[gritsak]

how are they comparted the tein coilovers? i have not seem many peple running the hks and was wondering if there was a specific reason?

 

[djo715]

HKS

Yes - I have HKS Hiper Dampers on my car.
I think the difference is that the HKS coilovers have a slightly thicker shock body and externally adjustable shock valving. They may be better suited for the track than the street. Although I believe there are several versions of the HKS dampers out there... some are progressive spring rates - that are apparently too harsh for the street. Mine are the Damper II's, I think - w/ linear spring rates, and I really like those.

The cost is prohibitive, which may be why more people run Teins.
I think the HKS Dampers are 2X the price of the Teins.


-Darryl

 

[hsk73]

How do you adjust tension and height on HKS?

 

[gritsak]

thanx for the replys, anyone else have more input?

 

[Magic]

Actually, I have a ton of input on the HKS coilovers. I have them in my car. I have also driven several supras with the Tiens and I have also driven supras equipped with standard Eibach springs.

The construction quality of the HKS coilovers is superior to any I have seen. They are built to take a punding and have an extra valve that you can hook up a remote resivoir to in case you need to increase the shock volume to prevent over heating of the oil in extreme racing situations. The resivoir is overkill and not needed for the street or light track duty so it is only an extra option from HKS japan.

There are three versions of the Hyper dampers that were released in the US. The first and second versions use a progressive rate race spring. The spring rates used are a little less than the Tiens. You can email me for the exact spring rates used in the first and second release of the coilovers. The ride is pretty soft and the dampening has a very wide range of adjustability from very soft to pretty hard for the track. The second version only differs becuase it has an updated shock that has the same specifications except it is 20 way adjustable. Version one is 10 way adjustable.

The third and newest version that was released in the US had enough changes that HKS actually changed the part number. It uses a 30 way adjustable shock and they switched to a stiffer liniear race spring using spring rates that are almost exactly the same as the tiens. The tiens have a helper spring to soften up the ride a little and keep the spring from moving around. It is not required and HKS does not use it.

I have the second generation coilovers mentioned above and am extremely happy with them except one problem....

The front tires bottom out on the top of the inner fender lining in the front. This only happens if I hit a medium sized sharp bump. Just driving down a flat street this does not happen. In my opinion the bump stop used is just too short. This was done by HKS to allow for more travel. More travel is usually a good thing.

This is a problem on the supra because right were it hits the fender lining on the other side toyota decided to put a wiring harness of some kind. Eventually using coilovers with too much travel you will wear through the lining and start to wear through the harness. The harness can not be relocated easily.

In addition with the HKS coilovers you can NOT change the bump stops without dissassembling the ENTIRE shock. That means you would have to rebuild the shock just to replace a simple bump stop. In my opinion that is a very stupid design.

On the other hand, with the Tiens you can simply slip any bump stop over the shock tube that you want simply by taking it off the car.

When replacing the bump stop you have to be careful not to limit travel too much. So I would use a trimmed down version of the stock bump stop.

Because of this i would simply go with the Tiens and spare yourself A LOT of HEADACHE.

My coilovers are actually at HKS right now. At this point they have not found anything wrong with them and have not come up with any other solution to this problem. They said they have never heard of this problem. That is funny because I have heard of it happening with HKS and other coilovers on multiple occasions. There is a person who lives near me that is really unhappy with his HKS coilovers because of this.
I personally drive my car very hard if something is not working correctly I will find it, especially with suspension.

When I get them back I am going to try and come up with a solution that I can live with.

I have a couple of ideas. Otherwise I will just probably sell them and get the Tiens.

Please feel free to email me if you have any questions.

Other than that they work great!!!

 

[Andi]

Actually, I have a ton of input on the HKS coilovers. I have them in my car. I have also driven several supras with the Tiens and I have also driven supras equipped with standard Eibach springs.

The construction quality of the HKS coilovers is superior to any I have seen. They are built to take a punding and have an extra valve that you can hook up a remote resivoir to in case you need to increase the shock volume to prevent over heating of the oil in extreme racing situations. The resivoir is overkill and not needed for the street or light track duty so it is only an extra option from HKS japan.

There are three versions of the Hyper dampers that were released in the US. The first and second versions use a progressive rate race spring. The spring rates used are a little less than the Tiens. You can email me for the exact spring rates used in the first and second release of the coilovers. The ride is pretty soft and the dampening has a very wide range of adjustability from very soft to pretty hard for the track. The second version only differs becuase it has an updated shock that has the same specifications except it is 20 way adjustable. Version one is 10 way adjustable.

