Hello All

Looking for some quality/effectiveness/durability thoughts from folks regarding coil-overs.

Leda do conventional single adjust air/oil shocks as well as remote reservoir gas charged units.

AVO look like a real bargain -- anyone who requires a thong model on their website to sell auto-bits seems a bit suspect though.

I've been talking to a fellow local to me about "HotBits" coil-overs, rebuildable, non-adjustable, gas charged inverted monotubes.

Looking to do some double duty in the car trackdays, autocross and the occasional gravel rally (with the appropriate tire and ride height changes).

I'd like something rebuildable but don't want to be ripping them off the car every weekend.

TIA, Ted

I Have used both Spax and AVO Coilovers, Steve Turner has the Ali AVO's on the LMP and they seem to be doing fine, and trust me they have taken a hammering
Shug

proflex are the choice of many top teams - youll also pay top price , you see , when i view a damper as a control item , for very small suspension movements you need precise control which is always going to cost more . Leda are good , better than spax , dynamics , proflex , bilstein are all top quality . When i was in the GT team for Darrian , i spoke to a damper technician - he said basically if you cant get what you want - send me a bilstein , ill rebuild it to your specs , nuff said .

Thanks guys! -- I left Spax out as IMHO they're crap, the blue undercar neon of suspension .

So so far a 'big' vote for Bilstein and a vote for ali AVO's.

Keep 'em coming especially if you have any "They started leaking the instant I installed them, called the factory and they didn't want to know..." stories.

Customer service is worth a lot in my way of thinking.

Cheers, Ted

We have Protech as sold by MK (there are other suppliers). We; as have others; found these to be an excellent product for good money.

Anyone else out there got Protech's?

Hi all,

I've said this before, worth saying again though.

A brief modern history of the adjustable twin tube damper:-

Spax was the daddy. They supplied a few out the back door to the guy who setup AVO. When they stopped supplying him, he took the shocks to bits, copied them and AVO was born.

If you ever need to rebuild either a Spax or AVO you can do so by swaping parts between them.

When AVO was sold, the same guy started up GAZ in partnership with someone else. They used the same suppliers to supply the same internals. Again you can use SPAX, AVO and GAZ parts to rebuild any of them.

When the GAZ partnership turned sour, a few months later the same guy started up Pro-tech. The Protechs are a little different inside as they use old Nitron internals. Ahh but here's how the circled is completed. The guy who owns and designed the Nitron is former Technical Director at SPAX........................

When talking about the likes of Proflex, you are talking quite a different product. These are mono-tube gas charged dampers. They are generally made to much tighter tolerances, use bigger pistons, generate less heat, move more control oil, dissipate heat faster etc.. These features allow for better control and more predictable control of the suspension.

Also the type of valving and adjustment methods allow for tuning specific characteritics of the damper which gives you more control, and seperates the areas of handling out for fine tuning.

Of this type of damper you'll usually find that the Bilsteins are around about the cheapest, but, are non adjustable. Then comes the new version Nitron, that i helped design, and these are considerably cheaper than Proflex, Dynamics, Penske, Ohlins, etc.

Leda are just not worth talking about, the basic architechture of the internal valving is straight out of the arc. These in my opinion (used them before i was educated many times) are not really an option in this application.

Kind regards,

Darren

Thanks very much Darren!

Didn't realize there was that much intermingling amongst the British shockmakers.

A friend locally has advised against LEDA as he says their seals are not the greatest and they make their shafts out of licorice -- they do apparently perform quite well "as new".

In your opinion is AVO's quality control better than SPAX? I ask as I've not had any luck with SPAX tube shocks in Mini fitment (and have numerous friends who've had similar complaints regarding leaking from first fit and poor/little warranty response).

E-mail is 'ted@andkilde.com' if you'd rather not respond on the public board.

Apologies/explanation in advance, I know you do your own units for Locost fitting, I'm looking for non-Locost applications though.

TIA, Ted

I have no real knowledge of the quality control processes at any of the companies. All i have is secondhand info regarding Spax.

We get to see quite a lot of these shocks including AVO's. Problem is they all have problems (because thats why they get sent to us usually) so in our experience it appears that they are all poor!

We have had a couple of ally AVO's break through the body during the warm up cycle on the dyno.

Darren

I meant to add that its a bit unfair of me to comment on the reliability of the units, due to the fact that the majority of the ones we see are broken or well worn, because of the fact that the customers are looking to replace them.

Do you folk quote prices on the shocks?

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Originally posted by chrisf
Do you folk quote prices on the shocks?

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