03EVO-VIII

iTrader: (3)

Alright everyone, I know a lot of people are dieing to hear a review on these. I was looking forward to get a kit about a month ago from Import Image when all the sudden the previous model went out of stock. Luckly these came in at perfect timing. I must say the c/o look better in person than the pics, and the pics do look good. Shipping was next day since I’m in the same state. The install was incredibly simple, I had the tein springs in so I didn’t really use anything to compress the springs as the whole unit was being replaced. I’ll throw in some pics to help those that haven’t installed before. We have 3 14mm nuts on the topmounts upfront and 2 19mm on the lower + 1 12mm on the brake line bracket. You may need to have a breaker bar handy to break the 19mm loose plus you’ll need a deep socket 19mm. I didn’t use any spring compressors as my setup already had shorter springs so it was easier to slip the entire unit out. The c/o’s come pretty close to what I believe is stock height, I loosened the lower lock ring and raised the lower bracket about 1 ½ in. I left the lower bracket loose and slipped the new one in place. If your doing this on your own just make sure you have the nuts ready to put on when you slip the topmount in place. Once the top mount is held in place, having the lower bracket still loose allows swinging it around and fastening the brake line on where you can position it to see what you’re working on. Once the brake line is in place then align the lower bracket and tighten all the bolts. Now I do suggest you do one side first, both front and rear put on the tires and achieve the drop you want instead of having to do all four over again. Moving on to the back, you’ll have to remove the trunk liner to access the rear top mounts. Those are 14mm and the lower bracket is 17mm which you’ll need 2 to loosen as well, one on both ends. Now on these it really depends probably on what you have in there for your suspension. I was able to remove the 2 top mounts and the lower nut and stud and with a bit of pressure down on the rear brakes was able to slip these over the lower control arm. Some may need to remove one of the ends of the lower control arm to get them out. I did the same to the rears and loosened the lock ring and brought those up an 1 ½ in. as well. Here it helps to have an extra hand or long arms if you’re by yourself. With the nuts in hand, take you hands out your pocket. I meant the ones off the dampers. Your going to want to remove the damper knob for this. Slip the damper in bottom first and you won’t make it to the top mounts without putting some down pressure on the brakes to slip these into the topmount position. You’ll have to reach over into the trunk and put at least one nut on a bit to hold them in place from falling out. Once it’s in place position the lower bracket and tighten all the bolts and nuts. Once you put the tires on and see the drop where it stands you may want to do some tweaking. To raise you’ll loosen the lower lock ring and grab the core and turn clockwise and counter clockwise to drop. I do recommend some mechanics gloves for this. For the front you may want to loosen the lower bracket a bit as it helps to raise and lower. Once you have it set, measure and copy to the other side and you’ll be done quickly. Between smoke breaks and talking **** on the phone it took me 2hrs 45min with no air tools and I was cleaning my hands and ready to go for a spin.



For the drive I cruised around a bit to make sure everything was tight and I had no noise. The setting was on full soft which was very comfortable. The ride was a bit stiffer than stock, but it was not bad at all. I was really impressed on how smooth the ride was. Now my brother is looking for a new home and a few days ago was showing me a new neighborhood under construction which had all the roads laid out but no houses other than 2 model homes. Since I was finished about 6pm I thought where better than that. I got there and sure enough no one in sight. I lapped around to make sure there wasn’t any loose sand on the road and planned out the streets I wanted to lap around. On the softest setting you can perform as well or better than the stock setup, but it’s been a long time since I drove around on the stock setup also. The car leaned in every turn. Playing around with the settings every time I came around to start a new lap makes you think damn, 30 settings is a lot. Full stiff was stiff as a board. The car was completely steady, no leaning in the turns and the tires were screaming. That will definitely be my next upgrade as now they cannot handle what the suspension will. I finally settled for 18 all around for the street. Overall I’d say if your looking for a kit that is capable of riding smooth one minute and shaking your fillings out the next, then this is definitely it. With all the extras like pillow ball mounts and camber plates. I’m definitely happy with my selection. If anyone has any questions feel free to ask. I’ll try to help as much as I can. I’ll try to go under and measure the distance between the upper rings and lower lock ring for those that like the drop where is stands on mine, I didn’t take any pics of the car cuz it’s really filthy right now. I’ll see if I can post tonight or tomorrow as it looks like it may rain today.

BigBallin

iTrader: (9)

do you have your camber set at stock or set up for track use? i see you have it slid over?

kiley_sean

iTrader: (18)

I bought these (BR's) and installed them about 2 weeks ago.

Originally, I was going to do a write-up but I lost all of the install photos (didn't realize that the 'reformatting' function on the cannon meant deleting the card!).
Luckily, I came across this thread and don't think I could have written a better review at all.

They came with 8K/6K F/R, but I swapped the rates to 6K/8K F/R.

HANDLING:
Handling has been pretty good. I just went to autoX this past Sunday and they did well compared to the stock suspension and Hotchkis springs I have ran before. They reduced some of the "push", reduced body roll and allowed me to rotate a little better. It is very predictable and stabile. I don't know about the "riding on rails" comments that every uses, but it definitely doesn't feel as "stressed" or "loaded" when in a corner now. Everything, so far, is pointing to these babies doing what they were designed to do. ***I have been to another 2 Autox's with these coilovers and they are great. I am comparing pictures of before/after and there is a lot less body roll...not to mention the car doesn't get as "upset" as easily during transitions. ***

RIDE:
I am presently living in North Charleston, S.C......which might as well be New York as far as crappy roads. For 90% of it... ride is the same or better than the Bilsteins that came stock.

