I have finally purchased a set of coilovers for my r53 and after all the research, contemplation, purchase, install and thoughts.... I wanted to put them down in one place. *** Let me state now, I really have no personal expertise with replacing r53 springs, shocks, or coilovers ~ all information, including install process, has come from the internet. (NAM, Mod Mini, Fortune auto, etc.)

VARIABLES & COMPARISONS.
Going to start out with all the variables and factors I was looking for in a coilover.
I'm going to save a few thread posts for future posts as I go through the process.

Basic Numbers: (from what I've found please correct me where I'm off)
Stock R53 spring rates are in the 4k front & 2.5-3k rear range 4K / 2.5K PROGRESSIVE
Rear motion ratio is around 0.87
Curb weight of 2,853 (with driver) and 62.7/37.3 weight distribution.

My Considerations:

• Keep as much travel as possible while lowering an inch or so....
• Adjustable ride height on the shock body vs. spring pre load to adj the ride height
• linear spring rate ~ preferably Swift / Pretty sure Bilsteins are progressive.
• Spring Rate: match to tires for track and comfort for street. (potential to change springs in the future?)
• Width of front springs... bubble type have less room for camber and may need spacers. (JCW red with Koni Yellow have less room for camber)
• Front Camber plates - adjustable?
• Twin Tube vs MonoTube ~High pressure monotube design more responsive, better cooling, no foaming. (beefier for Mcpherson front end which uses the strut as a pivot point)
• Rebuildable and Upgradable ~ if I every upgrade springs or turn the car in to a track car.
• Under $2000... hopefully
• Damper Adjustment: Compression and Rebound adj. Fortune and most of the coilovers at this price point are rebound adj.
• Linear vs digressive dampening ~BR is linear. Fortune is digressive. Ohlins are linear. Lots of opinions.

There is some good thoughts here:
https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...or-my-r53.html

After much research it came down to Ohlin Road and Track and Fortune Auto 500 series.
Here's my comparison.

Ohlin Road & Track
Do they have Front camber plates? No. Need to use stock or IE camber plates. No pillow ball just the IE fixed camber for me.
Drop of Front 20mm & Rear 25mm out of the box with standard set up. 20-25mm seems like a lot???
Ohlin manual info says 10-30mm height adjustment by changing spring preload. Don't really want to change ride height with preload.
Do the sleeves adj the ride height? NO... adj with pre load
Mixed street and track.
ADJ is on the bottom of the rears. (Update: this is actually a bigger factor than I originally thought)
Spring rates... Front 60 N ~ 6.1K & rear 50N ~ 5.1K No Swift spring option? Ohlins stock springs should be a great start.
Narrow springs so no rubbing. *Bilstein coilovers look like wide springs.
**Spring rates for the R56 are Front 70N & Rear 60N What... that much difference from the R53 to the R56????

Fortune Auto 500 Series - Generation 8
Adjustable ride height vs Spring Pre load.
Digressive damping.
5 year warranty, Rebuildable and Upgradable to 510, 520 and maybe even the Pro 2 way.
6k / 6K recommended + Swift Spring Upgrade. Can replace springs in the future.
Front Top plates - Pillow Roller Bearings and Adj. camber - *Ohlins do not come with front top hats so I would need to purchase adj or use my fixed camber plates for the Ohlins.
Rear Extenders need to be drilled through. Adjustment for rear rebound is on the top.
Comes with front end links to fit coilovers.
I really like the idea of being able to upgrade or re-build these easily with the actually people who build them.


I emailed FA with some questions... and they were very quick to reply.

