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Old 04-05-2018, 02:15 PM   #1
tmontague
 
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Drives: '08 2zr swapped Vios M/T
Join Date: Oct 2012
Location: Caledonia Ont.
Posts: 2,938
BC Racing BR coilovers review 7k F/9k R

I thought I'd get a thread started about my thoughts so far on my coilovers. The plan is to update this as I go and get more seat time in my car.

Currently the car is on 14" winter tires and I have had no track days or autox days with it. I have just done some spirited driving and commuting with it.

The install is relatively straight forwards as you do not need a spring compressor like you do with the factory suspension. The longest part by far is adjusting preload and height. If you are doing this in a driveway on your back then it becomes much more cumbersome than if you have a lift. My current set up is 5 1/4" front height and 5 3/4" rear height (measured to the jack points) It currently has a bit too much rake so I will be raising the front a 1/4" so that my rake is 1/4" total.

Front springs 7 3/4" length


rear spring 6" according to Tom Armstrong if you want to successfully corner balance your car then do not get anything longer than a 6" rear spring






my bottom portion of the rear shock
https://scontent-yyz1-1.xx.fbcdn.net...aa&oe=5B619C54

Bottom of Tom Armstrong's rear shock, as you can see it is stubby'r


The coilovers come with this spacer, make sure you leave it installed. The bearing goes on top of this and then the nut get torqued down on top of the bearing. Then the rubber isolator gets placed on top of the nut.


Due to the salty winters up here I had to disassemble all of the coilovers and coat in a layer of copper anti seize. This was messy and took a lot of time but is worth it. I will be coating everything in a layer of Krown rust inhibitor next week to add further protection. I also used a white paint marker to mark my front camber bolts so that I didn't have to go for an alignment, this way the bolts were installed back the way they were adjusted when it was aligned last summer. This appears to have worked well based on a quick look at camber comparing both sides.

After listening to some YW members I felt that the optimum spring rate for me was a 7k F and 9k R set up. This will allow me to remove my TRD rsb which frees up the rear H bar axle to act as a true semi independent system as it is designed to be.

I originally wanted to go with Fortune Auto coilovers but they only offered custom front spring rates and the stiffest they had available in the rear was 3k which was much too soft for me. The DR coilovers by BC were out of my price range so I opted to the BR version which does not have a digressive damper so a potentially less refined ride than the DR variant. My whole reasoning for purchasing coilovers was so that I can corner balance my car and have optimum weight distribution, I can have a higher spring rate and reduce the nose dive I was experiencing at the track and I can customise/adjust the dampening from front to rear to aid in how the car steers in corners as well as have a slightly softer ride when I DD and a stiffer one at the track.

These coilovers cost me just over $1500 CAD with taxes and shipping so all in all not too bad if they last a decent amount of time. They are rebuildable which is good so if they do blow out down the road I don't needs to drop another grand. Quality coilovers (think KW, Ohlin's etc) would have run well over $2000 all in and were out of my price range and amount I was willing to spend on this car just for suspension.

The BR's are by no means a budget cheap set of Coilovers like other ebay ones for $500 USD but are somewhat a middle ground. I expected them to ride harsh due to the high spring rates but to my surprise they are really tolerable. Compared to my previous set up (Excel G struts, Tokiko Blue shocks and MI springs, TRD rsb) this set up actually dampens the small irregularities in the road better. On large bumps or drops in the road (think large cracks) they are slightly harsher as there is more energy from the spring pushing the tire down.

My wife road in the car with my 16 year old son and he didn't mind the new spring rates. My wife stated that she didn't really notice a difference in roughness but she did notice how little body roll there was. I currently have the dampers set at 6 clicks F and 11 clicks R from the softest setting. I will eventually start playing around with these, but my concern is if I go softer then the springs will get bouncy, but we'll see.

A few installation tips and tricks I found out:

To make the rear dampers accessible to adjust just remove the left and right plastic trim pieces located on each side of the back of the rear seat (located when the seats are folded down). This allows you to fully access the top of the shock by just flipping the seat down. You have to remove these pieces anyways to install the shock but don't re install them and you'll be fine. The seat once flipped up covers that piece anyways so you cannot notice it missing.

Adjuster extenders from BC are useless as they are not long enough to reach above the rear speaker shelf so don't spend extra on them. I received mine free as they had a promo but I will not be using them.

To have easier access to front strut dampening adjuster you can take a pry bar and slightly pry the metal cowling that sits in front of the windshield. This will bend the metal and give you the clearance to fit your allen key adjuster into the top of the damper

I'll post pics later this week to give a visual. Overall I am impressed with the ride quality these coilovers give as well as the build quality. Time will tell how long they last but if these last a decent amount of time then I'd say they are a good option at a decent price point. The yaris is a light car and tends to be easy on things like suspension so that should help as well.
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Last edited by tmontague; 04-07-2018 at 01:38 PM.
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