What do you guys think of this coilover kit?


I e-mailed them for more details and a comparison with DRM and LGM offerings, and got this response from the owner:


"I will start out by saying that our first test mule that we used for
development of our coil-overs was a C5 Z06, so I have a lot of personal
experience with our suspension setups on that car. The shocks that we use
for our coil overs are our proprietary design, not the purchase of someone
else's shocks that we put our name on, so they are Pfadt Race Engineering
shocks. They are a mono-tube design and are fully rebuildable. Comparing
them to the offerings from LG and DRM, the advantages that our shocks have
are twofold. First, our shocks are adjustable for both rebound and
compression damping. That gives you the ability to adjust ride quality,
handling and vehicle balance with the shocks on the car. Second, our shocks
have adjustable length bodies. This allows you to set the ride height
independent of the spring preload and gives a larger range of height
adjustment. Basically it allows you to set the appropriate 'sag' in the
suspension and then set ride height. This is a feature not found on any
other coil overs on the market.

As far as attachment to the chassis, our coils are different front and rear.
The fronts use a spherical at the bottom and a polyurethane bushing at the
top. This allows some isolation of suspension from the chassis without
making the car feel soft or mushy. The rears use a spherical on the upper
end and attach to the lower control arm on the bottom like the factory
shocks via the large rubber bushing in the control arm. That setup provides
some isolation as in the fronts."

 

You missed out on the most important thing.....price, how much?

 

 

$1690

http://www.pfadtracing.com/products/...&subcategory=1

 

So the price is comparable with DRM & LGM, but appears to offer many advantages. Hurm... interesting.

The shock body is smaller than the DRM Bilsteins, I notice.

The only reservation I have is DRM & LGM have bee proven on the track for years. I would love to see some real world feedback along with some hard numbers.

You should post this over in Autocrossing and Roadrace as well - new products are always appreciated over there.

DRM coilovers

 

has anyone heard of them before?

id definitely like to explore this route

I almost bought some LGM coilovers 2 months ago but they were out of stock.

 

I've asked this before, and apparently people don't have issue, but doesn't it make anyone nervous supporting the entire weight of the car by the upper shock mounts? Are they really strong enough to handle really stiff springs and some good hits (as in coming from a bank to a flat at a local track at 100+)?

Sorry if these are stupid questions.

 

That is a good point right there! I know a lot of people has done it without problems BUT it is something to think about!

If you look at the quality of welding on the rear shock mounts and upper control are mounts it would worry me! While fixing my car I noticed a nice pretty bead welded right down the frame parallel to the upper control arm mounts. The only problem was it as over a 1/16" away from the mount! Total missed the joint! So both of my upper right control are mounts was only half attached to the frame! Way to go GM, great quality control!

 

My mounts are fine (2001 coupe) - and I beat on my car with 140+mph passes and 90+mph off-camber twisties. Not to mention the wonders of the Cross Bronx Expressway (otherwise know as the dark side of the moon)

Obviously, your mileage may vary.

EG

 

They look pretty nice but still have a somewhat heavy corvette tax. I built an identical set of coilovers for my car using Hal QA1s. They work great.
Phil

 

These look to be very similar to DRM's set-up (which I own and am very pleased with), with the exception of the ride-height adjustment (which I agree is the "correct" way to do it; spring preload should be independent of ride-height) and compression / rebound adjustability.

All things considered, you have to factor in the "experience factor". I initially hesitated going with DRM's set-up over LGM's, but price and logic to a certain extent (LGM's front spring rates on their coil-overs "does not compute", and contributes to the harshness complaints we've seen from time to time. My DRM set-up is (initially) more plush than stock.)

The one thing LGM (and the Penske conversion) do right that DRM and these guys do "wrong" is they have the heavy part of the shock as sprung weight, as it should be. LGM’s also use an aluminum shock body, not steel like DRM’s. But I felt that for a street car / track car LGM's "no holds barred" approach with the heim joints / elimination of all rubber bushings would be a problem long-term.

