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Bilstein B14 coilovers - review

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A lot of people here seem to go with Tein coilovers, and with good reason, but I thought I might try something a little different, as perhaps I was looking for different results.

First thing is that my car is most definitely a road car. I'd like a play on track in due course, but the main reason I own a car like this at all is that I live of the edge of the Peak District. So I want a b-road rather than track oriented set up.

As such I found the stock spring rates not too bad, but never been that impressed with the damping. It seemed both unnecessarily jiggly at low speed, and not that controlled at speed on lumpy surfaces. The other thing is ride height. A bit lower is ok, but it wasn't a priority or even that desirable as the car has to negotiate car parks kerbs and speed jumps.

So I considered just swapping out the dampers (Bilsteins again probably) until I realised this coilover set could be had for very little extra. The JDM crowd may not approve of the choice of German suspension but I would gently suggest they check the decals on the side of pretty much any Toyota works rally car since the mid seventies

This B14 set are priced right between the Tein Flex Z and Flex As so are a straight choice cost wise. I probably would have gone for the Flex As. So why these? Basically a different set of compromises that I thought might suit my requirements better.

These are non adjustable - the damping is how Bilstein think it should be and that's your lot. That's the first difference. (If you want adjustable damping there is the B16 set for a fair bit more cash). This didn't bother me particularly.

They certainly appear high quality - monotube dampers in rather nice stainless steel (bit of a waste you can't actually see them )

For my purposes, the key difference is a decent spring length and near-stock travel, combined with progressive spring rates. This seemed possibly a better set up for our godawful roads.

RRG fitted them - they reuse the stock mounts - and got a bit of camber on the front with camber bolts. I've got the ride height dialled right up for now. Bilstein say 10-30mm drop, and they haven't settled yet but 10mm seems about right. As noted above I don't really want it lower, just BETTER.

So having had chance for a blast over to Buxton I can now say without shadow of a doubt these hit the spot. Disclaimer - I haven't driven a Tein suspended car so I can't compare, but these are my impressions .

Firstly, low speed ride if anything is better. Firm but not jiggly. The faster you go the better it gets.

The balance of the car hasn't changed, the tail is still playful, but the main difference is the car is so much less nervous on rough Tarmac. Turn in much better (suspect the Yokohamas have a lot to do with this) and then the car remains adjustable, leaning on its back outside tyre like it always did but now uncorrupted by bumps.

Basically the car is so much faster on a B road now just because of the additional control. It doesn't wriggle or squirm unnecessarily on poor surfaces. I make it sound boring, but it isn't. It's still alive and steering feel is lovely, just more capable. I now feel I can use all the car all of the time. In short I absolutely love it.

So would I recommend? Yes - I couldn't be happier, and if you want something primarily for fast road use these work really well. They feel stock but much better - if Toyota did an 'S' model it would feel like this. I can't imagine they have as much scope as the Teins for track suspension though, or if you like to tweak your settings.

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You're welcome to have a drive in it. I doubt it's 'better' than the alternatives but might offer something different.

More than anything else it just shows the value in swapping to better quality components whoever makes them. Really not a lot of money in the grand scheme of things to spend to transform the car.

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There's a B12 kit knocking about too with Eibach springs and matched Bilstein dampers - would have been happy with that, but there are very keen deals to be had on the B14s at the moment.

I'd have a look at the Tein stuff as well though - an awful lot of happy people on here running various set ups...

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Bilsteins, KW, RCE, Ohlins, Teins .. they all are fine reasonably priced choices for what they provide .. but why oh why most aftermarket manufacturers ignore those potential customers that do NOT wish to lower their cars? :(

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Well - that's where these ones score. If it's lowered, it isn't lowered much. I agree with you. On uk roads the last thing I wanted was less suspension travel...

And if you REALLY don't want to lower the car at all, a set of Bilstein B6s would do the trick. Or possibly Konis?

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Are you sure? Weren't those also having some 10mm drop? While that doesn't sound much nor relatively nor as absolute value, problem i see is our cars have low ground clearance even stock, with which i only marginally avoid scratching on average roads/parkings over kerb/speed bumps/steep driveways here, especially in winter. One thing is lowering car with lot of initial ground clearance/suspension travel, another - ours. Sight of one car that was lovered a lot and blessed with extra aftermarket body kit in front of me, that had to go over speed bump in crabwalk diagonally with going in opposite direction lane was pitiful. Especially because he had to wait for that lane to clear of traffic and by that time long traffic queue gathered after him. If it's showcar or track-only toy that is brought on trailer to track - fine. But paying own money to loose practicality of daily drive by own choice? :/ Hence the rant by me seeing so very limited choice for our cars in aftermarket.

