Spax vs. FK

[Wick]

Gaz are very highly spoke of in vx/lotus/Tvr circles as well.

In fact, without spending as much as for ohlins or nitrons they are pretty much the way to go.

 

[MG cup]

Swede cup, yeah the lads at Gaz have proper motorsport background, ex Leda from back in the days when that really meant something etc, its weird the way they get talked about on here like they dont know what they are doing.

Ive just got some of the GHA's (ie the cheaper ones not even the gold) secondhand for my turbo as its only a bit of fun and not worth spending AST money on etc and these came up at the right money.

Yeah I would run a set for what you need having run golds on my mk1 Xr2, good looking kit too.

 

[dmallett]

Yeah i did, as i couldnt get KonigSports/Koni fronts to fit the Trophy, but i decided to simply go for a something that i knew i liked instead, ie H&R (having used Bilstein on all my other french tat). I was very keen to try the Spax (still am tbh, unbiased view and all that), but didnt think they would hold the money if i didnt like them. My H&R's sold for £75 less than i paid for them iirc.

I lost £90 on mine in 8 months, but then I paid less than they are selling at currently so that's not that accurate. If we ever cross paths your more than welcome to drive my car with the spax on

If I was on a budget I'd simply get springs and a decent setup, but again another argument lol

 

[pbufton]

Didn't know the FK's even fitted the 182FF (indicated in your profile). Thought they were 54mm bolt spacing only.

Thats what I thought.

Quite right, afaik there isnt a 60mm kit available. My 182 WAS Full fat until the weekend just gone, sourced a pair of 172 cup hubs off a member on here and fitted them, following that fitted the rsx' kit.

I expect a lot of people will say 'that wont work' ect, but I spoke to someone else on here who stated they'd done research into it, and the 182ff shafts, steering arms and wishbones are the same length as the 172 cup, the only difference being the hub hole spacing, the hub offset and the wheelbearing outer diameter.

With this in mind I decided to bite the bullet and fit them, and no problems to report yet. I will be fitting some narrowish spacers to bring the track width back to FF width, but apart from that i'm happy with it.

 

[Greeny.]

As Chip says really.

ClioSport is one of those places were products/tuners have a lifecycle, where someone 'cool' uses them and everyone jumps on the bandwagon. A short while later, someone has an issue, all hell breaks loose and the product/tuner become a thing of hatred.

With suspension, back in the day, H&R's used to be the coilover to have, monotube dampers, great drive on the road, bit soft on track, but c'est la vie. Then some leaked and there was doubt. After a while AST developed an adjustable coilover and everyone liked the adjustability, afterall most clio owners adjust their damping for each trackday they do, & everytime they use a different road to get milk. AST were now the favourite. But then Fred said he didnt like them, so nobody else did for a while either. A little while later, Danny@519 realised that clio owners love their adjustability, despite not knowing what to actually do with it, except full hard yo. So he spoke to Spax as they're local and they built some cheap adjustable stuff that CS users could afford. It sold well as it was the same price as Bilstein/H&R/KW V1 but had loads of knobs to play with. Awesome. Cheap to, especially online where they pretty much give it away.

And so it is currently Spax's turn to be bummed on CS, meaning that most people completely ignore the stuff that is very good, thats been going for years, using high quality dampers, like Koni(gsports) and even simpler, Koni adjustables with Eibach springs.

I wouldn't call the Spax RSX's "cheap" like you said, they are the same price as Billys etc and in turns of adjust-ability, its only camber (same as every coilover set), ride height (again same as any coilover set) and dampening which granted aren't on the other sets, minus the Konigsports but its hardly hard to get them setup properly if you spend a few quid.

I do see your point about them getting "bummed" on CS, however that doesn't distract from them being a good product for the money and unlike many of CS keyboard warriors I assume you're talking from experience from owning them rather than judging a product by others reviews, which is exactly the point you were trying to make in the first place?

