I respect your decision for choosing another suspension setup and I truly do hope you enjoy the suspension that you have chosen. I do hope that this does not lead you to continue to have an image of Megan Racing and our products negatively portraied in your mind.


Not me, I'm waiting! Thanks for keeping us posted Megan Racing!

DK23, thanks for the follow up, keep it going as you gain more experience. How do these ride?

 

meb,
The ride is excellent, with lots of adjustment to make it firmer or less firm. The more miles I drive the car, the more impressed I am. My wife will have it on the track all this weekend, so we should have a better idea of the handling characteristics after that.

 

DK23,

Thanks. It appears that the damping valving is not super quick, which can lead to a harsh ride. That's what I'm looking for.

How is the damping control at say a low level...is there adequate spring motion control?

 

Once I get the top plates, and get them changed, and SRTech gets his installed, we are going to try them out at Phil Wicks, at AMVIV in March.

 

I was riding around today when I noticed a sound coming fom my rear passenger Pilo/Megan coilover. I think something is broken. How do you know if something has snapped. Does it sound something like a bag of groceries bouncing in the back? Because thats what mine sounds like.

 

Matt (?),

You should inspect the damper from underneath the car and look for any obvious signs of damage. Lift up the car and see if you see anything... wiggle the damper around to see if it had in fact came loose or not. Did you feel anything change with the handling? Please let us know so we can get this addressed ASAP.

 

Ouch...

 

That's the same sound Scooby03 (Brad) had when his broke. Jack up the passenger rear and see if the top of the coilover separates from the mount. The wheel will also bounce up and down without any dampening.

Steve

 

Ordered mine today. Thanks for the well written reviews/opinions. They helped a lot with my decision.

Megan, any idea how soon they will ship? I bought them through Bonehead Performance in PA, but they said it is a drop shipment stright from you guys. I am am looking ofrward to the install and seeing how they feel/handle.

Edmund

 

Ok I just got a chance to check it, and sure eough the damper is moving around freely . I think its the exact same thing as what happened to Scooby03.

 

Well that's a good thing; it's consistent.

 

If you bought them from Pilo, I'm sure they'll get you out a replacement fast. I don't know if you can wait for the new spring perches but, if not, you can use the washer method that I used to fix Scooby03's. His have been fine ever since. I took them off again later to check for contact and there hasn't been any.

Steve

 

I believe I spoke with you earlier on the phone. We're putting a hold on the dampers until we can get the issue fixed.







Here you can see what we're told was wrong with the dampers.

The perch on the left that is taller/deeper is the new upper plate in the rear. This changes the geometry of the load that is implied onto the spring in relation to the shock piston.

Dan will receieve two of these plates first to try them out and then we will ship these out to the people who have already purchased the dampers and finally all the dampers leaving will have these in their place. It does raise the suspension about 0.250" but we feel that it's necessary and a good trade off. We'll see how it goes and then inform you.

 

How much taller are the spring perches than the originals. I added about 7mm and with stiff bushings that is all I think I would ever need. I would think 10mm would be fine with the mushy original bushings.

Steve

 

I love being a part of R&D!

 

I just wanted to say thank you to all the people who have responded and have helped me figure out the problem . Forums are awesome!!!!!

 

The upper mounts are 15mm taller than the origional ones. We have enough pieces to cover all the ones that were sold so after we get the results back, we'll supply Pilo with the ones we sold him and then change the ones we have here.

 

Sorry to hear you had the same problem. Its good to know that the Mini is set up so that when something like this happens nothing else breaks.
Looks like they are getting the problem solved.

 

Thanks for looking out for us Megan. I do appreciate your attention to safety and to detail. Making this fix is a good thing!

 

Are you kidding me? If they were "looking out for us" Megan would not have released a product that was not tested on our cars! Attention to detail? That has to be the biggest farce And as far as safety goes....the community is lucky not to have taken a loss of a vehicle, person ,or property. This fix Megan has come up with should have been done weeks ago! I was going to go the Megan route until this problem and Pilos lack of response. I will be happy to install my PSS9s for $400 more knowing that they are a quality track tested piece. As for Megan "making this fix is a good thing", well I would say yes it is. Making the fix is also going to keep them out of court in a loss law suite.

If this was my car I would be furious If Megan was on the up and up all the early buyers would be getting some Megan love in the form of "what can we do to make this ok?"