Spring rate recommendation: Your website say 6K & 6K. What would you say I was thinking of 5K and 5K Swift or Hyperco?
1. Personally, if you want to set this car up to have a bit less understeer, I would recommend staggering the spring rates, so for instance 5kg front and 6kg rear, or 6kg front and 7kg rear. If you decide upon a 5kg front, I would recommend increasing the shock travel from 97MM to 108MM to make up the difference in droop/compression settings. I think 5kg front and 6kg would be suitable for your needs (maybe a bit soft in the front).
Are Swift and Hyperco available in 5K or just the Fortune springs?
2. Yes, all options are available in that spring rate
Are Fortune springs linear?
3. Yes, they are linear.
Do you custom valve for this?
4. Yes, we valve for the spring rates that you select
My thought is I could start here in a couple years go up in spring rate if track more.
5. The 500 series has a 2kg +/- window of adjustment of spring rate change before we would recommend a re-valve service. This product is modular so, if/when this becomes more of a track day vehicle, we can convert this into the 510 series or if you want the 510 series to start with, we can offer this (but it would be outside of the range of pricing you mentioned).
Digressive Damping curve going to be too much for the street?
6. No, the digressive piston on the 500 series is very compliant on the street
Adjusters are for the rebound only correct?
7. Yes, with the 500 series you are mainly adjusting rebound force, with very little compression adjustment happening
Do the come with front end links for the sway bar?
8. Yes, it does come with front endlinks and front camber plates. You will need to re-use your OEM rear top hat, and I would recommend adding rear extenders to this kit.
Going on sale for Black Friday to get me closer to $2K?
9. Last year, we did have around 10-15% off new 500 series orders, so that most likely will be happening this year as well. We can do custom orders for Black Friday, I just ask that you email the week before so I can set up everything to send to you before our emails are flooded with orders.
Regards,
Devin
Motorsports Coordinator
Fortune Auto North America

I also talked to Geoff at Cygnus Performance. Very knowledgeable on Fortune Auto but more from a WRX/Subaru platform.
His thoughts on Fortune vs Ohlins:
Ohlins - stock springs are not great. He can put custom springs on Ohliins. but that adds to the costs.
Fortune Damping range is probably a little bit better than Ohlins.
He was very strong proponent of the Swift springs.

To Be Continued.

Fortune Auto 500 series for r53

 

The kit comes with everything in the picture above. Quality of everything is superb and beefy. Extended adjusters are the only thing I would say have a little step down in quality.

First thing I did was make my garage floor level with some pieces of ply wood under the rear wheels. Then I took pictures and measure everything. I wanted reference points from where I was with the stock springs.
I used the Mod Mini video a few time dismantling the old suspension. Here's the link:

I've decided to go with a 19mm rear sway bar to start with. So I pull the 22mm bar and replaced it with the 19mm from WMW.
Good video from Madness on how to get the bar out here.

Part 1 -

Part 2 -


For the install I used the Fortune Auto Manual which can be found here:
https://fortune-auto.com/instructions/

Now for the details. Rear first.
The New Generation 8 from Fortune Auto have very nice locking collars both for the spring perch and the height adjustment. However the lower collar was hitting the trailing arm when I first installed the rear sets.
You can see the red collar press agains the metal.



Fast forward to the next day and the the lower collar on the front coilovers was touching the rim of the OEM wheels. I have the R98 mini wheels for street and some Konig's for the track... More on that later.
Hmmmm not good.



So I got on the phone and call Fortune Auto.
Let me say this... I actually got someone on the phone in about 30 seconds. He was very helpful and it turns out the older collars from the previous generations have a smaller outer diameter. So we made a deal... he got me 4 of the older collars to fix my problem and I paid to Fedex them next day air.

*** I also started poking around for 5mm wheel spacers just in case.

So the collars arrived and well they're not green but they are not the same blue as the Swift springs so now I'm up to 3 different colors.
And they are smaller in diameter.


Good news first. The rear are now great. Turns out there was a ton of camber in the rear after putting the shorter FA coilovers and by removing some of the camber and the smaller lower collars... we are all clear.

Front is still really close. The wheels will spin but the balancing weights hit. ARG!!!.
Soooo turns out I get free balancing from Goodyear with these tires so I went in and had them put sticky weights instead of the clamp on weights on both sides of the wheel. We now have clearance but it's too close for comfort.
Search all the sights and WMW has a 4 pack of 5mm spacers shipped for $68. Done.








Next up... End links and sway bars.
Rear was fine. I already had whittling adjustable end-links and the rear 19mm sway bar has 3 different hole sets. Going to start soft and work my way up.
For the front I'm leaving the stock sway bar and the FA kit comes with adj front end-links. When I first put them on with the car in the air the bottom ball joint is within a mm or 2 of the axle. Hmmmmm. Another call to Fortune Auto and another answer. Top notch customer support!!!! Turns out when the suspension come back to ride height the triangle of the axle, strut and end-link changes to where the clearance is fine.



I shoved a jack under the wheel and at ride height have a plenty of clearance… so much so that I’m going to add some length back in to the end-link which will take out some of this angle on the sway bar end. I'm also thinking about adding a couple washers to the strut side of the end link to push the upper end of the end link out towards the sway bar?… lessening this angle in an attempt to get the end link more vertical.



