Fox Coilovers

In reply to 80sFast :

For corner weighting, typically you make small adjustments in ride height at each corner, as that can move weight around to get the balance you're looking for.  Without adjustable height coilovers, it's harder to make small, precise adjustments for this, so you would have to settle for "good enough" at some point. 

So when do you “need” 1-way/2-way/3-way coilovers? I have also read about re-valving how does this relate to adjustable setups? 

x-way means there are x ways to adjust the shock. 1-way will mean one adjustment that affects either compression and rebound together, or just rebound. 2-way means separate compression and rebound, and 3-way usually has separate rebound, high speed compression and low speed compression. When do you "need" them? When you're a good enough driver that the car is the limiting factor, which means far fewer of us "need" them than we think! Adjustability also comes in handy when you're changing the intended use of the car, but usually I prefer to set the damping to match the car and the springs.

Revalving is another, much more labor-intensive way of adjusting  It can also completely change the way the shock reacts. On an adjustable shock, it'll change your baselines. At that point, you're disassembling the shock and changing out the shims inside that make it work. You can do this at home if you have certain specialized tools.

As noted, Miatas don't have struts although a lot of people will simply assume they do because they're so common in cars where packaging has taken priority over handling. Most cars with a double-wishbone suspension will have a coil-over-spring setup.

A big part of "How to build a High Performance Miata" covers this sort of thing, and while it's Miata-centric it's also applicable to a lot of different cars. 

BTW - easy way to identify a shock vs a strut: a strut is structural. If you take the strut out, the wheel will flop all over the place. If you take a shock out, the wheel will continue to move in the same arc as before. This structural load is why struts are built differently.

In reply to Keith Tanner :

Thanks for all the information. I kind of assumed that multi-way adjustable coilovers were more of a bragging rights thing in most people’s cases, so it’s nice to hear I wasn’t completely off base. So for a daily driven performance car (taken to the track and auto crosses here and there) what would you all recommend and why? Just for the sake of argument the options are 1) Konis with good springs 2) budget coilovers (bc/stance/etc.) 3) top quality street coilovers (kw v3 or the like) 

If it matters I’m more of a buy once cry once kinda guy. 

A good set of springs and Konis are hard to beat. I’d choose that over the generic Chinese coil overs. 

Would you recommend progressive or linear springs?

Keith Tanner said:

A good set of springs and Konis are hard to beat. I’d choose that over the generic Chinese coil overs. 

This all day everyday for almost any performance car.  You can add one or two adjustable sway bars to change the front to rear over under steer bias to suit.  Once you can drive this to the limits, then other options may help.

I wouldn’t put a cheap coilover on any car, ever.

80sFast said:

Would you recommend progressive or linear springs?

Linear. Progressive leads to weird handling traits and damping that is only correct at one given point in the suspension travel.