Steeda Pro action vs Ford Performance Shock and Struts —Witch is Best and Why????

[SVT-DADDY]

Anybody run FP Track Struts with BMR SP080 springs? While the SP080 springs are really designed for the stock PP struts (with nearly identical spring rates), there are some times when I feel the damping of the PP struts is just "barely" adequate.

They do react reasonably well on more bumpy roads, but some times they feel a little too quick on smoother roads. Softer spring, higher damping rate = slower response, but PP struts seem to be barely able to handle the PP spring rates from the start. Just wondering how much higher the damping rate of FP Track Struts are over PP struts?

I run the BMR minimum drops(same rates as the SP080), GT350R bars, and FRP Dampers. Basically what I have is FR track pack lite.

Prior to that I have the same set up with PP dampers, I'd rate that set up a 4 on a scale of 1-10. Prior to that I had the stock dampers with the BMR springs, which I would rate a 1. I've been down this road before. lol

The current set up is aces in my book, and let me tell you if I didn't love it I'd be researching a 4k set of coil overs now because I refuse to drive a car that I don't enjoy driving. The car feels flat, and controlled but not overly stiff. The PP dampers felt really crashy with these springs and bars. The FP dampers don't. I wouldn't say that the car feels over dampened at all.

Would it be sharper with stiffer springs.....sure. However for the road quality around here I am content with my "FPL" package.

I had a newer S4 tailgating me on a long stretch of windy highway the other day. He didn't want to slug it out with me but rather see if he could stick to my bumper in the twistys. As I started increasing speed he fell farther back, I could see his car leaning and his line getting chaotic. Until about 90 I had 2 fingers on the wheel, a coffee in my left hand, and was having a conversation with my wife. I then put the coffee down and drove away from him.

Big thumbs up when he passed me 2 exits later!

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[wildcatgoal]

Excellent work :lol::lol:. The Tein article is factual, albeit it does have some opinion in there too. Oh and I've mentioned Bilstein precisely two times in my build thread lol. You never disappoint for some laughs buddy.

...exactly the sort of response I expect from you. I'll be in your neck of the woods the first two weeks of July. You can buy me a beer, and we can see how many more laughs you get.

 

[BmacIL]

...exactly the sort of response I expect from you. I'll be in your neck of the woods the first two weeks of July. You can buy me a beer, and we can see how many more laughs you get.

Some beers are definitely in order.

 

[TheLion]

I run the BMR minimum drops(same rates as the SP080), GT350R bars, and FRP Dampers. Basically what I have is FR track pack lite.

Prior to that I have the same set up with PP dampers, I'd rate that set up a 4 on a scale of 1-10. Prior to that I had the stock dampers with the BMR springs, which I would rate a 1. I've been down this road before. lol

The current set up is aces in my book, and let me tell you if I didn't love it I'd be researching a 4k set of coil overs now because I refuse to drive a car that I don't enjoy driving. The car feels flat, and controlled but not overly stiff. The PP dampers felt really crashy with these springs and bars. The FP dampers don't. I wouldn't say that the car feels over dampened at all.

Would it be sharper with stiffer springs.....sure. However for the road quality around here I am content with my "FPL" package.

I had a newer S4 tailgating me on a long stretch of windy highway the other day. He didn't want to slug it out with me but rather see if he could stick to my bumper in the twistys. As I started increasing speed he fell farther back, I could see his car leaning and his line getting chaotic. Until about 90 I had 2 fingers on the wheel, a coffee in my left hand, and was having a conversation with my wife. I then put the coffee down and drove away from him.

Big thumbs up when he passed me 2 exits later!

Sounds great then. I'll run the stock PP dampers for a year or two until I hit 50k then maybe swap out to the FP Track Dampers and keep my SP080's. I think the 170/740 rate is a really good in between setup for street / track. I was topping out 3rd on back roads this past weekend (pretty bumpy back country roads) with a slightly over loaded car (750 lbs of passengers by my calculations, may cargo capacity is supposed to not exceed 685 lbs) and the car was surprisingly planted unless the road got really bad. With less cargo it would have been even better.