Last step was to go get the track wheels and pop them on. BOOM something when right on the first try. Track wheels have no issues with the locking collars. Not sure what the offset is but this made my day. (Yes it took me 6 days to get this whole install done and I still need to do and alignment.)
Looking good though.

 

REAR HOLES FOR ADJ. EXTENDERS

Figuring out where the holes should be cut is tricky.
I found a Youtube video and took a screen shot which gave me a good starting point.

I wanted to know roughly where the hole was going to come out on the inside of the car so I got out a laser level and made a reference line to the inside the car.



So the drill should come up right about there... I unclipped all the wires and put a couple blocks of wood in the channel for the drill bit to hit.



From the shock top mount plate to the tip of the shock adj. **** feels like it's going to come pretty close to the metal... I don't have an exact measurement but it feels close. So the hole needs to be lined up really well or the extension tube is going to get kinked.




I drilled a small pilot hole first and then a 10mm hole. Mounted everything up and the adj. extender wouldn't turn. Turns out the hole was not in line enough and there was too much pressure on the tube. Soooo back to the drawing board. After staring and measuring and cursing a lot. I figure out that the shock has some angle to it and the top adjustment **** is angled towards the front of the car and slightly in. Lots more angles and straight edges and lasers to figure out where.

Second hole worked.Bummed I had to drill two holes but I did my best and that wasn't good enough.
You can see the circle in the metal (next to my first hole) I think it's a spot weld so that should be a good reference point on every r53. There's also a little hump in the metal right at the edge of my second hole. You can kinda see it in the picture.
Front of the car is the yellow arrow.

*****After all of this work... having the adjustment **** on the bottom of the rear shocks (like the Ohlins) would save a lot of hassle.



So this picture is of the right (passenger side) of the car where the stereo amp is in the compartment. There is 10mm nut and a screw that are easily found for the bracket that holds the amp.... But the bracket has another screw. This took me about an hour to find with a mirror... and then how to get to it. Well if you pop out he trunk light and use a super long Philips screw driver you can get to the last screw through the hole for the light. Probably should have search the internet but pretty proud of myself for figuring this one out.





FRONT STRUT TOWER CUTS

So for the front strut towers, I found a guy on Youtube who recently made a video cutting his r53 strut towers. The guy uses the Vorshlog plates which, in hind sight, would have been easier.
BUT I wanted my hole to me slightly in towards the middle of the car since that's the direction the top of the strut is going to go for camber. Like this:

From what I can tell the Vorshlog jig put the hole centered over the current hole....So I made my own jig. Did it work? hmmmm yeah but it was a little janky.
Here we go.

I did some measurements with the FA front struts installed, added some camber and a 3 inch hole saw is going to be enough room to access the 4 bolts for all the camber I need... I say that but this is my first time ever installing coilovers so I don't know anything for sure.



I ended up taking apart my Vorshlog Camber plates from my old Koni struts to use for my template. Bolted a piece of random plywood to the bottom and fount my center point for the 3 inch hole.




Decided a little metal would help with keeping the drill bit steady and straight.


So I got a bit off Amazon... here's the link... but before you go out an buy it. Here's my review.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BY8PVSLD?smid=A1K5E6WFECE8I4&ref_=chk_typ_imgToDp&th=1

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BY8PVSLD?smid=A1K5E6WFECE8I4&ref_=chk_typ_imgToDp&th=1

This drill bit is sharp as hell. I tested it on a block of wood first and was impressed... but when I started in on the metal...wow.
It wants to grab and rip your arms off. I had to use a ton of cutting oil and it was still sketchy. The centering bit is Ok but little short. I ended up putting my own bit which was longer and gave me more control in my jig. I would almost recommend a less aggressive bit that would have taken longer but would "grab" so much.
Anyway it cuts through the metal no problem. It wandered a little bit but I got er done.



Used a cone shaped grinder, then some wire wheels and finish with a little sand paper.
Lightly painted on some metal etch primer... then found my old can of red spray paint from the headlight trim and rear spoiler.
I cleaned up the underside and and painted the exposed metal with 2 coats of primmer.




I'll put the M7 strut tower plated on tomorrow once it's fully dry.