 

1) The product was tested on your cars. Dan at Pilo Racing was kind enough to have this product road tested for quite some time before the dampers were released. Why his dampers did not break, I DO NOT KNOW. I'm sure he can give you the details of his road testing. So yes, they were tested on a Mini Cooper.

2) Do NOT associate Pilo with Megan Racing. They did the testing for the dampers but you can't tag their delayed responce and reaction to the situation on us. I was DESPERATELY TRYING to assist customers here on the forum but was unable to due to the rules of the Forum that stated I could not post or contact other members on a thread without having a Vendor account.

3) WEEKS AGO? The dampers first had an issue on the 2nd of Feburary. We were not notified until the 7th of Feburary, the Tuesday following. That's exactly 2 weeks ago. We could give people a solution the next day, but that wouldn't of been really well thought up. THINGS LIKE THIS TAKE TIME. We had to asses WHAT WENT WRONG and further how we could fix the issue. We immediately haulted ALL sales of the dampers and began to look for a fix. If we're going to fix the issues then we have to DO IT RIGHT. And that takes time. We now have the replacment pieces here in the warehouse and are awaiting results from testing before we distribute these pieces. We apologize if 2 Weeks is simply too long by your standards.

We are trying our best to work with the Mini Cooper community. We have been pretty amazed at the amount of INTELLIGENT feedback and appropriate demeanor through all of this. With that said we'd like to continue to produce parts for the Mini Cooper... we just hope that in the future something like this can be avoided all-together.

 

I bought a set of PSS9s, just because i got a real good deal. I am putting myself in those guys shoes who had problems with the parts, i would be utmost upset. However, Megan knows how to approach the customers, they accept the problem, apologize and work with you to fix it in a timely manner. Looks like they are paying a lot of attention to Mini community and giving care. hope everything works out well and we see them as a major player in coilover market.

 

Well I did a search and found this under the thread title "Pilo Racing coilovers coming soon"

08-16-05 Posted by Pilo racing

" I am working with Megan to create the Pilo Racing coilovers.Though they are being built to my spec and design. I will be testing everything,tweaking spring rates, and then I will be having my final design made"


08-25-05 posted by Pilo racing

"just so everyone knows this suspension system is 100% designed by Pilo Racing and Megan Racing"

So....how can you so boldly ask that I not associate you with Pilo? From what was posted on this site you both worked together on the development and release of this product. As far as Dan being "kind enough"to test them on his car, well .....someone involved in the development of a new product should be conducting the testing. You should take a look at how your relationship was presented to us on this board.

I think they look great! I wanted a set of these because I liked the set up but after the problems I looked into a higher quality product. I feel that that was an INTELLIGENT choice.

And this issue is a Big deal because someone could have been hurt.

 

I feel like Megan has put forth a sincere and commendable effort considering the situation they have found themselves in. It seems they relied on Pilo for testing feedback, and appears they were not given very complete or accurate information. In the development of this system, Pilo was never very forthcoming to this board about the exact nature of the testing, even when questioned directly. As I have mentioned before, Pilo has been noticeably silent during the last couple of weeks regarding the product breakage and fix, and I am pretty disappointed in that lack of professionalism.
On the other hand, I think Megan's response to the product failure was quick and constructive. They already have a fix engineered and manufactured, and will be making it available to all of us. My only concern is once again leaving it to Pilo to check the fit and test. I would be interested in hearing from Pilo specifically what kind of testing he does to the new install. Clearly the testing he did the first time around on the system was either not extensive enough, nor rigorous enough to expose the problem incurred by at least two other installs of the product, under non testing, real world loads.

That said, I am very pleased with the performance of the system, and have confidence the fix engineered by Megan will solve the install problem. If for some reason it doesn't, I believe Megan has already shown they are willing to work hard and quickly to correct any problem. Ultimately, in another month this inconvenience will fade from memory as we enjoy the benefits and performance of this system.

 

Again I say "No proper testing"!!

It seems poop rolls downhill here as Megan is now shovelling it onto Pilo. As the manufacturer you should be DIRECTLY involved in the testing, fitment and analysis of all parts you produce and not simply farm it out on another Vendors word. How can you stand buy a product your company did not physically test itself?

I am glad for the people involved that are getting the fix but am scared to see where they will end up in a years time as i am pretty sure there is not an extensive warranty on this product.