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Dan at MAX USA

Mon Dec 28 2009, 09:17pm

Registered Member #2

Joined: Sun Jan 21 2007, 08:28pm

Posts: 2866

Basically this whole issue is dedicated to people who had their drift car for a while and is looking into changing their tired old suspension.

Question is should you save some money or get the best of the best?

Drift Tengoku has seen alot of companies offereing new suspensions for less and so they decided to do a test.

This was a test of 3 Competitors:
DMAX recommended from Nakamura from Burst $1350

Parts Shop MAX recommended from Yokoi from Mind Control $1000

HKS Hypermax-D NOB spec recommended from Taniguchi $2400

Racing gear was the old worn out coilovers on "Funky's" car who works for dtift tengoku
His car is a S13 with TD06 turbo making 350PS with roll cage, GP sports knuckles 4* front camber 1* rear camber zero toe front and rear.
Testing time was 12 minutes each at mobara twin circuit
tires were new 235 40 17 federal ss595 3kg/m2 pressure rear
This was a blind test meaning the driver did not know which ones he was testing till later.

MAX
located in fujieda city
Yokoi from mind control recommends this because he's been doing good in D1SL with it
Normally they come with 10 - 8 but since Yokoi runs 8/6 thats how they tested it.
side note 6 kg is only in black
A very unique thing about these is that the pillowball uppers for both front and rear both have a spring top had that allows unrestricted pillowball movement.

They liked how most of the construction is aluminum so the whole set weighs 19 kg which is the lightest of all types tested. This is a good mix of Japanese and overseas parts to give you a great suspension for $1000
(they started out on click 4 front and 4 rear out of 8 )
First impression is that it felt stiff and they wonder why because the spring rate is lower than the standard rates. They noticed that the front end of the car feels amazing, and responsive so he could see the difference between this one and his previous suspension. He likes the way it feels when the car gets up on the track curb. The rear felt bouncy so they put the rear on full soft and afterwards it felt better. Funky says with this change the rear feels good and the front has massive traction so when you kick the back out hard, the car has a feeling of control. One important thing to know about how Parts Shop MAX is different from other stiff coilovers is that typically when a car is set up really stiff, its usually it is prone to spinouts, but the opposite was true of p.s.MAX - it had great control.

Racing gear JTC/N1
This suspension was on the car for the last three years but the shock was not blown. The bottom mount bushing was worn. The spring was switched to Eiback 8KG in the front and swift 6KG in the rear. The tester knew right away it was his suspension. He knows this suspension really well, it is easy to kick out the tail but once it starts sliding its hard to stop. Single runs he can drive this suspension bcause he knows it, but the rear is too unpredictable to follow someone well or get consistancy in back to back runs.

HKS Hypermax-D NOB spec
They talk about how it comes with many tools for special adjustments. The front has a 2 way adjuster for camber and caster. Rear has a helper spring. Super high quality and beautiful. Has a 1 year warranty. They say it felt great just driving down the paddock, soft. There is no special characteristics to the drift feeling, it was just straight forward feeling, so they tried to see how it feels by clicking the damping one click and that is impossible, it just feels the same, they had to click it 14 times just to tell the difference. There is no extreme characteristics, so it hay be good for a beginner, but for the drivers taste he would prefer something more "edgy".

D-MAX
The tester was really interested in finding out about this suspension because the D1SL was won three times on it. Quality is good, and comes with all the little accessories so thay are impressed with what you get for the price. Started out with 16 out of 32 clicks. He likes this the best for overall balance. This suspension matches the S13 well. Trying the rear softer, there is major understeer so he was like OH Shit and so he tried front and rear full soft and didnt like it either so he put it back to where it was before. Says it is good because the adjustments actually work for dialing in you type of car.

Summary:

Best Cost effectiveness - DMAX

Best Comfort - HKS

Best Purchase ability and steering response - Parts Shop MAX

Unique things about each one:
Dmax has a slotted lower for more camber and a fitting so it wont come loose
Hypermax-D the most positive camber setting could only get it to negative three, so this in in line with more modern camber settigs used with knuckle mods.
Parts Shop MAX - The huge difference in weight of the aluminum brackets - the coarse thread makes it easy to adjust - the issue with the rear balance that they did not have time to fine tune could be dialed in on your car to get the perfect balance with the fantastic front feeling during testing. Being the cheapest is a real plus too!

~~Our thoughts~~

After reading the article, I am thankful that they chose to feature us and that they touched on some things that were important to us like giving you alot of coilover for a little money, but I am a little bummed that they did not touch on some other factors that make our suspension great for alot of people like its low ride height ability so I would have liked to see a compairo of a company with a more similar goals to ours like 326 power (cover cars of this issue) which has spring rates of 14/12 KG. Its necessary to have higher spring rates and proper alignment settings such as a traction rod lengthened for a super low car (and the higher rates dont feel as high as you would imagine when all of the settings are in harmony) Clearly Funky at DT has a preference for softer rates whereas our prefernece is for the 10/8 in cars setup for maximum style and performance. Also the overall conclusion was that DMAX was #1, and thats a little weird since the car testing this stuff has DMAX stickers all over it. Is Funky partial to a certain advertiser in his mag with a multi page ad every month? lol

[ Edited Mon Dec 28 2009, 10:15pm ]

danegerous

Wed Dec 30 2009, 01:40am

Registered Member #52

Joined: Wed May 02 2007, 08:15pm

Posts: 199

Worddd

stephen-knight

Wed Dec 30 2009, 03:15am

Registered Member #639

Joined: Fri Nov 20 2009, 08:00pm

Posts: 10

Haha good shit, i was thinking the same thing about the somewhat biased opinions, but still the feature is sick

adrian

Sun Jan 03 2010, 07:30pm

Registered Member #107

Joined: Wed Jul 11 2007, 08:57pm

Posts: 83

haters will make you famous.

Matt_T

Mon Jan 04 2010, 02:15pm

Registered Member #614

Joined: Mon Oct 05 2009, 06:51pm

Posts: 17

Haha, my dad has worked in publishing for years, I promise no test EVER carried out by any magazine has been won by a company that doesn't advertise heavily with them!

You guys should start selling mags....

Levistey0

Tue Jan 12 2010, 11:35pm

Registered Member #36

Joined: Thu Apr 05 2007, 06:39am

Posts: 29

Hey Dan! I picked up this issue of DoriTen and was gonna ask if anyone could've translated it!

I just bought a set of MAX c/o for my SC from a guy from FL. for a good deal. I slapped them on and have to say that they are some of the most solid coilovers I've ever felt. It's a nice and tight ride and feels great hugging turns or even breaking the rear end loose.

Did anyone notice the prices of the other brand coils being reviewed? For $1000 you are definitely getting the best bang for your buck for a great set of quality-made suspension!

The fact that MAX coilovers were being reviewed had to be an honor in itself!

MAX parts are quality in my book!

Gabes13

Mon Jan 24 2011, 04:46pm

Registered Member #462

Joined: Thu Nov 27 2008, 06:10am

Posts: 36

What do the little hexagon graphs say?


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