Suspension setup: coils or spring + strut? Poly bushings?
 

Hey, I'm gonna be putting a new suspension on the s14 sometime soon... prolly next month. Right now my subframe bushing and the street rack bushing are worn down and need replacing. The only suspension stuff I have right now is a FSTB and RSTB.

I plan on going to the track to play and learn once I have a new suspension. BUT this is my daily driver I want to take it on road trips with the GF and such.

I'm thinking sway bars, front power brace, front fender braces, some cheaper coils (I really like the Tein EDFC idea but I hear most of their coils aren't that great) and poly bushings.

I don't want to make it too uncomfortable though so I'm curious, should I stick with spring strut? and what bushings would be good to replace with poly and which to leave/replace with rubber?

Hopefully some of you have gone for a similar setups and can give me some ideas.

spring/strut combo if you want it to be comfy for daily and only go to the track everyonce in a while. dont want it to be that low.

get coils if you wanna be slammed, you like to drive your car hard and dont really care to much about ride quality.

Just to let you know... Going with the stiffer coilovers, will wear out ur stock bushings like a mofo, motormounts, tranny mounts, all of em...

The roads out here are pretty good and I'm not going to get the stiffest coils or tune then to their stiffest settings.

Nobody has any suggestions on selectively replacing bushings with poly? I was planning on doing them all with poly but I've had people tell me the ride quality will go to ****.

subframe spacers and aftermarket suspension arms are my plans. and most aftermarket sway bars come with new bushings.

Most poly bushings will only give the car a tighter/more responsive feel with little impact on ride quality. There may be a slight increase in NVH (noise vibration), but not bad. A thing to note about putting in new bushings is its expensive. It can easily cost 2k to have a shop install all new poly bushings. If you want to get selective, then jsut replace the ones that are bad. I am sure your tension rods are bad and maybe your subframe bushings. Still going to cost. Nismo also makes so stiffer rubber bushings for certain stuff

As far as the suspension options, not all coilovers are harsh. For example, I do not find the Tein flex to be harsh nor the JIC FLT-A1. I don't think either are particularly special, but not harsh. The A1s were actually pretty pleasant to me. But if you do not want you car to be really low, or need the adjustability, there is little point in spending the extra money

Go with a quality damper like a koni or KYB adjustable, and a good set of springs, and you should be fine. For springs, look at all our options, not just the Tein S Tech.or Eibach

Thanx for the input charlesj. AGX + eibachs were really popular in the maxima crowd. I use to have a 97 max. I'll probably just go that route, tein flex + edfc sounds pretty sweet though. Any experience with polyurethane bushings? I'm trying to decide what kind to get, especially for the subframe.

Poly bushings are great...really tighten up the car. They are however expensive and difficult to install. Solid collars are much easier, but harsher on the street. Key ones are subframe, diff, and control arms.

Look into other spring options as well. I believe tanabe has a couple applicatiosn and theirs works pretty well.

I've decided to go with tein flex coils. Some people say they're kinda soft but they seem to have a solid reputation of quality. Recommendations for cheapest price?

i seriously suggest Stance over Tein. Stance are cheaper and they perform better, plus they have parts readily available in the US in case anything happens.

and sorry, ive never actually looked for TEIN anything so im not too sure where has the best prices.

Yeah, stance is pretty new though and no EDFC. Cheapest I can find is about $1400

I agree that the stance or bc are at least as good if not better, just minus the edfc. You are paying extra money for the name with Tein. Hell event the FLTA1 is better IMO and for less. 201 has a deal on those in the vendor classifieds. But if you must go tein, contact one of the vendors on here for a club240 discount. Probably be in the high 1300s to low 1400s

I've heard the flex's are pretty comfy on the softest settings and I go to the beach and on road trips with my GF all the time so I don't want it to be harsh. Phil at 201motorsports gave me a great offer when I talked to him.

Installed the poly sub frame bushings and poly steering rack bushings this weekend. The subframe bushings, or rather collars, made a world of difference. I figured installing them would get rid of my rear end clunk and wheel hop and maybe improve handling a bit. The back end feels soo much more stuck to the road now, I was amazed.