One of my favorite upgrades to a car is the suspension. It completely transforms it, and I couldn't wait to install the Silk Road coilovers. But first, I had to do the obligatory "parts laid out on the floor" photo:
I've been waiting so long to install these! Here they are outside of the boxes:
The brakes, tires and turbo upgrades will have to wait a little bit longer. Once the suspension is in, I can have the tires installed and everything aligned at the same time.
With a big new breaker bar and some ratcheting box-end wrenches, I was ready to swap them!
The struts had been replaced before with "New SR" which are made by KYB in Japan. The stock ride is pretty comfortable, but way too high (am I crazy??) and not quite stiff enough for my tastes.
So in order to have more control of the situation, I went with Silk Road coilovers. They're pretty exotic and really high quality. It always feels nice to have new parts in your old car.
Adjustments galore!
Mmmm shiny. I love it! What I love more is the new, aggressive stance:
That looks so much better than before (see above photo of the breaker bar for wheel arch gap). As the suspension settles, it's getting lower and lower. I may raise it up a bit, and I'm chatting with a local company about having custom springs made for it. The 4k front / 5k rear are way too stiff for the crappy New Zealand streets. On smooth roads though, it's responsive and flat. I'm really excited to finally be working on improving the performance of this car!
