VE Coilover Kits - Recommendations/Suggestions?

[Grennan]

So I posed this question in My Ride thread, however, I suspect Ill get a better answer here.

Im looking at suspension for my car. Now obviously, there are a few routes. A good coil and shock combo, coilovers or....like my last car bagged.

So I have a vision for this car and its of a really aggressively sitting car, stanced and just black on black.

I want to avoid bags this time round, I cant justify the cost, nor do I want this car to be bagged like my last one because I constantly clenched around cops and everytime I started the car I had the "Ohh hopefully the compressors turn on" feeling.

Springs/shocks, working at Repco, ill get Monroe/KYB at a decent price and my aunty is a manager at Kings Springs sooo, theyre free. All in all, lower the car for sub 400 bucks. But it wont be adjustable and they wont be custom heights which means I may not get that really stanced look where the wheels fit every possible space in that gigantic wheel arch.

Coilovers, adjustable, legal (ish), reliant. Im not going anything to expensive, remember this is primarily for looks rather than track proven handling. 1500-200ish would probably be around my goal price.

In my mind, Coilovers are my best option at a price thats not going to rape my anus.

Theres an entry level Tein kit for 1500 delivered. Downside is, its not damper adjustable. Otherwise they fit the bill perfectly and are a decent brand. Its not untill you spend around 2300 dollars that you get a Tein kit with damper adjust ability and that is definitely out of my price range for coilovers. The kit is described as "Balanced Damper". Whatever the hell that means.

TEIN Suspension

The other option is XYZ.

Im not real sure on the brand, they seem to be extremely popular amongst the VE owners, I havent heard negative reviews from them, only that they were difficult to fit to earlier models. They are extremely good value for money. Damper adjustable and they also go lower than the Tein kit - but they do note to go to maximum lowered height, you will need to replace the standard lower control arms with aftermarket alloy.

HOLDEN COMMODORE VE 2006-2013 XYZ Super Sport Coilovers HO04

I havent priced Pedders up. I know last time I checked their entry kit was around the 2200 mark, although that may have changed, that price was for my VX around 3 years ago.

So the sticking point here is, is the damper adjustability of the XYZ's a deal maker? Does anyone with the entry level Teins have an opinion on the ride harshness without the ability to change damper?

 

[PIR4TE]

Check this out for some background and the link to Tein's EDFC, but if the King springs are free then it's a no-brainer. As a side note one of the top suspension / brake people (whom you know) suggested I go with KYBs and stock fronts for what I wanted, his counterpart said to go Kings. Not much in it.

 

[Grennan]

Well the EDFC is completely out, not only is it overkill for my requirements, the cost is out as well.

The issue I have with a good spring/shock combo is the vision of the car as a whole. As I said, just dumping in ultra lows in this thing probably wont work. Ultra Lows in a VE still arent very low. As noted by Hamatime's VE, he has Bilstein (IIRC) shocks and Ultras done and it still looks ridiculously high. The point of coils is I can set it, forget it. If I have the need to carry something or if I am driving somewhere on shite roads, I can raise it a little.

Maybe I should have just cut out the entire spring/shock talk and just asked this simple question.

XYZ vs Tein Coilovers. Both are the same price range. Tein does not have damper adjustability, XYZ does. A) Is XYZ a brand worth buying - any notable issues? B) is the Dampening adjust ability of the XYZ coils worth passing over Tein?

 

[ducker85]

My opinion of Pedder Coilovers are very low, seen a fair share of G8 owner in the US complaining as well as Australians.

There's is a XYZ fitted car (VE) on anther forum, it's low but not sure on what other info he's posted but I'll inbox a link to you tomorrow

 

[Grennan]

The XYZs do drop it very low. I think it was another 20mm on top of Teins. As I pmed you last night, there are reports of cracking control arms with air bagged set ups and XYZ kits do recommend replacing the control arm with a heavy duty aftermarket for this very reason - which is not a deal breaker. Nolathane do the kits and Ill just staff price them up.