Chip in response to your "they get talked about on here like they dont know what they are doing", if that was at reference to me, I was speaking from the experience of owning a set and also from others who have owned them, eg, they like to piss out oil. Im sure they know what they're doing.

 

[MG cup]

Quite right, afaik there isnt a 60mm kit available. My 182 WAS Full fat until the weekend just gone, sourced a pair of 172 cup hubs off a member on here and fitted them, following that fitted the rsx' kit.

I expect a lot of people will say 'that wont work' ect, but I spoke to someone else on here who stated they'd done research into it, and the 182ff shafts, steering arms and wishbones are the same length as the 172 cup, the only difference being the hub hole spacing, the hub offset and the wheelbearing outer diameter.

With this in mind I decided to bite the bullet and fit them, and no problems to report yet. I will be fitting some narrowish spacers to bring the track width back to FF width, but apart from that i'm happy with it.

Sorry but that's wrong. Steering arms and shafts are longer on a 172 cup, they have the subframe drilled different so need to be. Wishbones are drilled different but are no longer. In your case you should have no problems as I think there are only two types of hub. Hubs for 172's and hubs for 182's, the bearing being the only thing difference afaik and off course the strut bolt spacing.

 

[Sir_Dave]

I do see your point about them getting "bummed" on CS, however that doesn't distract from them being a good product for the money and unlike many of CS keyboard warriors I assume you're talking from experience from owning them rather than judging a product by others reviews, which is exactly the point you were trying to make in the first place?

I've owned/driven various sets of Spax VSX, PSX & RSX over the years, but not the Clio ones, hence why i never actually comment on what they are like specifically - ive already mentioned further up that id still like a go in one with them on. Afterall, i did consider them last year! But only on the basis that they were the same price as H&R/Bilstein but with adjustability. As soon as i remembered that i wasnt a chassis engineer & would never tinker with them anyways, i went for fixed monotube damping instead, from a brand that i know & love.

My 'comments' were tongue in cheek, and ring true for this forum. Cooksport are the current flavour of the month from a tuner perspective for example, having taken over from TDF last year, & JMS the year before that.

 

[Greeny.]

Haha yes true about companys being flavour of the month but that isnt the reason I bought I coilovers. Like I said, its not hard to adjust the one extra setting these newly designed RSX's have, I dont think you would need to quality to be a chassis engineer afterall.

 

[Chris205]

Didnt rate my spax one bit, even after trying them on every single bloody setting.

I'm still convinced something was wrong with the rear's I had, but according to spax they were fine. You couldnt drive it on the road properly it was disgraceful no matter what you did with it.

Perfect on the smoothest of roads but find it a bump and it would attempt to break your spine.

Also the squeeky noises from the rear weren't fantastic, I greased up everything before putting it on and it still happened.

 

[bartebk]

Less than impressed with the quality of my RSX's

 

[Adamm.]

Less than impressed with the quality of my RSX's

Why?

 

[...]

KW V2's use Koni adjustable dampers, ie the same as FK KonigSports ... but the latter are half the price

I'd stick with the Koni(gsports)'s tbh, ClioSport is still the only forum in Britain where Spax are treated with any kind of respect lol.

thats the first time i have seen that said here and i had ben wondering for a while why they were rated , as from personal experience they have always been down the bottom of the pile . they were that bad the company has gone bust at least once , however there may be something the new owners are doing that has upped the game.

It maybe the upsurgence of cheap asian made suspension thats made the spax look better ........

then again Leda went bust too (but seem to be back) and they make some great shocks , i have used in the past and i'll list them where i see them in quality/performance spax -gaz-avo-koni-bilstein-leda/nitron (hard to split those too as better or worse) and ohlins


often suspension gets a good name with a certain car make if there has been some development work done on valving and spring rates , nitron spent alot of time on elises for many years getting a decent product and they came from nowhere in the marketplace .

