225 Lowering springs or full coilover kit?

The cooksport springs seem to get really good reviews from everyone, although even these can cause problems with humps / kerbs / steep inclines etc, i think i remember reading a thread a while ago (may have been on meganesport)where the whole front end got ripped off due to these clearance issues, although it may not have been cooksports.

TBH mines standard and seems lower than my lowered old clio for clearance even though the arch gap is bigger! i've scraped the splitter once or twice already!

Is yours cup packed or not?

 

Cooksports are ideal no need for expensive coilys if you arent going on track i find speedbumps no worry the height is just right to clear them although if you park in one of those spaces that are diagonal or sqaure to the curb its best to reverse in as tge splitter will touch i can imagine steep inclines could be the same although ive not encounterd one

 

You could always look at sticking some cup / r26 suspension on it, which will firm it up and drop it around 10mm (i think). You can most likely pick them up pretty cheap too.
Although the cooksports will drop it lower and improve the handling more than the r26/cup suspension, but for a slightly harsher ride

 

I have full set of R26 springs and dampers that came off my '08 R26 with 42k miles on it. I am planning on selling them if you are interested?

 

They will be yes, just be aware that the front suspension design isn't your typical strut and spring combo, so may take a while to fit! But this goes for any of the options, springs/ coilovers/ R26 suspension etc

 

Ive not heard that before

 

Is anyone here using H&R springs to give us a genuine feedback?

 

Some people say you put more stress on the dampers and they can bottom out the rod inside the damper so if using oem dampers you should uprate the bumpstops, tbh as long as your not going silly low you shouldnt have problems - i've never had any problems on previous cars. It will cause increased wear to the dampers but nothing majorly noticeable, a bit like wheel spacers put extra strain / wear on wheel bearings.

TBH though if you did go the lowering spring route depending on how many miles/ how old your dampers are it may be worth getting them changed out to R26 dampers as their firmer and would match the characteristics of lower/ stiffer springs better as the r26 is lower from the factory, and also if your going through the hassle of changing the springs you may as well do the shocks at the same time.

 

The BC kits seem to get pretty good feedback too, not a bad coilover at all for the price.

All depends on what you want to spend really and how adjustable you want it, as it will cost more to get the coilovers setup than springs / dampers. Assuming you want the handling to be spot on as well as the looks

 

Meant to say @manifold, I am going to weigh the suspension and try and figure out the postage costs to you. I am sure we can work out something that works for both of us

 

i have a cup packed option on mine. so are my shocks different from a standard set up or are the shocks different as well as the eibach springs ?.

 

Im keen on buying the R26 suspension if it didn't get sold earlier. How much are you wanting mate

 

Pominoz13, I have pm'd you mate

 

I'm keen to know this as well . . .

I think my suspension/shocks may be bottoming out on one side at the back when i come down off speed humps with people in the back.

Quite a loud bang!

 

Cup shocks should have different compression/damping characteristics than the standard shocks (at least the case on the RS250).

Just adding my two cents on the lowering springs, and I can only talk for my RS250:

I had the H&R lowering springs fitted on standard shocks (not cup shocks), and was fine at first. However, after roughly 40k km (+-25k miles) the front shocks started knocking on minor bumps.

I had it checked at my local Renault garage, and they found out that both (!!) front shocks were internally failing! Now that's not something you hear often, and I can only guess it has been due to the lowering springs. As I had the standard schocks, with less dampening than Cup shocks, I guess they were not up to the task. Stiffer springs (as is the case with lowering springs) require dampeners with more dampening. Fitting stiffers springs while keeping the shocks the same is asking for trouble.

Anyways, replacing the two front shocks with new genuine Renault parts was as expensive as fitting an H&R coilover kit, which I did. Couldn't have made a better choice. The difference a well balanced shock/spring setup as is the case with coilovers gives compared to stock shocks + lowering springs is enormous.

While lowering springs do improve handling a bit, its far from being comparable to coilover kits in terms of handling and dampening. I actually found stock shocks + H&R springs to be less comfortable than my H&R coilover kit, while the latter barely has any suspension travel at all!

 

I really believe people don't understand how shocks are really working. The only thing a shock absorber has to do is to "kill" the frequency that a spring has.
- Back to high-school physics: if you fix a spring from the ceiling and bowling ball on the bottom end of the spring and you lift the ball, it will start to swing up and down with an amplitude that goes smaller and smaller until it stops (lost all kinetic energy).
This would happen to your wheels if you just put springs in a car. But you install a shock absorber to help loosing that kinetic energy faster through thermal energy (back-up slides http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shock_absorber)

When we talk about the shock tuning, you just tune how much kinetic energy will be converter to thermal energy and how fast because you want to loose all the energy first time when the bowling ball gets to equilibrium position.

So, shock are not there to stiffen the car or not. A perfect spring + shock combo will do exactly this, take all the energy when first in equilibrium position.

Now, back to our discussion, putting stiffer springs will never mean trouble for the shock (internet belief). Stiffer springs mean that the movement of the suspension will be less for the same forces and so, shock will have less movement and also less stress. The only problem is that your stock shock will not be tuned to take all the energy from the springs in a smaller stroke and you will be a little bouncy. And now go to extreme: install a solid block instead on a spring (meaning for us extremely stiff spring) and your shock will live 100 years because there is no job for him any more. What about that?

But all the characteristic of crashy and tight and bouncy is just from the spring!!!

The only way you can kill a shock is if you use lowered springs that makes the shock to work only in one side and hit the bottom end. This is the only way to break it.

 

^^^ Very informative reads . . .

Will prob be keeping my cup suspension for now, maybe investigate the banging from the rear, could be a snapped spring, heard that before.

Start saving for coilovers as well!

 

amen!

 

My shocks likely failed due to the fronts bottoming out with the H&R lowering springs. Lowering ride height with stiffer springs but keeping the damping characteristics the same does not prevent the shock from bottoming out when experiencing fast compressions/bump of the shock (not during slow compression/bumps).

As you said its the shock's job to kill the frequency of the spring, but it is also the velocity of compression/rebound.

 

The velocity is inverse proportional related with the stiffness of the spring. The higher the stiffness, the lower the acceleration, the softer the highest acceleration.
You can have higher acceleration with stiffer springs, only if you hit bigger bumps that with the stock suspension.

I believe the reason for failing is:
- H&R springs are not linear springs and in the first part of the movement, they are in fact softer than stock springs.
- the drop they offer is bigger than the difference in stiffness and you are bottoming the shock.


OT: on my previous car (which is a Megane II Phase 2 1.5dCi) I installed some Eibach springs with a drop of 60mm (I used Megane RS lowered springs) when the car had 160.000km. Now the car has 265.000km and the same shocks and springs. My girlfriend is still enjoying the ride of that car. So maybe is also a combination of luck and driving habits as well.

My 2 cents

S.

 

Is that with cooksport direct manifold?

 

I just purchased a set direct from www.Cooksport.co.uk £190 Inc postage