Has any one used the Whiteline Roll Center Adjustment Kit? Was wondering if it would be a noticable diffrence and if it really helps.
Are you going to be pushing the car? AutoX or Road racing? What other suspension mods do you have? I'll do autox events sometimes and I have the 6gun kit (which is the more extreme version of this) and it really helped with front grip and eliminating understeer. My car is also insanely lowered on coilovers and I have a TON of suspension work done. The more you lower the car the more you put the suspension geometry out of whack. The more you need this kit. If you're just daily driving the car it's not really worth it. There better things to spend $200 on. If you have $200 to spare then go for it. The more mods you have the more this will help. If you are going to do this then I suggest to spend more money and buy the front and rear control arm bushings, steering rack bushings, and front sway bar while you're down there taking everything apart lol
I use it as a daily driver and willl be tracking it at Road Atlanta for HPDE during NASA events. I have lowered it with Tein S Techs and using Koni Sport Struts and Whiteline endlinks. But the car still feels loose during high speed turns, like on Spaghetti Junction. So i was wondering if the RCA kit would make a difference... Thanks for your input.
I'd save the $200, and get some decent springs. Those springs give your struts no travel for them to do their job. They're also not very stiff, the konis can handle more.
I definately agree about the S-techs, they are not performance springs. The "S" stands for style. Have you adressed any of the rear suspension components? Specifically the rear trailing arm bushings? That definately helped out my mid corner stability in high speed sweepers...like on spaghetti junction. Also consider subframe lock bolts.
If you really want to keep a super low stance, get coilovers and the roll center kit. It'll allow you to lower, and keep strut travel, and the roll center kit will put your geometry back into place. Not sure about springs. I would imagine a set that drops 1.5 inches would be the max. Maybe Swift or RCE Black springs. They're stiffer and more suited for performance than looks.
Spring\Strut combos are good to a point, but if you want real performance you are going to need to get some coilovers. This will help with be able to adjust the car's handling alil more to your liking, plus coilovers usually have something in place to control camber. If you just drop the car you are going to to have uncontroled camber which isnt to great from a performance position. I would save your money for coilovers. Just my .02.
Thanks guys...sad thing is I've spent what it would 'almost' cost for a set of coilovers...I guess I'll have to live with it and see what it can do at Road Atlanta.
There is nothing about coilovers that automatically makes them perform better than struts. In fact, many coilovers have shocks that are well below the koni's in terms of performance. The ONLY inherent advantage of coilovers is the ability to adjust ride height and swap springs rates easily. Koni's are great shocks, you would have to pay a lot more to get better performance out of a shock absorber. RSconvert - I would keep your koni's and look into the ground control coilover kit. This will give you all the advantages of a coilover with a far better shock absorber than most comparably priced coilovers will be able to offer. If you don't want that, look into RCE or swift springs, they make a few choices for stock style struts. After you get springs look into mods that will help you get a better alignment i.e. camber plates, control arms, offset bushings. The roll-center kit is good, but it only corrects one small aspect of the suspension. IMO, a better alignment, shocks (which you already have) and springs are more important than the RCA kit.
You are right, but the coilovers will provide camber plates and adjustable ride height. A good spring to use that has adjustable ride height is Ground Control.
You guys are also missing an important fact....strut travel is VERY important. That's one thing that even cheap coilovers provide even though the damping isn't always the best.
Another very good point, I didnt think about that but now I am remember from my research from my sentra that is one of the issues people were having when they were going to the next level with them. Why are ground controls bad for your car?
People tend to OVER lower their car which is bad for macpherson strut vehicles. There's little strut travel and your struts eventually blow out.
But couldnt this issue be caused by raising the car up alil more more? lol Sounds like user error to me.
And certain manufacturers won't cover it under warranty because the wear marks on the strut itself will show that you lowered it too much.
If you lower any more than 1.5-2 inches then it's bad. And that's what most off the shelf springs can provide.
That makes since, but if you lower the car as much as what you are refering to it will ruin the handling of the car anyway due to the lack of susp. travel and lack of room for certain parts to move around as needed. Plus if you drop it that lower you cant run sexy fat tires.
Get Whiteline Springs they are relatively cheap and very they handle great I paid $100 for mine for the STI. There is a awesome suspension right up the SS did on IWSTi that has some suspension do's and don'ts as well as come spring/coilover comparisons Ill dig it up in a sec.
You may as well stick to the S-techs on your car now. These are the same thing as the ground controls.
I adjusted the Koni's last night to a firmer setting upfront, leaving the rears a half turn from soft. It feels alot better and tighter on hard turns. Could that have been the difference?
I have heard a bad story about the whiteline roll center adjustment kit. On guy had two break on his car. this a bad thing The car shot off the track but slid to a stop before he hit anything. Could have been very nasty at high speeds. when they break you have no control of your steering, no fun...
You aren't fixing the issue with your springs in that case, you're taking the load off them by stiffing the struts. I don't think it's necessary for you to go the whole coilover route, just stick some better performing springs as mentioned much earlier and it should really help things.