The other 10% is when you run into a decent pot hole or abmormality in the road. Even at the full soft setting, you definitely feel all of that pothole you just trampled over. There's not much magic a dampner can do when you are running 2X the spring rate as stock. **** After about 2K miles, I have found that keeping the dampnening between 8-10 clicks from soft works out better than full soft (on front and rear). It seems to soak-up the medium-sized bumps better. ****

Ride height: I left the front at the height they came with (which is exactly 1" lower than stock) but dropped the back about 1" to keep it like stock. There is still alot of room to adjust the height, but I am more about function than looks.


Dampening: I have them at about 6 turns from soft in the front, and 8 in the back.

Overall, they were worth the money. They are easy to adjust (height and dampning), seem to be decent quality, and perform as they should. I can't speak about reliability, yet, but with a 1 year warranty and 95$ replacement per corner after warranty...I'm not to worried. ImportImage also has the best deal on these and displayed very, very good customer service. They also ship items lightning fast (which I'm very big on). Ask for Josh.





P.S. BC needs to change the name of it's coilover to something that is a minimum of 4 letters.
No one can find reviews for "BC" or "BR" with forum search engines.

ZK

iTrader: (10)

Any new reviews/updates?

It seems like this is the only BC Racing BR review thread, hard to find and it's not under suspension category.

kiley_sean

iTrader: (18)

Update:

I have maybe about 8-9K miles on them so far. Everything is still good. Nothing is blown, leaking, or clunking (that wasn't already clunking before the install).

I've had to adjust the height a few times here and there and the threads and lock rings are not corroding or anything like that. I usually spray a little bit of brake cleaner on the threads to clear the accumulated dirt, break the lock rings free and then spin them by hand (w/ gloves). The bottom rock ring is doing it's job because I haven't notice signs of it loosening up.

I've done about 5-6 autoX's since I installed them and they remain predictable in all of the different courses they design. The car rotates pretty good and predictably kicks the rear out when I'm forceful in transitions. I've played with the dampening but I can't really tell a difference in handling at an Autox. I just leave it at 9 clicks up front and 11 clicks in the back (from soft).

***Alignment ----Camber: -2.0f -1.0 rear / Toe: 0 all around. The car still hasn't been corner/cross weighed, though, so I know that I'm not doing the car any justice. ***

The dampening on the street is very good. Either I got used to the BR's, the dampners are broken in, or South Carolina has improved it's roads because I don't think my Bilsteins dampened any better. Overall, they are a mild mannered coilover that can be daily driven on without too much drama.

Any questions that I missed, just shoot.

mifesto

iTrader: (58)

i just bought these and installed tonight. right height is perfect as it comes from factory in my opinion... i measured 1 inch drop in front and .5 drop in rear. since its winter and its in 'hibernation mode', im gonna let it sit for a week or two (incase the springs wants to settle slightly) then bring it for alignment. as for install time, my install times were double of what is reported, mainly due to me taking my sweet time. every wheel removed got a full cleanup and same w/ the calipers, im sure that ate an hour right there. i also have the rear cusco strut bar AND v-brace so it just made the rears a pain-in-the-butt(and ate another hour). also every damn bolt/nut were lightly coated w/ antiseize so im sure that ate alil extra time too. wish i had someone assisting me, solo install for coilovers slow it down definetely.

ill update w/ feedback later.

06rs_power

love this kind of info, this is what evom is all about

mifesto

iTrader: (58)

FYI for anyone who has this or want it, the spring preload on them from factory is definetly not matched. this will not only throw off your measurements when adjusting rideheight, it will in essence mismatch your spring rate. i squared this away and still doing tweaks... more update 2 come....

Evol.ved

iTrader: (10)

Update on these?

kiley_sean

iTrader: (18)

Still rocking out. No problems with the BC's. I've now done about 15-16 Autox's and about 20-25K miles on them..same settings. Finally got some 245/45/17 V-710s for my last autox. They complemented the mild uprated spring rates of the BCs pretty well. Anymore tire than that, and I would have some massive body roll and have to go up in spring rates.

Anyways..just rambling here. I still think these are the best bang for the buck mod I have done for my car. They are a good compromise for daily driven Evos that see some mild racing on the weekends. They are a very good starter coilover.

Powahousealex

looks somewhat simple

evoguy69

iTrader: (3)

just got a set of pic coilovers from a fellow evom member and havent installed them yet.your write up makes it look pretty straightforward.thanks

funks

iTrader: (4)

Are you able to raise the car back to stock height with these coilovers? Anybody know how much suspension travel this thing has before it bottoms out? (bump stops hit)?

kiley_sean

iTrader: (18)

The answer to the first question is yes. You can raise it up probably a good 1" higher than stock if you wanted to. The rear coilovers were initially higher than stock when I installed them and they had a good bit of threads left to raise it up.

I don't know about the second question.

funks

iTrader: (4)

Thanks for the reply, much as I like the look of the drop - my IX SE's front lip will definitely be scrapping like a **** all over the place if I lower it (it already does it now from time to time) - glad to know that one can raise the car up to stock levels without issues.