- It is almost springtime
and when I say almost,
I mean instead of being dark for 14 days in a row,
now it's sunny and it's 0 degrees out
which is a step in the right direction
but as spring comes up, that usually means
car part ordering is right around the corner
and people will order stuff for their car
then they, you know, get sad
because it's not what they actually wanted
or it didn't do what they actually wanted
which, completely off-related and off-subject, okay,
let's just talk about this.
Jasper's in two damn videos, okay?
He's in school, he's not coming back, okay?
He's like that one summer crush that you had.
You gotta let it go, man.
She went to college, let it go!
You can follow her on Instagram or something like that
but you gotta stop just following her around
and asking when she's coming back home
'cause it's creepy, okay? It's a little bit creepy.
Anyway, turns out that when we're looking at
buying car parts, things can be a little misleading, okay?
Turns out when buying a turbo,
that's just not enough to turbocharge your car
which is really interesting.
It's the same thing with suspension or maybe just
throwing an intake and exhaust on your Subaru
and wondering why you've lost power.
There's a lot of things that can go into just misconceptions
about throwing things at your car
and today we're gonna talk a little about that.
I'm Alex, alex.fi on Instagram
and today, we're gonna be ta\lking about
whether you should be running coilovers
or lowering springs for your next bill.
And if this is your first time
watching a Fitment Industries video,
don't forget to subscribe so we can
keep making banging videos like this and of course,
if you're looking for after-market wheels, tires,
or suspension, be sure to check out fitmentindustries.com
where we pretty much have it all.
Oh, and if you're looking to win
a free set of ESR multi piece wheels,
be sure to check us out over at fitmentindustries.com.
We partnered with ESR to give away
a free set of multi piece forged wheels.
Pick up a T-shirt, a windbreaker, or a sweatshirt.
Every $5 gets you an automatic entry in to win.
When it comes down to lowering springs or coilovers,
it seems like a pretty easy one to answer.
I mean, whether you should go with one or the other,
90 people out of 90 people are gonna tell you
to just go with coilovers
because that's just usually the go-to.
But it's actually not, especially in today's day and age.
We're gonna talk a little bit as to why it is
so don't get mad, okay?
Lowering springs have become extremely popular
over the last few years for quite a few different reasons
which is why this question has become
more common than before
because if you talk to some of your new muscle car bros
with Camaros and things like that,
they're gonna tell you that
they picked up lowering springs instead of coilovers.
But to pick which one is best, we're gonna have to take...
(ringing)
For us to answer this question,
we are gonna have to take it a little bit back.
About 10 years ago, most vehicles came with
a conventional independent suspension system
that can easily be replaced with a coilover kit.
I mean, a coilover shock absorber,
it was a pretty easy thing to do.
The coilover itself would have a threaded body,
you have a threaded locking collar,
you have a custom spring, right?
You've got damper control, usually.
You've got a camber plate that you can play around with
and a few other goodies that
a typical OEM suspension just could not do.
I mean, you just couldn't do it. All right?
The only thing that you could do is look at
how many, you know, pancakes you could put
in between your tire and your actual fender
because of how much wheel gap you have.
A typical suspension just didn't have
any customization at all.
Plus, OEM suspension fitment was traditionally,
as they say, very bunk, okay?
So while there was an option of just
buying a lowering spring to lower your vehicle,
that wouldn't allow people like you and people like me
to have much control over how much the vehicle behaved
besides the way that it looked and just getting it lower
wasn't always what people wanted to do.
New coilover companies started popping up
and essentially solved a lot of those problems
and they were putting out platforms
for pretty much every car that existed out there.
You could get it for a Corolla.
You could get it for an S13.
You could get it for a 350Z.
You could get it for a Praline.
You could get it for a 911.
You could get it for damn near a Yaris.
I mean you could get it for anything
and the fact that also a lot of these coilovers
could get you set up for right around 1200 bucks,
you could be set up with a dialed-in suspension
and you were set to go.
Because of that, lowering springs that
used to be the one thing you would do
back in the early 2000s or even like '90s,
they got less and less popular,
which is a little bit sad, all right?
My boy, Zybok, H&R, got a little sad, okay?
This history lesson will tell you
that coilovers are thing to buy
but have the turbles... tables turned, right? Damn it.
And here's why:
nowadays, more vehicles are now coming
with that typical suspension system like an IRS or coilover
but they're coming out with
fancy, fancy (kissing sounds) five-course meal style
coilover system, magnetic ride things.
They're coming out with fancy s***.
I mean, Camaro ZL1s would be introduced with
magnetic ride control which does nothing more
than make you feel like you're the best driver in the world
which is all new sports cars are trying to do
is try to make you feel like
you're the only that's actually driving this car
when it's really pretty much the car.
In all honesty, it was the technology
that adjusts the shock absorbers in real time
to changes in terrain and driving situations.
It behaves at thousands of seconds
to react to how you're driving it, okay?
Its got the (untillegible)
magnetorheological adaptive suspension.
Magnetic, heliogical, that's all I got.
The word does exist, okay?
We'll just put it here, this is the word
and here's the definition
and it's a big one, all right?
Impress your biology teacher.
The magnetic ride control has been a game-changing system
especially for the Camaro lineup
for performance on and off the track
and magnetic ride control is something
that's not necessarily exclusive nor new
only to a vehicle like Camaro.