I certainly think Nitron are now overpriced for the product as they are getting near ohlins prices , and they are nothing like ohlins quality or ride , but then most people run adjustable shocks and just think you run them hard on track because its better ..... bodyroll is controlled by spring rates and arb's not damping , or at least it should be and this is why sometimes people don't get on with a setup as its nothing to do with the valving rate its just the springs they were paired with that weren't right ....... the time that goes into testing different spring rates then damping is hours and hours of track/road time , which most kits never see.

 

[Chip-mk1]

Going bust just means you cant run a business, not that you dont make a good product.

In Spax's case though Ive seen little evidence they are particularly amazingly good at either, where as at least with Leda their products were very good just their business skills werent.

 

[...]

Going bust just means you cant run a business, not that you dont make a good product.

In Spax's case though Ive seen little evidence they are particularly good at either, where as at least with Leda their products were very good just their business skills werent.

completely agree , the spax product has never lasted well or been in any way a good product ....... leda on the other hand was excellent.

 

[Chip-mk1]

completely agree , the spax product has never lasted well or been in any way a good product ....... leda on the other hand was excellent.

Although leda's also leak after a couple of years, which is no concern to racers doing annual rebuilds but will be of concern to people who decide they want race-spec coilovers on their road car and then to never service them as if they are standard shocks for some reason. (ie the same criticism you see on here of gaz ones)

 

[...]

Although leda's also leak after a couple of years, which is no concern to racers doing annual rebuilds but will be of concern to people who decide they want race-spec coilovers on their road car and then to never service them as if they are standard shocks for some reason. (ie the same criticism you see on here of gaz ones)

your never going to find a race spec product that will not need constant servicing are you , the same goes for alot of high end 4 pot calipers ...... that's why even if only a track toy i have had stuff in the garage over winter and strip and rebuilt what needs doing ..... road car conditions are harsh from an environmental point , and therefore need a different product ,


in fact people forget alot of track day cars see more abuse over a year than alot of race cars , and are serviced alot less in comparison


also gaz are ok , but only ever found them ok , but i know they have upped their game in the last few years

 

[Chip-mk1]

your never going to find a race spec product that will not need constant servicing are you , the same goes for alot of high end 4 pot calipers ...... that's why even if only a track toy i have had stuff in the garage over winter and strip and rebuilt what needs doing ..... road car conditions are harsh from an environmental point , and therefore need a different product ,

Indeed, most of the slating that decent race orientated coilovers seem to get on this forum is from people fitting them to a road car and then being surprised that coilovers designed for race track use which means a few dozen hours a year at most on typically very smooth tarmac other than the occasional kerb, doesnt like being given 20K miles of uk potholes to deal with, it really is quite frustrating at times the lack of understanding people have.

in fact people forget alot of track day cars see more abuse over a year than alot of race cars , and are serviced alot less in comparison

Agreed, there are race cars out there that arent even seeing 10 hours a year of use, and even more so sprints and hillclimbs cars.

also gaz are ok , but only ever found them ok , but i know they have upped their game in the last few years

The GHA stuff is ok and even makes a reasonable compromise for road use, the newer gold stuff is very good, and their customer service on rebuilds etc is excellent, they are a brand I quite happily use, although that said I wouldnt want to swap the Leda's ive got on my mk1 for them as they dont really make quite an equivalent product for that particular application. I actually use them for Leda rebuilds though.

My experience has been that any shock with a lot of adjustment is typically also one that will need rebuilding sooner, so if its for road use then the non adjustable or minimal adjustment ones tend to be more durable.

 

[Dan@SJM]

I've not been in a spax Clio, but I've got a set of b14's, I drive a car at the weekend with konigsports, and my god they ride harshly compared to my b14's.

 

[...]

My experience has been that any shock with a lot of adjustment is typically also one that will need rebuilding sooner, so if its for road use then the non adjustable or minimal adjustment ones tend to be more durable.

that and the fact 2 way adjustable isn't easy to set up unless you understand whats going on ....... and as for 3 way ..... i won't go near them as i really don't feel confident not to get totally lost

 

[Ph1 Tom]

B14 for me, yes they have the downside of no damping adjustment and the rear are a seperate shock and spring with an adjustable seat for the spring but they are the perfect fast road setup IMO. They are great to just drive to a track day and drive home again not touching any settings.