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Yes, they're advertised as adjustable from -10 to -30. Can't say I've noticed the difference though. Have a look at the pic above. When we parked next to Richards Aero they looked identical ride height.

Most others I saw were -20 at the highest setting so these are very conservative.

But if you definitely don't want to lower - perhaps keep stock springs (which are fine I think) and look at B6s. I only went the B14 route because it was only marginally more expensive given current offers and I was curious...

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I've always been a fan of Bilsteins. These look to have plenty of damper stroke which is important if you run a lowish spring rate. They don't come with top mounts or adjustable damping. What that means is you get a very nice quality damper for a reasonable cost. 

 

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11 minutes ago, Ade said:

I've always been a fan of Bilsteins. These look to have plenty of damper stroke which is important if you run a lowish spring rate. They don't come with top mounts or adjustable damping. What that means is you get a very nice quality damper for a reasonable cost. 

 

what it also means is that you are compromised, you only have 1 damping setting for all occasions 

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11 minutes ago, Ade said: I've always been a fan of Bilsteins. These look to have plenty of damper stroke which is important if you run a lowish spring rate. They don't come with top mounts or adjustable damping. What that means is you get a very nice quality damper for a reasonable cost. 

 

what it also means is that you are compromised, you only have 1 damping setting for all occasions 

Indeed. You can't have your cake and eat it at this price point

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Tareim: That also means that there is less chance to fsck up with completely wrong settings with unshakeable confidence "from internet" that it's "best". As in most cases it's driver behind the wheel, that limits speed, often better results can be got with one having more seat time & adapting for longer time to specific settings, even if they are not ideal, instead of endless fiddling with knobs. More driver confidence, better familiarity with car and what to expect from it at limit .. it all matters. Majority of us doesn't spend enough time on track to dial in something much better incrementally, checking impact of each change (eg. coilovers adjusting knobs turns) one by one, even more so to find specific best settings for each and every from those mentioned 'all ocassions'. Also unadjustable of same budget/price can be of higher quality, then eg. shiny colorful with loads of knobs cheap taiwanese coilovers that sometimes may be worse then stock (just like stereo hifi amp of higher class vs lower class surround multichannel one of same price). Hence weighing out all that imho there are more pros then cons to unadjustable ones. There are exceptions to this .. but not for majority.

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It doesn't take much adjusting with a single adjustable set up though. Most dampers only have about 16 clicks of adjustment anyway (no matter how many they claim) and so it doesn't take long to work through and try them all!

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And rarely do all clicks actually change something or change by same extent on all four of coilovers (especially so on budget coilovers). So i still am very strongly convinced that for budget ones higher quality unadjustable are better.

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2 minutes ago, Church said:

And rarely do all clicks actually change something or change by same extent on all four of coilovers (especially so on budget coilovers).

Can't argue with that.

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my comment @Church was more aimed that being able to change the damping settings means you can set it to soft for road driving and then change it to stiffer for track driving, I never said I want n levels of dampening adjustment to spend n hours on a track to find the right setup as I certainly don't have the money to do that

with my own experience on the "shiny colorful with loads of knobs cheap taiwanese coilovers" I can set a nice comfortable damping for daily driving and then just stick it in a stiffer setting for track mode

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My logic is simply that I'm prone to fiddling. I'd rather have one setting that I 'learn' than lots.

I hate cars with adjustable modes for the same reason. Don't give me 'sport' mode, just give me one setting that works well...

This may be different if you're a track addict though. I can see the benefit there of being able to run stiffer - but to be honest I'd probably want stiffer springs too...

The main area these win in for me is simply the deal you can get at the moment. Great quality for the £s.

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I'm no track pilot but car's a bit rubbish on stock springs/dampers and too stiff after-market ARBs.

I'm sorely tempted by these Billies at 25% off. scratchchin.gif

You could certainly do worse. If you can, try them - but also worth looking at the Tein offerings too - not come across any negative reviews there either...

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Where did you get them from? What I've always liked with anything Bilstein is that they just work well and get better the faster you go. Brother drove my vRS a few days ago and said it wasn't great. So I showed him the difference at speed and it's almost as if the car wakes up. Noticed the 86 is a but jiggly at lower speeds but suspect sometimes it's traction control intervening slightly.

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Don't know. When i first rode mine, it didn't seem that bad. Actually felt like very good compromise between handling & comfort relative to several other cars i had driven. Very probably i'll replace stock ones with some aftermarket offerings, but no sooner then i'll wear stock ones.

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