Right in need of some advice from others with more experience.

The other week I got JKM to add Koni Sport Dmapers and some Spax 50mm lowering springs. The car now looks great but im not 100% sure on the handling?!

The other main problem is the other half now refuses to go in the car I know this may have some advantages but thee are many disadvantages too. She hates the fact that the car is too hard and too bouncy! I have loosened the front and that just makes it so much worse. Also the backs can't change without taking them off!

I was wondering what sort of setup people would recommend? I want too keep the LOW look but I also want to be able to switch from a stiff handling car (for track) to a very normal ride so that traveling with the other half is comfory and driving through the New Forest doesn't kill my car

As mentioned im after something thats Low, very easy to change ride height and stiffness and also not too much money as I just shelled out over £300 already :rotz:.

Any help would be great and I know this is the place for it!

Im no expert, but changing ride height (easily) is not really an option.

The only thing i can think of that is smooth and easily adjustable is air suspension or air bags.

It could be that the springs and shockies are not a great match as they are two different brands, so you might need to fiddle with the stiffness of the shocks untill it feels a better ride.

Ive just fitter AP coilovers, the cheapest i could find, but the ride is actually pretty good, and handles like its on rails. your equipment is probably better quality but just needs to be set up on the car rather than coming as a set in the one box.

EDIT : And if you want it low, it needs to be pretty stiff, otherwise it will bottom out way too easy.

When you alter the spring rate by lowering, you will always get different handling, usually worse. With the 1.9 pig iron lump being so heavy, there is a lot of mass trying to go straight on, when you turn into a corner.

I agree a lowered VRS looks the part, but without some serious research into spring and damper rates using on board telemetry equipment to measure loading and G forces, it can be very hit and miss getting a good damper/spring combination.

It very much depends how much testing the companies did who sell the suspension kits. The reality is often a million miles away from the sales blurb they stick out.

Its been lowered on the cheap, so these side effects are expected.

The best way to get what you want is to get coilovers, run them nice and soft, NOT hard like most people would, and don't have them on the extreme of their height travel. Once you've done that go get it aligned straight away otherwise you're wasting money. Lowering will set allsorts of other angles to ****.

Lowering a car is not the be all and end all of suspension mods. In fact it generally makes a car behave worse, on the road especially, as all your suspension arms now work at a different axis to their designed parameters.

Theres nothing you can do with what you've bought i'm afraid to cure what you've mentioned. Try an alignment if you havn't already for handlings sake, should bring it bak near stock, but for the bumpy ride, you're stuck.

I have AP coilovers and I have to say I am pretty damn impressed with the ride quality. Yes its a bit harder but on A Roads and motorways you are pushed to tell the difference from stock.

The pulling left and wierd tyre wear on the rear passenger side is ****ing annoying though

Mine's on Koni STR.Ts now with the matching springs, which lower the car by 40mm over 'non-vRS standard', which is about 25mm lower than 'vRS standard'. If you don't know, they're the non-adjustable cheaper cousins of the Sports that you have. So Koni's matching springs only lower the vRS by an inch - presumably for a reason (and if I'm honest, probably not even that at the back - looks odd, having the same clearance at the front as at the back, but I've read various things that may or may not be true, but which suggest this may be deliberate to ensure handling isn't too compromised... :ne_nau: )

It's hard to tell the improvement they've provided, given that the comparison was with my OEM bouncers with 80k behind them, but to my mind it was far more point-and-shoot when I took it out for a blast the other day, with the front hanging on much better than it used to (could be the 'Marmite' strut brace, though!) Just don't ask me my opinions on their ability over speedbumps! :( Another thing I've read that may also be true or not is that the largest drop a McPherson strut can generally handle is 35mm, any more than that on an ordinary road car, and the wishbone gets inverted over bumps and the camber of the front wheels goes to ratsh...

One thing to bear in mind is that handling and ride comfort aren't the same things, and like has already been said, a harsh ride doesn't mean better handling! The only way you'll get the adjustability you're after is with coilovers and a trolley jack...

I thought getting coils would probably be the answer! :( The springs are the wrong poundage and its beginning to p*** me off! Driving through A roads across the forest you hit a rut that sounds like you hit a curb (which is painful!) then it just bounces up and down!

On coils then how hard are they to rise and lower???

Cheers for all the help so far guys!

If it's bouncing up and down, then the damping rate's wrong. I think in your efforts to soften the ride, all you've done is harm the damping. What you want is for the damping to react to the (relatively high-frequency) bumps without reacting to the (relatively low-frequency) body roll. Short of FSDs, the only way you can get this is to find a compromise setting on the adjustment. I've been told that the dampers in my STR.Ts are effectively Sports fixed on their stock setting, and I certainly have no complaints when driving. I don't know, but I imagine 'stock' is half-way, and I'd be inclined to put the dampers on your Sports back to halfway and then go for a drive, tighten / loosen half a turn, see what difference that makes, and iterate from there. I reckon having the setting at one end or the other won't be any good for anyone (certainly borne out by your experiences...)

If you do go for coilover (don't abandon what you've got yet IMO), then adjustment is something like this:

On coils then how hard are they to rise and lower???

Cheers for all the help so far guys!

Easy. They will usually supply a C-spanner with the coils, you just put this around the adjustable nut and wind the nut up or down on the threaded coilover body.