However for a proper track car really you want full adjustment and specific settings for each track. If you've got the money its got to be AST. Yes the Gaz GGA have plenty of adjustment but they are still a budget shock.

 

[Chip-mk1]

that and the fact 2 way adjustable isn't easy to set up unless you understand whats going on ....... and as for 3 way ..... i won't go near them as i really don't feel confident not to get totally lost

It goes back to what sir_dave said, people on here seem to crave a load of adjustment they dont understand even though it comes at more expense and less reliability generally.

Also people who are trying to set shocks up as "soft for the road and hard for the track" are COMPLETELY missing the point that unless you actually change the springs as well it just doesnt work properly, the damping required is very much linked to the amount of travel that happens and thats controlled ultimately by the spring.

 

[...]

B14 for me, yes they have the downside of no damping adjustment and the rear are a seperate shock and spring with an adjustable seat for the spring but they are the perfect fast road setup IMO. They are great to just drive to a track day and drive home again not touching any settings.

However for a proper track car really you want full adjustment and specific settings for each track. If you've got the money its got to be AST. Yes the Gaz GGA have plenty of adjustment but they are still a budget shock.

Full adjustment is only of use of course if you understand what your doing with it and why ..... other than that the type of setup you describe is perfect .

 

[...]

It goes back to what sir_dave said, people on here seem to crave a load of adjustment they dont understand even though it comes at more expense and less reliability generally.

Also people who are trying to set shocks up as "soft for the road and hard for the track" are COMPLETELY missing the point that unless you actually change the springs as well it just doesnt work properly, the damping required is very much linked to the amount of travel that happens and thats controlled ultimately by the spring.

could not agree more , and i know alot of trackdayers who also fall foul of that one ...... we always had a solution to the soft for road hard for track scenario ...... we call it a trailer .


on the westfield forum i was slated for many years over my very stiffly sprung setup as people were listening to the sprint guys ...... sprinters run different setups as tyres are normally cold and they run for a short stint and are therefore normally softer , for longer track sessions a harder setup was needed ....... my car got sold north to a northern well respected guy , who proclaimed i had know what i was on about as he had never driven as well sorted a car as the one he had just bought ....... i still get emails now asking for the setup , and i sold that car 5 years ago .

 

[Cooksport]

Just about to put an AST Sportline 1 Kit, non coilover rear for sub £1000..

 

[Cup_Phil]

I've not been in a spax Clio, but I've got a set of b14's, I drive a car at the weekend with konigsports, and my god they ride harshly compared to my b14's.

Completely agree - B14's (You've got my old set haven't you) were lovely on the road and for some B road thrashes, actually softer than the eibach springs I had before them - but on track they were way too soft and the lack of adjustability frustrated me

I have KW V2's now with koni coilovers and they are a much harder ride which is ideal for track.

Dave's summary is pretty much how I understood it all too - About the best you can get IMO is the Koni adjustables - so either FK Konigsports or KW V2's if you're willing to spend more for better quality

AST's seem very good for out and out track use but their seems to be just as many people have problems with them as there are rave about them

 

[Dan@SJM]

Completely agree - B14's (You've got my old set haven't you) were lovely on the road and for some B road thrashes, actually softer than the eibach springs I had before them - but on track they were way too soft and the lack of adjustability frustrated me

I have KW V2's now with koni coilovers and they are a much harder ride which is ideal for track.

Dave's summary is pretty much how I understood it all too - About the best you can get IMO is the Koni adjustables - so either FK Konigsports or KW V2's if you're willing to spend more for better quality

AST's seem very good for out and out track use but their seems to be just as many people have problems with them as there are rave about them

I do indeed. I think I have solved the issue of understeer you were having too, When I drove a cup with the same setup I found it wanted to push wide. I'm running a massive amount of toe out now, and really cannot get it to wash out.

