BC Racing DS Series Coilover Review
Howdy, Haris here. Thought I’d do a little write up on my experiences with the BC Racing DS Series coilovers. – From installation, to daily driving and track driving. It’s been a while since I’ve done a big write up on anything, so excuse the lack of exquisite metaphors. I’ll be comparing these to my 31 year old Mazdaspeed adjustable dampers to give a good idea on the difference between old “racey” suspension and something from the 21st century. Disclaimers: I’m not being paid to write this. I’m just keen to share my revelation to the world. Nor am I a professional racing driver, just a dude that likes to drive slow cars fast.
This is the first time I’ve ever bought a set of brand new coilovers for a car so I was quite excited to receive them once I pulled the trigger on ordering. I wasn’t sure on what spring rates to go for as I didn’t have a clue, but props to BOFI for their pre-purchase customer service. After speaking to Dan on the phone with my requirements and the car’s intended use, I settled for 10kg Front 7kg Rear springs. Which is an excellent compromise between a fast road / track car. A little slightly towards the aggressive side, but in the grand scheme of things, a little stiffness didn’t hurt no one hey.
The setup is simple, BC Racing provides a video on how to properly set spring “preload” before fitting the coils on the car, and fortunately for me the suspension bolts on my car were a breeze to work with so installation only took an afternoon on a driveway. Setting ride height is also a breeze. Having separate height adjustment means you’re not messing around with the spring perch so you have peace of mind when it comes to lowering or raising your car. After setting a height I was happy with, I took the car for a drive. I needed to re-adjust as they ended up settling in a little lower than I wanted. 30 minutes of work, and I raised it to the height I wanted the car to be, and they’ve not dropped any lower since. Perfect.
The difference compared to the old dampers was apparent even just getting into the car. But what surprised me the most, was how compliant the car rides over everyday roads. Bumps, divots, imperfections and potholes when on my old dampers were something you needed to prepare for. Keep everything clenched, brace for impact… Aaand ouch, there goes my spine. Well, at least there was good feedback from the road right? WRONG. Road feedback doesn’t actually need to be spine shattering, The same roads driven on the new setup, and it feels like I’m riding on a cloud. A really stiff, yet mind-bogglingly compliant cloud that reads the road surface to you without smashing your spine into pieces to let you know you’ve gone over a small bump.
Confidence when driving on the road – The difference between the two sets of dampers is night and day. Instead of reacting to how the car will behave to any imperfections in the tarmac, I no longer have to do this as the suspension is able to essentially “cancel out” any detrimental effects a poor road surface has on the handling of a car. Quite important if you’re a B-Road blaster as you have more confidence and can focus on enjoying the drive, rather than having to wrestle with the car to keep it on the road. A good example of this is going over a sweeping right hand crest at *some* speed. Before, I had to make so many micro-adjustments to my steering and throttle inputs just to make sure the rear of the car didn’t go flying off the road, I had the sensation that the car was floating in a limbo world between grip, and certain death. The same corner on the new coilovers, I can comfortably blast over the crest with minimal steering corrections, and confident throttle application because the car now feels like it’s being pushed into the tarmac, even going over a crest.
I fitted the new BC Racing DS coilovers a few weeks prior to the Mighty 5’s track day at Llandow circuit in South Wales, so this was sort of a shakedown event for the new coilies.
Let’s go racing.
Mein gott. I gotta say, my old Mazdaspeed dampers really came to life on a track. The harsh stiffness is where they were at home and actually felt somewhat compliant when pushing the limits of grip.
WRONG. Totally wrong. While the car felt playful at the limit with the old setup, I was hindered by the overall amount of grip I had. With all 4 new dampers working properly, the car rolled considerably less. This means the inside wheels were able to actually grip to the tarmac which felt like the car was being “pushed into” the ground like there was more gravity or something. It’s such a strange sensation. This ultimately resulted in faster lap times, and much better controllability at the limit. Instead of having to react to sudden loss of grip due to poor road holding, while as fun as that was, I’m now in the position where I can force the car to behave how I want it to even more so than before. Not the other way round. No more battles. I have reigned in the steed.
Another thing equally as noticeable is how much more control there is under braking. More springs rate + stiffer damper = less dive + more energy being transferred to the tyres. Don’t quote me, I’m not a mathecist. Because of this, the rear brakes actually feel like they’re finally contributing to actually doing what they’re supposed to do, which in a 1.6 Roadster is a big ask because the rear brakes are quite frankly useless on them.
I wasn’t able to attack kerbs while on trackdays on the old dampers. They were so stiff that when attacking a kerb, I’m pretty sure I had two wheels off the ground because they just bounced right off instead of soaking up the bump. On the BC’s, being able to “straight-line” the chicane on the back straight of Llandow Circuit is mind boggling. The car felt settled and controllable with no drama whatsoever. Soaking up the inside kerb on the chicane, instead of launching me in the air, made a huge difference to my confidence and control of the car.
The adjustability is great. It was pretty fun messing around with the damper settings throughout the day. The morning sessions started off pretty wet with no dry line, so I tried out a more conservative and softer damper setting after some advice from a couple of experienced race drivers. As the day went on, the sun came out and the track warmed up so I was able to try a few different damper settings up to the point where I went too stiff and the car wasn’t able to change direction quick enough on the slow bus-stop section after the pit straight – I had a bit of understeer so dialled it back a few clicks to where I thought it was optimum which worked a treat. Tyre pressures were around 27psi hot throughout the day on AD08RS tyres which I think are a few psi lower than Yokohama’s recommended hot tyre pressure but the car felt really controllable and easy to mess around on the limit so decided to keep it where it is. Enjoy some in-car footage of me trying not to crash, feat. Nick Horne.
So, to conclude – If anyone is thinking about a coilover upgrade, I can’t recommend the BC Racing DS Series coilovers enough. This should be your first upgrade. Not the last. I was kinda holding on to the Mazdaspeed dampers to keep as much “Mazdaspeed” stuff on my Mazdaspeed car, but the Mazdaspeed shocks were Mazdaslow so they’re in the bin. Lol jk they’re in my Cupboard I am NOT binning Mazdaspunk. These of course aren’t a: “fix all the suspension problems on an MX5 and make it a perfect handling lap time machine oh look 50 seconds at Tsukuba that’s a lap record wow”. But they are, in my opinion, the best part to start off suspension tuning. I guess I should now change my bushes.
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-£60
Also wife approved. And I quote: “Why didn’t you do this sooner the car actually feels new”.
– @hyper_octane
https://hyperoctane.wordpress.com/
