end links that Cross included in the package).

Besides eliminating the SUV ride height on the R56 , the biggest difference is the massive increase in the neutral handling characteristics of the car. The car was rotating so well in the turns that I began to wonder if the coilovers didn't have motors in them driving the rear wheels

If I had to use one word to describe how the car feels now, it would be "predictable"

 

What is your Reasonable Budget?

 

Well, the prices on the PSS9, Cross, and AST all seam reasonable to me.

Stuff like this is not reasonable:
http://www.turnermotorsport.com/html...n%20Motorsport

There's some line between the two, I'm not sure what it is. I just didn't want someone to recommend I drop $6k+

 

well I don't think anyone would ever mention:

Moton / Reasonable

in the same breath

But what I found reasonable was the BC - they came with the camber plates mounted already. $1100 I think

 

That seems to be a bit too far into the "too good to be true" category for me. I mean, I paid a fair amount of that for just camber plates (Helix plates).

 

Who sells AST coilovers? Do you have to go directly through AST?

 

I am happy to help if you have BC questions...

Yes they do almost sound to good to be true...
They are ... thats why I now sell them

 

Texas Speedwerks sells them.

 

Thanks!

 

So, Calaway16, since you've heard of AST outside of the MINI world apparently, what have you heard?

I don't seem to be getting a lot of traction in this thread, so feel free to post any AST information that may have come from a different car.

 

i know 3 cars including mine that run the BC - they are too good to be true

 

Sorry. I actually don't know much about them. Just wanted to find out about new options. I have heard about CROSS just from reading on NAM, BMW magazines and Outmotoring.com. They seem to be getting great reviews. I'm not necessarily so sure about AST because on Texas Speedworks' website, they sing praises of the shock body but then go on to say that they needed a better spring from Swift . That doesn't really make sense. Just my own thoughts though.

Nick

 

So... I'm confused. From whose perspective are they too good to be true?

 

look at the features, benifits, quality, price, & performance.
% compaire ...
Don't get hung up on "to good to be true"

They are a great value

 

Do some searching in the track and auto-x Bimmerforums there has been a few threads on on AST coilovers, pretty much all of the racers who'd switched to them love 'em and have been giving very positive reviews... I'd imagine their street biased product to be good as well. Might want to also check (or call) http://www.vorshlag.com/ they've the NA distributor for AST and could get you whatever you need I'd imagine.

 

my understanding is that coilovers (cross, ast, leda, etc) that utilize 2.5 id springs can use springs of different rates. be prepared to do your homework to figure the best rate to match the settings you chose on the damper. Or you can trust the manufacturer or tuner to supply the correct springs. In any case, getting a good book on suspension sorting will probably be beneficial at this level of adjustability. Race teams have folks dedicated to sort out suspensions depending on the type of track/surface the race car will be running. and some of the sorting is done live, based on driver feedback, lap times, etc. As for me, I can barely afford to sleep at a Holiday Inn Express.

So, the good folks at TSW probably have done their usual track and shock dyno testing to determine an appropriate spring rate. and it probably differs from what the factory ships. Best to call TSW for the low down.

 

well if you are out there on a budget - usually you do not get the quality and adjustability that the BC's offer.

At $1100 for all 4 corners they are by far the best value.

You have a tremendous amount of dampening to play with and get your car dialed in directly.

They come with integrated camber plates which is a necessary piece of equipment if you are going to track your car at all.

I track my car and have had fun building my own skills as I improved the car along the way also. I had the BC coilovers on the car and was getting it dialed in to a local track. After the 3rd session the car was rotating nicely. Well 1 month later I had put the M7 USS on the car and the first session out on the same exact track and I almost over rotated it. BC has alot of adjustment and that will be helpful to anyone taking their car to the track.