The last time I looked RockAuto had them for a good price. I just had another look and the FE3 absorbers are $64 for the rear and $71 for the front. Hard to beat a set for $270 + shipping.
Unless you plan on doing some performance driving like Autocross or want to lower your car a specific amount, stick to the OEMs. The OEM shocks fit the driving profile for 80% of the owners of these cars.
And this coming from someone who is driving on BC Coil Overs. I love my BCs but I drive my car hard and Autocross it so there is a benefit for me going with the BCs.
Also, depending on if you have a Redline or a Base model, you will have different OEM shocks. The Base model's suspension is designated FE2. The Redline's is FE3. You can put FE3 shocks on a Base model though to fully upgrade to the FE3 Suspension you'll need the springs and anti-sway bars too. Don't just put FE3 shocks on FE2 Springs or visa versa. The shocks are designed to work with the springs that came on each car.
I use the BC Racing shocks like Robo, and I agree with him - except that the stockers are probably perfect for more like 95% of owners out there rather than 80%.
When I replaced my original shocks, I sold my GXP units to a chap with a base model as they are a slight upgrade in terms of springs and stiffness for them. He liked them.
I don't know which model you own as you haven't listed it in your signature, but if it is an NA and you happen across a Redline/GXP owner who is upgrading, you could always get the parts inexpensively and try them out.
I use the BC Racing shocks like Robo, and I agree with him - except that the stockers are probably perfect for more like 95% of owners out there rather than 80%.
5% of the original 100k Kappas would be 5,000, and even with 25% attrition it would be 3,750. That is a lot of hard-core drivers. I think even Bill might be under-estimating.
John is probably right - less than 1% might be closer to the truth.
No way to know unless an insider at GM happens to know how many of the uprated sway bars(for instance) they sold, or BC Racing tells us how many Solstice customers they had.
The stock suspension, especially on the turbo cars has always struck me as a pretty good compromise. Any 'sportier' and they'd have turned off some of the sedate driver type of customers.
The one time I drove an NA, I found the suspension noticeably softer, less crisp if you will, but I bet that if they'd gone for the turbo car settings it would have dropped the comfort level just enough to irk some potential buyers.
I am driving my NA and RL alternately, so I have had a lot of opportunity to compare the two stock suspension setups. Even driving to work and back I have the opportunity to drive some really nicely twisted back roads. Anyone who has been here knows that our terrain is ideal for driving, and we have a lot of back country two-lanes (sometimes one-and-a-half-lanes), but the roads are not usually glass smooth.
It may be because I am just not a good enough driver to take advantage of the stiffer suspension, but I find that, horsepower aside, my NA is faster on a given road than my RL, and I attribute that to the (slightly) softer suspension. A less than perfect road surface moves the car around quite a bit, and a stiffer suspension can make a lot of the movement pretty violent. It is a lot easier to control a car when you are not fighting to stay attached to the car and I believe that contributes to being able to drive it faster. The softer suspension also helps to keep the tires in contact with the road, and I have noticed that the the NA doesn't lose grip quite as easily as the RL on broken pavement.
I am not driving at the limit, since that seems pretty stupid on a public road with the occasional bicycle or farm tractor and no runoff areas. I do run at 60-65 on most of the roads so I am not just puttering around the countryside.
The difference isn't enough to make me want to put an NA suspension on the RL, but it is enough to keep me from putting the RL suspension pieces that I bought on the NA.
A softer suspension is better on rough roads for the exact reasons you mention John. It will work better absorbing the imperfections rather than transferring them to the chassis as a firmer suspension would and thus upsetting the chassis. I don't know how rough your roads are there...but I know here most are pretty good in those areas where they get twisty.
City and highway though, they can get pretty bad. LOL But we're not carving corners there.
I would say that our roads are pretty typical of an area that gets more than one season. Freeze-thaw cycles do unpleasant things to pavement, and it doesn't take a lot to upset a stiff suspension.
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