 

[Cup_Phil]

Interesting - how much do you call a massive amount?

It really frustrated me as I'd say all of the extra power I got from the ITB's was wasted on track as I was always trying to stop the front end going wide

 

[...]

Interesting - how much do you call a massive amount?

It really frustrated me as I'd say all of the extra power I got from the ITB's was wasted on track as I was always trying to stop the front end going wide

but running massive amounts of toe out is having what effect in a straight line ....... over a lap it may well now be slower .

 

[Chip-mk1]

but running massive amounts of toe out is having what effect in a straight line ....... over a lap it may well now be slower .

When its trackdays not racing then how a car feels on turn in is more important than a tiny drop in straightline pace surely?

 

[...]

When its trackdays not racing then how a car feels on turn in is more important than a tiny drop in straightline pace surely?

running alot of toe out?

the tyre scrub and the effect it would have on the road would not be nice , it depends what he calls a fair bit of toe out ?

i agree with the sentiment of the feel being the better thing , but if your having to run lots of toe out to combat understeer then something else isn't right ??

 

[Cup_Phil]

I was only asking out of curiousity lol - I run KW V2's now and seem to have corrected most of the understeer by tweaking the damping rates

Also - I don't use my car on the road, and I don't use it competitively, so neither a slight loss in straight line speed or tyre scrub on the road would have been an issue

 

[bartebk]

Why?

Build quality issues, they are in the process of going back, after 6-8 weeks use and less than 250 miles

Maybe a one off so ain't gonna start slating Spax over it but I have went back to OE for the time being

 

[Adamm.]

Build quality issues, they are in the process of going back, after 6-8 weeks use and less than 250 miles

Maybe a one off so ain't gonna start slating Spax over it but I have went back to OE for the time being

Fair enough mate.

I'm very interested in spax but getting quite tempted to go the springs route now.

 

[Chip-mk1]

Fair enough mate.

I'm very interested in spax but getting quite tempted to go the springs route now.

Have you seen the new AST that CookSport are doing for almost as cheap as spax retail money?

 

[Adamm.]

Have you seen the new AST that CookSport are doing for almost as cheap as spax retail money?

Yeah I have mate but would want to wait until people have ran them for a bit before I forked out the money. Spax are still an idea of course because most people running them seem happy.

Have you tried the spax on a clio yourself?

 

[Chip-mk1]

Yeah I have mate but would want to wait until people have ran them for a bit before I forked out the money. Spax are still an idea of course because most people running them seem happy.

Have you tried the spax on a clio yourself?

Not on my own car but have driven a clio on them, nothing really wrong with them but nothing to write home about either IMHO.

I'd be confident ordering AST products without waiting for some people on a forum, (most of whom know very little about suspension anyway) give their verdict.

IMHO people on here put far too much emphasis on "testimonial evidence" from people who in a lot of cases are comparing knackered standard shocks to new coilovers, of course they will seem good in that sort of comparison.

 

[Adamm.]

Yeah I guess the only thing is that I'm already stretching the budget going for spax so for me to go and pay even more for the ast setup then I would have to see some very good opinions of them.

It's only for a road car so I don't need anything too special. I got plenty of time to do other things and make my mind up anyway so no rush to decide I guess.

 

[Chip-mk1]

For a road car im a massive fan of Eibachs and Cup shocks.


Here is my mrs car on that setup at the ring:

http://youtu.be/mkx-hYNSDsI

 

[Adamm.]

Yeah I'm thinking spring might be the best way to go, plus the big bonus is there cheaper lol.

Only problem is I like to be quite low without compromising the handling too much and coilovers is usually the better option for this.

 

[Chip-mk1]

Yeah I'm thinking spring might be the best way to go, plus the big bonus is there cheaper lol.

Only problem is I like to be quite low without compromising the handling too much and coilovers is usually the better option for this.

The cooksport replacement springs are slightly lower than the eibachs IIRC, Ive not been in a car with them fitted yet though.