 

[Benzito]

I've got Pedders Extreme coil-overs on my ute but they were fitted prior to me purchasing it. So I know nothing of price, and I haven't tried making any adjusments so I can't really comment on that side of things either.
It seems to sit at least 3" lower than standard SS ute ride height, probably more, and the previous owner told me it has room to go lower but having 22's means there are already slight clearance issues at it's current ride height. So I'm not looking to make it any lower on the current wheels.
I haven't been in a car with coil overs before but I would describe the ride in this as firm, but slightly floaty. It doesn't jar you on every single bump, but you feel them, and it seems to slightly drift up and down with small changes in road surface height. I definitely wouldn't rate it as a 'sports car' feel, but having such big wheels obviously isn't doing it any favours in that department.

 

[Grennan]

The new pedders kits, from what Ive seen are much better quality wise, but they are expensive and do not go very low because the first series had issues blowing shocks out.

I will probably rule them out. Honestly, im leaning towards the Teins. Theyre a well known brand and I should be happy with an inbetween damper setting, I dont see myself out there fine tuning it for every corner. As I said, im more about the stance of the car rather than it being on rails.

 

[TI3VOM]

Might just be me, but I wouldn't touch XYZ coilovers or brakes.

Tien would be the cheapest I would go for.

 

[brasher]

I have pedders, wouldn't reccomend them but was through sponsorship.

TEIN are ok, slightly oversprung for shitty roads.

for outright performance and comfort, racing logic are the go. Was amazed at how good these were.

 

[_R_J_K_]

Springs/shocks, working at Repco, ill get Monroe/KYB at a decent price and my aunty is a manager at Kings Springs sooo, theyre free. All in all, lower the car for sub 400 bucks. But it wont be adjustable and they wont be custom heights which means I may not get that really stanced look where the wheels fit every possible space in that gigantic wheel arch.

Theres an entry level Tein kit for 1500 delivered. Downside is, its not damper adjustable. Otherwise they fit the bill perfectly and are a decent brand.

The other option is XYZ.

Im not real sure on the brand, they seem to be extremely popular amongst the VE owners, I havent heard negative reviews from them, only that they were difficult to fit to earlier models. They are extremely good value for money. Damper adjustable and they also go lower than the Tein kit - but they do note to go to maximum lowered height, you will need to replace the standard lower control arms with aftermarket alloy.

So the sticking point here is, is the damper adjustability of the XYZ's a deal maker? Does anyone with the entry level Teins have an opinion on the ride harshness without the ability to change damper?

If your main concern about dampening is about ride comfort you should also be looking at the spring rates (you're not tracking this car at all are you?). This will also play a factor depending on how aggressive your fitment is. The closer the guard is to the tyre, the stiffer it will need to be to stop it bottoming out or scrubbing. IMHO this is the downfall of a lot of suspension products (especially king springs). They give out a single spring rate for every application, XYZ may be different though. Absolutely hated the King Springs in my VS and the ones in my S14, made everything still feel like a boat.

While the market for Commodore setups is pretty small at the moment, if there's one thing you take away from this it's that pretty much every component is removable and can be replaced. I've read about owners on here getting rid of their coilovers because "coilovers were too hard", well no, your spring rates are too high. Until a company like BC starts making affordable packages where you can choose your own spring rate and have the dampers valved to match (this is currently the case with a lot of their common gear) there's not a whole lot of choice.

I think that really the only reason everybody runs XYZ is that they were pretty much the only manufacturer who did Commodores (specifically early models as the rear setup really isn't a coilover setup) for quite a while. I can't comment on their quality as I haven't had any experience with them.

Just Jap is selling some China sounding "OZ Racing" coilovers for $1300. Google doesn't reveal a whole lot about "OZ Racing", and I doubt it's the same as the wheel company.

K-Sport might also be worth a look, they have a $1300 VE package but there's not a lot on info on their site.

MCA in Queensland produce stuff locally. While they don;t have it listed on their site it might be worth shooting an email to them to see if they've done a VE before. Plus side is you can send your coilovers back to them to be rebuilt.