It's been something that's been
popping up all over the place.
Audi has a version of it.
Porsche has a version of it.
Everyone seems to now be getting their own version
of magnetic or adaptive suspension technology
and when your suspension can adapt
to your driving experience like a thousand times a second,
it's a little better, for the most part,
than your conventional coilover systems for 99% of the time.
These cars and these platforms have gotten
incredibly good with this technology
and with a conventional coilover coming right off the shelf
from an after-market company,
even though you can customize it
and lowering it a little bit,
because it's not dynamic,
it sometimes will not perform
to the same capacity as a dynamic suspension system.
So what ends up happening?
Well, in all honesty,
people just end up swapping the springs.
Swapping the springs to
a lowering spring of some kind will
ultimately give the vehicle the best of both worlds.
Because it will lower the vehicle as a whole,
the spring rate, as long as it stays
within the variance of the vehicle,
will still perform the magnetic ride control or the magride
and all that sort of stuff without any issue at all,
which gives you a more aggressive look
and you still get to keep all the cool, fancy buttons, okay?
Keeping the tech that came with the car
while still having a more aggressive setup
for only about $279 is pretty damn good
and it's a win-win scenario for a lot of people.
You get to use what money you saved
by picking up some wheels and tires.
You know what I'm saying?
Did I wink with both eyes?
There we go.
So to some people, lowering springs are the answer
but not all lowering springs are created equal.
Some are meant for the magneride swap
while others will just throw the whole system for a loop.
If you've ever played with suspension
or electronics on some of these cars,
you know how terrible it can be.
There are companies like Eibach, which are spring masters
when it comes to that sort of stuff
and they develop very specific springs
for these platforms which gives plenty of people
peace of mind when doing the swap.
It's gonna give them more of an aggressive setup
and the same with H&R springs, they do the exact same thing
but it's important to remember
that you are playing around with something
that probably would cost about 10K to fix.
The magneride suspension is no cheap baby.
Lowering springs are also
incredibly popular for simple lowering
and slightly improved handling characteristics
because guess what, son?
Even though coilovers are only $1200,
$1200 can still be a lot of money to somebody
that's just trying to build the car
for a relatively low cost
as they go to school or maybe they're trying to
save up for something else, okay?
They're more affordable,
they're relatively easy to install,
and it doesn't require as much
straight-up knowledge as a coilover which truth be told,
some of us, when we install coilovers,
we don't actually use them the way we're supposed to.
I'm guilty of it.
I did it the first coilover setup I ever bought.
I just slammed it right on the ground
and I didn't change anything else
and then I just sent it through, like, three years
and I realized, wow, salt is very hard on these coilovers
and then that's when you learn about bloody knuckles.
Coilovers, on the other hand,
offer a more dialed-in and custom suspension solution
to a vehicle that may not have all the fancy tech
that these new sports cars have.
Plus, when all just have, you know,
if you have a $4000 project car,
a $1000 set of coils ain't that bad
to buying a $40,000 car with magnetic ride suspension
which is the common thing now but as the years go on,
those cars will become more and more affordable.
There's a few different situations
where lowering springs may be better for you.
Those situations usually end up being a) more affordable
or b) you have an electronic suspension system
that adjusts it's a nerd
and it knows how to do it automatically
or 3) you have a car that doesn't support a coilover swap
which does happen every once in a while.
If you have a torsion bar set up,
I feel very, very bad for you and I'm sorry, okay?
And there's a few different reasons
as to why you would probably want to run a coilover setup
versus something that's just like a lowering spring.
Those situations usually end up being being
a) your car has no magnetic ride control which goes into
b) it has bunk suspension that looks like it's on stilts
and you wanna give it some nice, clean look
that's gonna make the car
actually perform a little bit better
or c) you just really, really, really need to
dial in your suspension to a tee for the track
or some sort of perfect setup based on a wheel and tire,
based on some sort of track,
based on something this that and the other thing,
something very, very specific.
Those coilovers are gonna be able to do that for you
whereas lowering springs, generally speaking, will not
and that's something you're gonna have to debate on.
Depending on what you decide to own
or what you decide to modify and how you drive
are all gonna make a difference as to whether or not
you're gonna want to run lowering springs or coilovers.
Whether your price point is at $1500 or $300,
and all of those things play a part.
What I can say is that
if you're running something with magnetic ride control
or something with very fancy technology
in your suspension systems,
you're probably gonna stay around lowering springs
unless you're trying to dial in a very specific fitment,
in which case, we would recommend
swapping over to coilovers.
Coilovers, on the other hand, are a great platform
that is pretty much something
that you could throw into any car these days
and get you a nice dial-in fitment
that's gonna make your car perform a lot better.
But regardless on which one you end up snagging,
be sure to snag them over at fitmentindustries.com.
Boom! I'm not dabbing,
this is just me slightly moving to the left, okay?
Let us know what you like us to talk about next
and of course, if you're looking for
after-market wheels, tires, or suspension,
be sure to check us out over at fitmentindustries.com.
We hope you guys enjoyed this video.
Let us know in the comments below
what you'd like to see us talk about next, all right?
I'm sorry for getting mad about Jasper.
I'm Alex from Fitment Industries and we will see you later.
Peace!