Cup shocks VS the world

[RS Charlie]

The problem you've got is that performance on road and track are very different. If you make it a great car on track, it will be terrible on the road and a good road car will be compromised on track.

My personal view is that I can't understand why anyone would fit coilovers to a road car, unless they take the wheels off every week to thoroughly clean everything. The threads will corrode or get full of crap and, for the amount of times you'd actually adjust them, it just isn't worth the hassle. It's also worth noting that an awful lot of aftermarket suspension is, quite frankly, shite.

If you're going to be doing a lot of your driving on the road, it's better to make the car road friendly. Renault spent an awful lot of time and money making the car ride and handle well on the road, so their bits are probably the most sensible choice. My car is on Eibach Pro springs and I think even they are a bit hard at times to be honest. If I were in your shoes, I would fit all new OEM dampers and maybe Eibach Pro springs. It will be the best set up for the road and the car will still be a lot of fun on the track. If you make the car too focused on track driving, you'll hate driving it on the road, so it's better to compromise and have a good all-rounder.

Years ago I would have agreed with you. If I am honest, if I was not fussy about the height and looks of the car I probably would go with them. I've had a couple of good out of the box setups on cars (Ford Racing kit on the Ka (Sachs dampers with Eibach springs) and Konis on springs with the Focus).

After having two cars with coilovers with limited spring choices in suspension (Escort RS Turbo, most of the springs leave the car on a rake, and Koni and Monroe are now your only choice for 'normal dampers' with Porsche being similar, and the dampers being pricey anyway), and the Porsche 944 Turbo on KWv3s (On those your only choices are to spend £700 on new stock dampers, £500 on Konis (fronts are inserts) with limited spring choices and indexing on the rear;Bilstein B6s seem to be the best damper choice but the front struts require careful modifying) I probably would not go back. Yes the Porsche was a little too low but it was fine.

The threads IME only seize up from laziness and neglect. The KWs were fine here ; they had stainless bodies. My 205 GTi didn't, but with some grease on the threads and some gaffa tape rolled around itself they were fine and I owned that for 4 years ; they still spun easily (almost by hand if I am honest) despite the bodies rusting (they were only plated). The Escort was a pain I admit but those damper bodies were never ever greased despite the bodies being very clean (the car was a show car) ; it has also done the least miles out of all of my cars on TBs (around 600 miles before it was rebuilt going by the paperwork and how clean the car is. The Porsche had done more like 10k and the Peugeot around 3k.

But yes, alot of aftermarket stuff is shite. But then IME so is so called OE stuff. Genuine factory stuff IME does do the job well however, and that is from changing many bits on a car of mine once (I went on the front axle (and rear IIRC) from tired factory to OE Bilstein B4s on OE springs and then to Genuine gear ; let's just say I will not waste my money on OE stuff quite so quickly again without reseach). Geometry etc. is a fair shout but with know how and the right people I reckon that can be solved ; my 944 S2 (same suspension as a Turbo) drove nothing like my Turbo did ; the latter was in another league everywhere bar ground clearance.

The Escort of mine isn't that bad to drive on the road at all TBH. It's probably the best 'fast' Escort I have driven. Not too crashy but still planted, more than the XR3is before it! I did have to change the springs to something more palletable though ; the previous fool fitted 'mega hard race spec' springs in...