Update: All put back together:


r53 cut strut towers

r53 cut strut towers

 

First Drive:
I was definitely expecting to get my fair share of jolts from the 6K springs. Didn't happen. I couldn't be happier. Are they stiffer than stock? Yes. Are they going to knock your teeth out? No.
****19mm rear sway bar on the rear is on the softest setting and I was driving my track wheels/tires which are significantly stiffer than my street tires.
So my first drive was surprisingly very pleasant. I set the rebound on 1 (both front and back with all changes) and it was definitely bouncy. Went up to 4 and could feel the difference... better. Went to 8 then 12 and could tell 12 might be too much for the street... at least for now. But over all the ride is great and extremely compliant for the street. If you're looking for comfort... don't do it. I'm looking for a car I can rip around the backroads and take to the track 5-6 times a summer. So far so good.
I'm going to get the car aligned and set up the sway bars next.



I also wanted to add this link to my review. My experience was very similar to zcast. So if you gotten this far you are pretty serious and you should read this too.
https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...nd-others.html

 

Sounds like fun times ahead!

Vorhlag has a nifty jig for drilling out the strut towers for camber adjusters.
https://vorshlag-store.com/collectio...g-fixture-tool

I am not particularly recommending you get it, but it could give you an idea of how to go about cutting yours cleanly. Some have just cut slots with a grinder, but the Vorshlag jig seems like a more elegant solution.

 

In my search through the internet I also came across the Vorshlag templates... I almost bought them but then I decided I did not want the hole centered... I want it shifted in to make sure I have access to all 4 camber bolts. I did go with a 3 inch hole saw but I made my own template. I'm cutting today so pictures and details coming. Thanks for the input.

 

Looking forward to how it comes out!

 

Nicely done!

Great writeup.

As for the hole saw - For moderately thin metal like you were cutting, I have had good success with those bi-metal ones that Harbor Freight sells. There are similar ones in the big box stores. They have a finer set of teeth that would work better than on the saw you used.

As for the Ohlins - This is just FYI for anyone looking to do what you have done. Having the bottom adjustment was a big bonus for my friends who have used them. Not sure why the person you talked to was “down” on the springs they use. My friends did track days with them on their MINIs and had no issues. Maybe for racing where they get used a lot in a season they wear out, but for track day use they seem to be fine. They do match up well with Vorshlag plates and they sell different size spring perches which would fit the Swift springs. That said, I got a set of plates from the UK (off Ebay) for half the price and I am very happy with them. I do understand this adds to the cost. So that is part of the decision process.

Looking forward to your performance review of these shocks.

 

UPDATE AFTER 2+ MONTHS AND 1 TRACK DAY

If I had to rate these coilovers I would give the whole thing a 9+ out of 10.
Positives: (this review is right on)
https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...nd-others.html
Driving on the street is much better than I expected. I was worried 6K was going to rattle my teeth out and I think with a lesser spring & shock combination it would. I have only had 2-3 sharp bumps where I was jarred and the hit was unpleasant. Everything else has been completely within reason considering my expectations.
The upgrade from the Koni set up is huge... especially at the track.
I can remember one section of road with the Koni's.... Straight away with a high speed dip in the road that fully compressed the entire suspension and bottomed out. Then coming out of the dip everything unloads and gets floaty.... The Fortune Auto's and Swift springs are much more capable and can take this sort of hit.

My first track day notes are here: Post 396
https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...-begin-16.html

I'm still working on the rear sway bar in conjunction with (F and R) rebound adjustments. The shocks cover a very large range and I'm able to feel the change of 3-4 click adjustments on the track.
I think once I find my track set up... the street settings will be 4-6 clicks down (less rebound stiffness) both front and rear.

Negatives:
The only negative I would give this set up is the rear adjusters... and this has more to do with the mini than Fortune Auto. The curved of the adj cable coming off the top of the coil over and arcing into the compartments in the rear is probably too much. When turning the adjusters there is a lot of resistance because of the curved tube. This makes it difficult to feel the clicks when adjusting. (I've been adjusting a lot these days and once I figure out my settings this will not be as big of an issue). Having adjusters on the bottom of the rear shock bodies would be nice BUT you still have to get down under the car to do it and that is not easy either especially with the ride height down about an inch. Sooooo I cannot say one is better than the other.... just different.

After a few more minor adjustments this weekend here is the ride height... super happy with this.

 

Nice. Glad you posted more about the coilovers. Good recommendation.