What I'm running now is my stock PP struts on SP080 springs, MaximumMotorSports Caster / Camber plates up front (boy that front end is lazer precise, there is not a mm of slop in it between the PP forged lower links with spherical bearings and spherical bearing camber plates up top and the already 0 slop steering rack). Also using the Ford performance Bump Stops (I didn't see a need to cut the stock ones when you can just buy the FP ones designed for lowered setups, works perfectly and surprised BMR didn't recommend those in their instructions).

I learned a lot from my Ecoboost adventure and I've tried to avoid changing things necessarily or shooting for the moon only to go back because of reliability issues / drive ability issues / or unintended performance side effects. This time around I've tried to capitalize on the existing design by tweaking it slightly rather than "radically altering" it.

How about sway bar settings? The stock PP sway bars could have another hole drilled in them to give them some adjust ability. I've read quite a few people say you don't want to add much in the front sway bar or the car will over steer much more suddenly on-throttle mid corner.

I'm thinking I'd be better off with the FP Track Struts on my Stock PP sway bars with maybe a little adjustment via the link position which can be done with a drill.

BTW how do you like the Conti Sports? My AS3+'s are toast now with about 1~2/32 tread. Currently burning up the factory Pirellie P Zero's this summer which aren't horrible, but certainly not the "sticky" summer rubber I would expect from a dedicated summer tire. At least they ride nice (smooth) and are fairly quiet. I'm debating on weather I want to go with #3 on Tire Racks list of 300 UTG UHP tires (the Continental Extreme Contact Sports) or #1 (Pilot Sport 4S) when they are fairly close but the Conti's are $70 less per a tire....Pilot Sport 4S's are amazing street performance tires to be sure and they literally excel at everything with an exceptional balance. But are they worth $70 more per tire....?

 

[BmacIL]

If anything I'd go with stiffening the front slightly, and leave the rear. The GT350/350R front bar is stiffer but not enormously so, same for the rear. Once you have camber in the front (for grip and much better track wear), some added bar is good to improve transitional handling. I prefer a stiffer rear spring over going heavier on bar if you need the rear to roll less. It's much more predictable and allows you to keep consistent power delivery.

 

[SVT-DADDY]

Sounds great then. I'll run the stock PP dampers for a year or two until I hit 50k then maybe swap out to the FP Track Dampers and keep my SP080's. I think the 170/740 rate is a really good in between setup for street / track. I was topping out 3rd on back roads this past weekend (pretty bumpy back country roads) with a slightly over loaded car (750 lbs of passengers by my calculations, may cargo capacity is supposed to not exceed 685 lbs) and the car was surprisingly planted unless the road got really bad. With less cargo it would have been even better.

What I'm running now is my stock PP struts on SP080 springs, MaximumMotorSports Caster / Camber plates up front (boy that front end is lazer precise, there is not a mm of slop in it between the PP forged lower links with spherical bearings and spherical bearing camber plates up top and the already 0 slop steering rack). Also using the Ford performance Bump Stops (I didn't see a need to cut the stock ones when you can just buy the FP ones designed for lowered setups, works perfectly and surprised BMR didn't recommend those in their instructions).

I learned a lot from my Ecoboost adventure and I've tried to avoid changing things necessarily or shooting for the moon only to go back because of reliability issues / drive ability issues / or unintended performance side effects. This time around I've tried to capitalize on the existing design by tweaking it slightly rather than "radically altering" it.

How about sway bar settings? The stock PP sway bars could have another hole drilled in them to give them some adjust ability. I've read quite a few people say you don't want to add much in the front sway bar or the car will over steer much more suddenly on-throttle mid corner.

I'm thinking I'd be better off with the FP Track Struts on my Stock PP sway bars with maybe a little adjustment via the link position which can be done with a drill.

