[bacarl]

Hey all, recently came across this message on a Cadillac forum:

"Eibach springs are progressive spring rate and Hotchkis are constant spring rate. This means that as the Eibach springs compress, the spring rate coefficient will increase causing their stiffness to increase. Superiority of either spring is arguable...it's more of what you prefer.
I had the Eibachs and didn't like them because the progressive spring rate made the front of the car bounce too much. Some people don't mind it. The lower spring rate at ride height of the Eibach springs is supposed to make the ride smoother under normal driving conditions and stiffen up when compressed during turns. I found that this caused the car to dive too much during breaking and made it feel unstable during turns if the car went over a bump mid turn. It also didn't reach equilibrium as quickly after hitting a bump. I switched to Hotchkis springs and liked them much more. No more bouncing, diving, or instability but the ride is a little less plush. Personally, I would rather have a slightly more firm ride than a bouncy ride so I stuck with the Hotchkis springs."

I know many people here have ProKits on their cars and I was leaning toward this set-up myself. However I'm very interested in handling performance as well as lowered appearance so this bummed me out a lil. Anyone find they've had problems similar to those stated above with Eibach's on Foci? Thanks for any info to help my decision! [thumb]

 

[bacarl]

Bump! Any opinions? I saw photos of a ProKit-equipped ZX5 running an autoX recently and its body roll and dive looked twice as bad as my stock ST. My confidence in Eibach has been shaken!

 

[fallacious_focus]

the eibach is almost entirely for show. there are much better kits to be found, but they will cost you more. the low price is the big draw to the eibach prokit and as far as "sporty" they are fairly soft. i would recommend the h&r cup kit ($625ish) or the koni sport kit ($600). car will handle very well with either of those and will be much more level through the turns. another thing that you may want to invest in would be a larger rear sway bar as that will also hellp greatly in reducing body roll. for this i would have to suggest the h&r 24mm rear bar.

sorry that no one responded earlier to your thread. just so that you know in all of my time here i have never even heard of hotchkis so i doubt that they make a good suspension setup for the focus.

The "Official" Suspension Thread

 

[focusedintentions]

we just installed the eibach kit on my friends SVT...and it was a def improvement...body roll and mid turn performance has definately increased over the stock setup....i liked it very much and am going with that setup for my car....from my experience...anything stiffer is just too much for the street with all the potholes and construction....and a bouncy ride isn't b/c of the springs...rather that he didn't have good shocks to match the springs....when you upgrade springs you need to upgrade shocks too.

 

[gitar111]

i have the eibach prokit, with a progress rear sway bar, and i agree that the ride is a bit bumpy, but my handling is very improved. the pro-kit has put me at the point where my car can be stable while my tires start to lose grip. I am still running on stock tires (trying to wear them out before getting new ones) but at the autocross track, felt like i had much better control of the car.

Yes the eibachs were a draw for me because they were not too expensive, but also because the drop was not too far, so overall i am happy with them.

 

[DirtyDeeds]

I'm running Eibach Prokit springs with KYB AGX adjustable struts and H&R 24mm sway bars. I think the setup is as good as you're going to get for a daily driven car that also runs autocross monthly.

It's not bouncy or uncomfortably firm and corners flat as a pancake with less understeer than the stock SVT suspension. It's also about 3/4 of an inch lower, but not so low that you can't drive over a speed bump or up a driveway without ripping something off the bottom of the car.

The transition to trailing throttle oversteer is predicable, smooth and very controllable...it won't bite you if you make a small mistake. And your kidneys will thank you during the ride home.

It's Clark Kent on the street and Superman at the track.

I will also disgree that the Eibach Prokit is just for show. A car doesn't have to ride like a buck board wagon to handle well. I think the engineers at Audi, Mercedes, BMW and Porsche would agree.

 

[fallacious_focus]

i will say that the h&r cup kit is probably not the best street kit, but almost everyone that i have talked to that has it says that they increased handling is more than worth the bone-jarring ride. the other kit that i mentioned, the koni sport kit, is fully adjustable like the KYB AGXs but has been said to have been matche better with the springs included. the koni kit is a 1.6" vs. the eibachs 1/5" drop. not that big of a difference in height but for the money a very good setup.

 

[bacarl]

Thanks a lot for the comments guys!