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TopSpeed Pro1 Coilovers

11K views 23 replies 11 participants last post by  candycoilover 
#1 · (Edited)
Ok so I did it. I bought these cheap ass coilovers. They were 539.00 Shipped. I called up the seller directly to place my order and was greeted kindly and even spoke with an employee there who was planning an exo build. Good info from him and they include a 1 year warranty.

Shipping, I got them quickly being that they are in Dallas and I am in New Orleans, Fed Ex had them to me in three days. They were packaged very well the box was heavy duty and was not all beat up like many of the parts I have ordered in the past from other vendors.

The Coilovers, They are kinda heavy, Maybe a pound or so more than the stock shock and spring assemblies, The finish is ok the hardware on them is good, the spanner wrenches aren't all that but I had some better ones that came with some BC Coilovers. The damping adjustment is 19 clicks, the knobs to adjust them are kinda small but they work. Also you can tell just by trying to bounce the car that get stiffer with every two clicks or so.

Setting them up, I was easily able to set up the preload and get them ready to go on the car, once on the car I set the ride height. I am not slamming my Miata so I have it kinda high at the moment too cause I am waiting for my wheels to arrive today. I have only installed the two on the drivers side so far cause it was dark out and I was tired. I have it about 1.5 inch lower front and rear.

Also a side note, This may just be my car (which I figure it is) the shock body rubs the upper control arm on the inboard side of the shock body. I examined the car further to discover it had been in a accident. I will update later today if it occurs on both sides or is a fluke on my car, that said the OD of the body is larger than the stock stuff for obvious reasons.

Pics to come and more thoughts from a first drive on these later today. All in all they are well built and can be rebuilt.

Here are some pics from unboxing them. The second pic shows the full extended height of each shock vs the retracted height so you get an idea of the range. They will go low.



My son had already ran off with the bubble wrap lol



Here is the total travel of the coilovers, Front is 3 inches and Rear is 2 inches. That is with the bumpstop that is approx. 1 inch for front and rear.
 
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#2 ·
More pics! Also it turns out that the rubbing on the control arm is the same on left and right on the front. I had to make some more clearance on the right side as I had already done it to the left. I also had to crank the rear damping adjustment all the way up. I played with it for awhile it still had some bounce to it. The front for whatever reason doesn't suffer the same. It is steady. I ended up with the rear at the lowest possible setting. The front still has some room to drop. The drop is not huge with these so far but I have plans to fix that. Modify the threaded bodies. I may first try using the front on the rear as the only thing stopping it is the shock body bottoming out inside the lower with plenty of threads showing above it. Either way that will be sometime down the road after I can get the springs broke in as I am sure it will settle.

Pics.
Top mount and adjustment knob


All mounted up. Front.


This shows where I had to clearance the upper control arm.
 
#4 ·
I will be able to give my first real driving experience with these tomorrow. I spent the afternoon finishing up the install and mounting my new tires and wheels up. So far I can tell you the rear isn't going to slam by any means. I have a hub to fender of about 12.25 inches front and rear. Need to tweak the front some to get alittle rake on it. In the morning I am going to roll my fenders to accommodate the new shoes. More pics then as well.
 
#7 · (Edited)
I hope to have the time to go out there.

Well I have some more pics and some driving time on them. First impression solid. They however aren't really good on bad roads but the roads here suck big time. I live on General DeGaulle for anyone who sees this and is a local should know just how awful it is. There are sections that have 2 inch differences in height with no smooth transitions. The highway was good no issues smooth and soaked up the bumps no prob. Needs to be corner weighted but I can tell it has pretty good control of the wheels on tight turns at speeds greater than 40mph. No skipping around. I still need more time to play with the damping adjustments. I may have it too tight up front also I tweaked the front height some more to yield more rake than it had originally. I have it set as low as they go in the rear (without screwing with preload) and the front will still go maybe another inch. That said here are the pics. The tires are 195/50-15 with 15x7 et10 wheels.







 
#8 ·
Just another note on the height. I know it looks tall in the pics. I will get some better ones. Also the way my driveway is this is the lowest I can go without it dragging a whole lot. It does drag some it doesn't matter what angle I approach it either. I am off to go drive it for a bit more and see how it settles.
 
#11 ·
No it never hits the collar it was hitting the sleeve the shock body is screwed into. I took my RotoZip tool out there and ground down the control arm. The thing I will say is that if you were to try and fix the camber at this height it would start to rub again. If you were to induce more negative camber the shock would be further from the control arm. My car when I started may have had 0* of camber and perhaps a tiny bit of positive camber. So that made the shock really close to the inboard side of the control arm.

After about 50 miles now I can say the damping adjustment needs to be reduced. A tad too stiff for street driving. I don't know why it was so loose to start with but seems to have tightened up. Maybe the parts were sticking inside where it makes the adjustment idk. The front is super stiff now and only set to about 10 clicks outta 19. I am going to slowly back off till I notice some bouce then go back one click stiffer.

Also the springs have started to break in I may have lost about 1/8th of an inch of height. I know it's hard to see in the pics and I will try to get some better ones but the front fender sits just over the tires maybe 1/4 inch and about 1/2 inch in the rear. I was shooting for 949's suggested rake but I will not be able to get the height down as low as there spec.

I need to do some more measuring then take it to an alignment shop I am going to check to see if the base here has one I can use. Since I already know how to set up most of the machines made and do the work. Sometimes it's nice being part of an active duty military Family (Wife's Coast Guard Officer).


Overall my opinion on these is that they do the job and do it pretty well. If you want to lower (not slam) your Miata and still want a decent ride these work they are built well and I would pit the against Megans or the like anyday. I do plan on getting them on track atleast once in the future so I will report back here to answer any questions and update as the mileage goes up on them.
 
#15 ·
Ok so I now have about 200 miles on them. I had to back off on the damping in the rear one click before my back went out. I could possibly go one more click softer but it's pretty good now. Each click makes a noticeable difference. I also went one more stiffer in front. Ride is actually really good. I am happy with my purchase. They have settled in well and have a nice feel for day to day driving. With these spring rates 7kg front/6kg rear. I would say you need some good sway bars to take care of what roll remains in the body. But I feel confident in them and have pushed it pretty hard into some long turns loading them heavily. No strange pushing up front or looseness in back. Pick a line and even on a crappy surface it holds it just fine. Enough to make my wife very nervous so I know I was getting up there in the speed around the corner. I entered it at 60mph and it had a decreasing radius I tend to slowly keep applying throttle thru the corner and when I came out of it I may have gained about 2-3 mph even though the turn got tighter as I went.

As far as the quality of the parts and the condition after 200 miles they look pretty much new still which is to be expected. No noises from them either at least no abnormal sounds. I can hear the rear ones as they compress quickly over larger bumps but nothing odd about it just sounds like they are working :).

I will update this again and post more pics from time to time. Hopefully I can give some more insight into these and their ability on track sometime soon.
 
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