For new I would look at ST XTA’s. I’ve been happy with mine on the street and the one time on the track. They’re made by KW and seem to be a mix of several variants. They’re height and rebound adjustable, have linear springs front and rear, and also come with adjustable front camber top mounts. The rebound adjustment for the rear is on top, the same as KW and most other brands, so the strut needs to be removed unless an access hole is drilled or remote adjusting cables are fitted.

The big difference that I know of between the ST’s and KW’s is the ST strut bodies are galvanized, where the KW’s are stainless steel, but galvanized bodies should be fine unless your cars sees a lot of bad weather.

They usually go on sale or have a rebate at least once a year, and some times ECS offers bonus gift cards at the same time making them even cheaper. I picked up mine without a bonus gift card for $1,200 including tax and shipping.

https://www.ecstuning.com/b-suspensi...42/18220842kt/

 

Thanks for the insight! I was looking at the ST XTAs but wanted to see if anyone had coilovers for sale before I pulled the trigger. I talked with Way and he said he's seen a few STs fail, have you had any issues with yours?

 

No, I've had them for 6 years, but they've only done a little over 14k miles in that time.

Some other things I thought of is the hole in the strut towers needs enlarging to adjust the camber with the strut in place, a spacer is usually needed on the front when running stock 17's (at least 5mm, but it depends on the tire), and the rebound adjustment on the front is continuous and not indexed like the rear. Not dealbreakers, just some more info on them.

For my install I didn't cut the towers, I'll just drop the struts enough to get to the adjusting bolts when needed. Not sure how much they are lowered, but nothing crazy and the rebound is set to the middle of the range. On the spacers I went with 12mm in the front and used the 5's on the rear since I wanted more clearance. No spacers are needed when I run my other wheels, 17x7 ET37.

 

About to sell my H&R coilovers with Ireland engineering camber plates , how soon do you want it? It’s on my 2006 Cooper s

 

I may be interested, I haven't done much research on the H&R coilovers. How do they ride vs. stock shocks/springs? I don't want too stiff coilovers as my mini is my daily.

 

Mines a daily too. It’s not as bouncy as you’d think. But i have it pretty low as you can see. You can always adjust it. No matter what you do when you lower your car it won’t ride like stock. Especially with your wheel set up. But it handles really good.

Handling vs. comfort = 🤷🏻‍♂️

 

I have not yet, though I'm leaning towards buying a set of ST XTAs.