BTW how do you like the Conti Sports? My AS3+'s are toast now with about 1~2/32 tread. Currently burning up the factory Pirellie P Zero's this summer which aren't horrible, but certainly not the "sticky" summer rubber I would expect from a dedicated summer tire. At least they ride nice (smooth) and are fairly quiet. I'm debating on weather I want to go with #3 on Tire Racks list of 300 UTG UHP tires (the Continental Extreme Contact Sports) or #1 (Pilot Sport 4S) when they are fairly close but the Conti's are $70 less per a tire....Pilot Sport 4S's are amazing street performance tires to be sure and they literally excel at everything with an exceptional balance. But are they worth $70 more per tire....?

The 350R bars are so cheap you can even buy a set and use them as tuning tools. Surprisingly my car doesn't over steer at all. With around 700whp I am careful with the throttle in corners but the car is really predictable overall.

LOVE the tires. Amazing how well they handle the power, TONS of grip. Very quite....they do ride a little rougher than the Pirelli's they replaced.

My father in law put a set of MPS4's on high C7 Vette, and his HellCat. I've had a decent amount of seat time in all the cars. I'd take the ECS's all day long for the money.

Both tires have tons of grip, but I'll give the edge to the ECS especially in a straight line. The ECS seem a little quieter, the MPS4 might ride a hair better.

It's really too close to call. I am actually a Michelin fanboy, all my cars run them when possible. I branched out here and I am glad I did.

 

[Blackhawk25]

so would the Steeda minimum drop springs work as good as the bmr with the Ford track dampers?

 

[SJulian10mm]

Sounds great then. I'll run the stock PP dampers for a year or two until I hit 50k then maybe swap out to the FP Track Dampers and keep my SP080's. I think the 170/740 rate is a really good in between setup for street / track. I was topping out 3rd on back roads this past weekend (pretty bumpy back country roads) with a slightly over loaded car (750 lbs of passengers by my calculations, may cargo capacity is supposed to not exceed 685 lbs) and the car was surprisingly planted unless the road got really bad. With less cargo it would have been even better.

What I'm running now is my stock PP struts on SP080 springs, MaximumMotorSports Caster / Camber plates up front (boy that front end is lazer precise, there is not a mm of slop in it between the PP forged lower links with spherical bearings and spherical bearing camber plates up top and the already 0 slop steering rack). Also using the Ford performance Bump Stops (I didn't see a need to cut the stock ones when you can just buy the FP ones designed for lowered setups, works perfectly and surprised BMR didn't recommend those in their instructions).

I learned a lot from my Ecoboost adventure and I've tried to avoid changing things necessarily or shooting for the moon only to go back because of reliability issues / drive ability issues / or unintended performance side effects. This time around I've tried to capitalize on the existing design by tweaking it slightly rather than "radically altering" it.

How about sway bar settings? The stock PP sway bars could have another hole drilled in them to give them some adjust ability. I've read quite a few people say you don't want to add much in the front sway bar or the car will over steer much more suddenly on-throttle mid corner.

I'm thinking I'd be better off with the FP Track Struts on my Stock PP sway bars with maybe a little adjustment via the link position which can be done with a drill.

BTW how do you like the Conti Sports? My AS3+'s are toast now with about 1~2/32 tread. Currently burning up the factory Pirellie P Zero's this summer which aren't horrible, but certainly not the "sticky" summer rubber I would expect from a dedicated summer tire. At least they ride nice (smooth) and are fairly quiet. I'm debating on weather I want to go with #3 on Tire Racks list of 300 UTG UHP tires (the Continental Extreme Contact Sports) or #1 (Pilot Sport 4S) when they are fairly close but the Conti's are $70 less per a tire....Pilot Sport 4S's are amazing street performance tires to be sure and they literally excel at everything with an exceptional balance. But are they worth $70 more per tire....?

I ran the stock PP dampers on BMR SP082 & SP089s for about 1000 miles, found the ride very bouncy (under damped), quickly pony'd up for some pro-action ajustables. This corrected all the bounciness, increased handling (turn in) right out of the box and afforded rebound adjustability (even more turn in) once on the track. As said before my HOD instructor thought i was running some expensive coilovers until i told him the setup...he was shocked...no pun intended!