The third and newest version that was released in the US had enough changes that HKS actually changed the part number. It uses a 30 way adjustable shock and they switched to a stiffer liniear race spring using spring rates that are almost exactly the same as the tiens. The tiens have a helper spring to soften up the ride a little and keep the spring from moving around. It is not required and HKS does not use it.

I have the second generation coilovers mentioned above and am extremely happy with them except one problem....

The front tires bottom out on the top of the inner fender lining in the front. This only happens if I hit a medium sized sharp bump. Just driving down a flat street this does not happen. In my opinion the bump stop used is just too short. This was done by HKS to allow for more travel. More travel is usually a good thing.

This is a problem on the supra because right were it hits the fender lining on the other side toyota decided to put a wiring harness of some kind. Eventually using coilovers with too much travel you will wear through the lining and start to wear through the harness. The harness can not be relocated easily.

In addition with the HKS coilovers you can NOT change the bump stops without dissassembling the ENTIRE shock. That means you would have to rebuild the shock just to replace a simple bump stop. In my opinion that is a very stupid design.

On the other hand, with the Tiens you can simply slip any bump stop over the shock tube that you want simply by taking it off the car.

When replacing the bump stop you have to be careful not to limit travel too much. So I would use a trimmed down version of the stock bump stop.

Because of this i would simply go with the Tiens and spare yourself A LOT of HEADACHE.

My coilovers are actually at HKS right now. At this point they have not found anything wrong with them and have not come up with any other solution to this problem. They said they have never heard of this problem. That is funny because I have heard of it happening with HKS and other coilovers on multiple occasions. There is a person who lives near me that is really unhappy with his HKS coilovers because of this.
I personally drive my car very hard if something is not working correctly I will find it, especially with suspension.

When I get them back I am going to try and come up with a solution that I can live with.

I have a couple of ideas. Otherwise I will just probably sell them and get the Tiens.

Please feel free to email me if you have any questions.

Other than that they work great!!!

Sorry to hear about your troubles with the HKS's. I had the same problem when I used the Tein-supplied bump stops... then I put the stock (untrimmed) bumpstops back on and they were perfect.

Teins rock

Andi

 

[PB PEDIS]

HKS dampers

I have the first release (10 way adjustable, progressive rate springs). I have had no problems whatsoever with tires bottoming out in the front. I have to assume Magic is using stock rims and tires, and this still happened, because using aftermarket rims and tires could explain the rubbing against the fender wall.

Besides that, I really like the HKS kit. On full stiff, the car is unbearable, and on full soft, it's only slight stiffer than stock, but a better, firmer overall ride than stock.

I have not taken my car to a roadcourse, so presumably I have not pushed the suspension to its limits. My only experience is on the street.

 

[Magic]

Update on HKS coilovers

I just wanted to update those of you following this thread.
I got my coilovers back from HKS and they could not find anything wrong with them.

I decided to try and more aggressively come up with a solution. I thought of two ideas on how to incorporate the stock bump stop into the HKS coilovers. I was not sure if either of these solutions would comprimise the integrity of the HKS coilover system so I consulted with Jeramy at Ground Control who was extremely helpful. He took the time to listen to the two solutions I came up with and he said both of them should work just fine.

The bump stops that come with the HKS dampers are designed to maximize travel and stop the shock from blowing it self up. They do not limit the amount of travel enough on hard sharp bumps. This will allow the top of the tire to scape on the top of the fender lining when hitting these types of bumps. The bump stops that come with the HKS dampers are very soft so even when there is enough shock travel to reach them they don't do much because they compress easily. In comparison the stock MKIV bumpstops are at least 10 times stiffer. They have some play but are stiff enough to stand on with only very slight compression ( I weigh 248 lbs) .

I removed the HKS bump stops. This took some careful doing. Then I took a new set of front MKIV bump stops and shaved off about a 1/3 of an inch from the thick part at the top. I slipped the dust covers and then the bump stops on the shock pistion. At this point I took some thick steel washers similar to the ones HKS uses to stop the bump stop from moving and slipped this under the spacer that fits under the spherical bearing in the pillow ball mount. This washer gives the bump stop something to back up against when under load. It kind of floats in the coilover assembly. Once the asseblies were back together I tightened the top lock nuts down with about 120 ft/lbs of torque. This was tricky since I had to come up with a special flat wrench to hold the shock shaft from spinning. This had to be slipped between the spring coils and on to the shaft. Once I had this special wrench I was able to lock down the lock nuts. This is important because this lock nut takes a small pounding when the suspension bottoms out.

I have been driving around for three days with this combination and am happy to say that 95% of the bottoming out has been eliminated. I will post any problems that I encounter but for now the suspension seems to be working well with this new setup.

-pete