Fitment:
These are S13 coilovers so the bolt holes for the strut to knuckle mounting points are 12mm. As I am running S14 knuckles I had to drill the holes out to 14mm and run M14 bolts.
Another issue I ran into was that the locking collar for the rear struts situates itself smack bang right in the middle of the upper control arm when fully mounted, and there's no other way about it. On mine, the control arm sits pretty damn close to the locking collar and depending on camber settings and etc there is a good chance that they will clash.
Tightening the collar with a c-spanner is not possible. Hammer and drift required. Its not a big deal, but a design flaw worth noting. HSD are you listening? No such issue however when running aftermarket camber arms.
I find that the near side front (NSF) locking collar can frequently come loose so they need to be tightened well. This occurs on every current generation macpherson strut type coilovers that I've worked on. When I say current generation I mean the type of the coilovers that don't run helper springs for ride height adjustment but the whole lower mount can be moved up the strut itself.
I've been smashing mine with a drift and big mallet and that seems to do the job quite well. Its rough, but the collar hasn't split or anything drastic like that so I'll just keep doing what I do.
Driving Impression:
Its just like fitting any other coilover I guess, the ride becomes a whole lot stiffer, cornering becomes insane, etc etc. On the car were standard shocks with King ultra low springs... so when I fitted these they felt amazing. The HR series come with 8/6kg springs front/rear respectively. The car corners 100x better and feels super solid. Initially there was some spring noise when going lock to lock but I later found that I didn't preload the spring enough. Once I set the spring preload correctly it stopped the spring bind and the coilovers were as quiet as standard shocks.
Ride quality is somewhat subjective. With 8/6kgs springs the ride doesn't feel too bad at all to me. But I tell you after corner weighting the car it made everything work much much better. Braking, ride comfort, handling, etc improved by miles. So don't just fit these in with equal measurements cause your car is not 100% straight (especially in a 20yr old s13) - get it corner weighted, it should be a pre-requisite to all coilover installation.
On track days I like to wind the dampers up all the way, and it makes quite a big difference, both compression and rebound dampening are ramped up. Once I forgot to set it back to softest setting after a track day and it was just bone shatteringly stiff on the ride back home... Too stiff for the street, but great for the track.
Long term report after one year and I've had no issues with these coilovers. No play in the pillow ball. No leaks. Bump absorbing performance feels just as it did the first day I fitted them.
I have a close friend who also runs a set of these on his 180 and the same story goes for him. If it wasn't for the aforementioned design flaws these would be a genuinely decent set of coilovers. If you can look past those set backs then I'd highly recommend them to you.
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