 

[SteedaTech]

so would the Steeda minimum drop springs work as good as the bmr with the Ford track dampers?

In testing we have found the Steeda Minimum drop springs to work extremely well with the Steeda Pro-Actoin non adjustable and adjustables.
Furthermore, they will provide a better ride quality than the Ford track dampers,related to this application.

Steeda Tech

 

[tj@steeda]

Happy to help with pricing & ordering support!

Best Regards,

TJ

 

[Flyhalf]

I know is a old post but I'd like to report some additional info because I'm deciding what to do next to the car .
This is most for the track purposes .
I track my car twice a month and I have 7k miles .(car bought in june 18)
My car 2018 pp1
I have some aereo and I run 305mm square on track. With a -3.2 camber front and -2 back
My "suspension " mods:
1 BMR handling springs
2 BMR cradle lockout
3 J&M monoball front
Car is doing very well .Precise on corner but still some problems with fast chamge in direction and still body roll.

Yes i know COILOVERS . right now they are out of budget ( if you buy somenthing you should buy good stuff like Cortex JRi around 5k)

So talking also with BMR their suggestion was try "better SHOCKS AND STRUTS to work with the springs
Btw
OEM perf pack springs are
165 lb in front and 720 lb in rear
While BMR
250 Lb in Front and 980 lb Rear
50% stiffer than Oem front and 37% rear

i called FP and Bilstein to find some " data"
BILSTEIN TOLD ME THEIR B6 are 5%stiffer than OEM
and I'm still waiting an answer from Ford .
Main thing I'm looking for , togrther with better valvimg, is a stiffer rebound .
I hope to know more about ford soon

Keep you posted
Alex

 

[BmacIL]

I know is a old post but I'd like to report some additional info because I'm deciding what to do next to the car .
This is most for the track purposes .
I track my car twice a month and I have 7k miles .(car bought in june 18)
My car 2018 pp1
I have some aereo and I run 305mm square on track. With a -3.2 camber front and -2 back
My "suspension " mods:
1 BMR handling springs
2 BMR cradle lockout
3 J&M monoball front
Car is doing very well .Precise on corner but still some problems with fast chamge in direction and still body roll.

Yes i know COILOVERS . right now they are out of budget ( if you buy somenthing you should buy good stuff like Cortex JRi around 5k)

So talking also with BMR their suggestion was try "better SHOCKS AND STRUTS to work with the springs
Btw
OEM perf pack springs are
165 lb in front and 720 lb in rear
While BMR
250 Lb in Front and 980 lb Rear
50% stiffer than Oem front and 37% rear

i called FP and Bilstein to find some " data"
BILSTEIN TOLD ME THEIR B6 are 5%stiffer than OEM
and I'm still waiting an answer from Ford .
Main thing I'm looking for , togrther with better valvimg, is a stiffer rebound .
I hope to know more about ford soon

Keep you posted
Alex

Can confirm that the FP Track have quite a bit firmer rebound than the stock PP dampers. The rear actually have less compression damping, but the PP have too much there for the springs, contributing to the harsher-than-necessary ride and bounce.

 

[Flyhalf]

Can confirm that the FP Track have quite a bit firmer rebound than the stock PP dampers. The rear actually have less compression damping, but the PP have too much there for the springs, contributing to the harsher-than-necessary ride and bounce.

I'll think I'll go with it.
I'll twst it in a month at the same track where I won a muscle cup round .
This will be a direct comparison

 

[BmacIL]

I'll think I'll go with it.
I'll twst it in a month at the same track where I won a muscle cup round .
This will be a direct comparison

Good call. On the same 285 RE71Rs too, of course.

 

[Flyhalf]

Good call. On the same 285 RE71Rs too, of course.

Of course
So ifnI llose i have a justification ..it is ford perfomance faul LoL

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