As far as the shock mount issue goes, I worried about that as well, but plenty of folks have run this set up for a long time w/o any ill effects. Remember that whenever you bottom out the stock suspension you have 100% weight transfer to those frame mounts. You could argue that although the average load is greater with coil-overs, you'll never load the shock towers like you would bottoming the stock suspension simply by virtue of never bottoming the car with the coil-overs, and even if you did that's no more or less load than what you previously had.

Anyway, buy them, install them and tell us what you think!

 

 

Has anyone given these a try? It would be interesting to get some feedback on them.

 

I just put those on my car (97 C5) My front end does not skip across the road any more after hitting a bump I like them.This weekend I will adjust the ride height and go for a longer ride....................Paul

 

I have zero complaints about my DRM coilovers. They allow me to slam my car and still have suspension travel.

 

The question is how much travel? To arrive at your slammed stance you're using shortened coilovers, so by physical design you've limited available vertical wheel travel. Also, based on your picture in this thread it appears you're not running bumpstops up front? Are you constantly on the bumpstops when they are installed?

It sounds like you and Dan are very happy with your DRM coilovers, but as Dan noted, the adjustable length bodies with these coilovers is a very cool feature.

 

I have bumpstops front and rear. And no, I am not hitting them.

My springs are very stiff (by design) - 650 lb/inch in the rear - so my suspension does not wallow. Also, I am running T1 sways.

Car handles exactly the way I want. Randy Rippie of DRM listened carefully to my wants and built a system that does what I asked for.

I cannot ask for better service - DRM gets my thumbs up

 

Hi guys,

I will just comment on our LG Coil over package. first, our shocks are custom built by Bilstein for LG Motorsports to our specs. Specs that we developed on street and race cars over many miles.
Our front shock lower mounts are not as shown in the photos. We redesigned them long ago but never updated the photo. We now have a T-bar with spherical bearings. And we only use Hypercoil Springs, the best springs available.

Our shocks are adjustable but not from the outside. THey are re-valveable/take apart shocks. But I have driven so many miles on track with our package, that they have been milked to the nth degree. I always say that if there are 7 adjustments on a shock, then by definition, 6 positions must be wrong. work on the Driving and you will be better for it.

Our shocks are also aluminum and light and as someone posted, we mount them upside down to reduce Unsprung weight. You can do that with Bilstein shocks because they are gas pressurized and have a gas chamber filled with nitrogen.

We have Spherical bearings top and bottom because we want to control the car completely and transmit the feel to the driver so he can react instantly from the feedback rather than waiting for the rubber delay. not a big thing but one of many features.

Rubber also interfers with the spring rate. Before the spring can compress, it has to compress the rubber. and the spring rate of the rubber changes the effective spring rate at that corner until the rubber compresses. The rubber also changes durometer with age, so your corner weights will also change. How many forumula 1 cars have rubber shock mounts?

Of course we don't have F1 cars, but most here are true enthusiasts who want to approach perfection to some degree. rubber and the race track should only meet at the bottom of the tires.

next, Our custom shocks from Bilstein are now built to our lengths also. So our new generation shocks allow for maximum lowering of the car without bottoming of the shock. If the shock is too long, it will bottom out if the car is lowered too much. That happened to slammed cars with our first generation shock package.

Also keep in mind that the rear shock is at such an angle that it has a digressive spring rate, and also a variable shock rate do to the severe wheel rate change. So the spring package is all relative to your ride height to a certain degree

Drupe control is also a factor to keep in mind when building a package, and we have addressed that as completely as we could.

We use the same shocks on our World Challenge race car with great results. The thing about the Bilstein Gas pressurized shocks that we use is that they do not change during the entire race from heat. That is part of the magic of the bilstein shock. I tried every shock available over the past 16 years driving a Corvette or Camaro and we always came back to the Bilstein shocks. I would tell the other guys, to "Just make them feel like a Bilstein" or "If they would only eat the bumps like a Bilstein we would be ok".

So there you have it. We toyed with using other shocks for the package and just said no.

Thanks guys,

See you at the races.
Lou Gigliotti LGM

 

Your coilovers look sweet Lou

 

I can also say you should try exotic muscle....they have set starting at $1000. Very nice products as well