Tokico R Coilovers

[BG-33P]

Hey,

New here so thought I would get the post count going with a review on some suspension I recently bought.

I was looking to get a suspension setup for my del sol that would work well for a daily driven vehicle but also give the flexibility for damper and height adjustments.

Previously I've had Tein and KSport coilover setups and they have proven to be good until you hit a bump. I've always found that the valving in the shock and the spring rates to be too harsh to keep the suspension compliant with the road resulting in sliding over bumps in corners rather then the car absorbing them like you'd want.

After doing alot of research and looking for a shock / spring combo that wouldn't result in the shock blowing out after a few thousand k's I ended up choosing Tokico R Coilovers. They are also known as Tokico RAK but the 'RAK' is just from the part number. RAK-502-I to be precise.

Essentially these are Tokico's Illumina adjustable shocks matched with their 502 lowering springs. The only addition is the threaded collars for the lower spring perch on the shock body allowing you to adjust the height of the vehicle.

Their website says it allows you to lower the vehicle anywhere from 0.5 - 3 inches but the warranty is void if you go lower then 1.75 / 2 inches I think. This is fine for me as I'm not keen on being dumped (been there and done that with the ksports). I want my ride height to be based on function, not fashion.

I ordered my set through shox.com which is an american online store. Shipping time was good, took about 5 business days and I was given a track & trace number as well so I knew what was going on the entire time.

Unlike my previous coilover purchases these ones came completely disassembled and required me to reuse certain parts of the stock suspension. I had to reuse the top hats, dust covers (more on those later) and the tapered washer that sits above the bump stop. Unfortunately my set didn't come with install instructions so upon disassembly of a set of stock shocks I was figuring out how the struts should be assembled. It turned out to be rather easy and there was no need for a spring compressor.

Once assembled, installation on the car was as straight forward as previous setups. When i took it for a test drive, at a totally untuned ride height, i was pleased that the suspension was actually capable of handling pot holes and sharp dips in the road. My only inital concerns were the stiffness of the rear struts and a weird metal on metal sound from the front when sharp bumps were hit.

The metal on metal sound turned out to be the dust covers from the OEM shocks hitting the threaded section of the shock body. I tested the clearance on the shock body upon assembly but didn't check the clearance on the threaded section. It was obviously hitting. Once I pulled it all out, disassembled and reassembled the shocks without the dust covers it all worked perfectly.

The rear stiffness issue was due to the rear struts being delivered with the shocks set to their maximum rate (5), once setting it back to 1 it was much better.

As a comparison for people, when these shocks are set to 5 you're looking at a comparable feeling to Tein SS (i think thats what they were) set to 3/4 stiffness and kSport Control Pro set to 1/2 stiffness. Thats quite good considering the spring rate on the tokico springs is 5k front and 3k rear (compared to 10/10 with the ksports, not sure what the teins were, maybe 8/8??).

Overall, I'm happy with the performance of this suspension setup so far. I've done about 3,000k's on them so far and they seem to be going well, 2,000 k's of that was a road tip from brisbane to melbourne and the suspension didn't make the journey hard at all. They have settled maybe 1cm lower then where i initially set them. Its definiately my favourite setup so far and has meet all of my requirements.


Heres a bit more info regarding my suspension setup to help out:

Tokico R coilovers (dampers set to 2 front and 1 rear)
Energy Suspension Polyurethane bushes throughout
ITR 22mm rear sway bar + new OEM End Links
ASR Rear subframe brace
Stock front strut brace
16 inch wheels with 45 profile tyres

Any questions feel free to ask.

[DreadAngel]

It would be good to worth noting your car and what type of tires you have so people have a better idea on how it feels. But its good to see you're giving a bit of something to the community =)

[BG-33P]

96 del sol
Enkei RPF-01's
Toyo T1R's

[aurnob88]

Thanks for the review

[dillon.ornelas]

when i installed my eibach ground controls with adjustable sleeves, the instructions eibach supplies just said to trim it down the dust cover, i assume your supposed to the same on these

[BG-33P]

Just finished another road trip up to QLD and this suspension is still goin great. No problems at all. Still running them quite soft for highway driving, but I've tightened them up on occasion and there's some good performance there.

I was under the car today servicing her and the struts look great, still in good nick. Just dirty but that's expected.

so far they've done 15,000 kms and no problems. A mix of city, mountain and highway driving.

[deschlong]

Appreciate this write-up. Very little info online about this setup even though it seems to be high quality with lots of adjustability. Your review helped seal the deal on my purchase.

Cheers from Canada.

[tiksie]

Thanks for the write-up mate! Appreciate the effort.

Just a quick question; Why did you choose coilovers over a nice and comfortable shock+spring combo ? Coilovers aren't that comfortable on Australian roads and I didn't see any mention about ocassional tracking.

[BG-33P]

At the end of the day coilovers are nothing more then a spring & shock combo anyway. The only difference is that coilovers generally have a threaded shock body for extra height and pre-load adjustability.

I wanted the adjustability to tune the ride height.

Comfort is largely determined by spring rate, even if you're buying 'coilovers', and the spring rate of these is quite good at giving a comfortable ride. The shocks have a good range of dampening adjustment and with the sway bars and bushes that i already have in the car it sits flat enough through corners.

The springs and shocks that are used in this coilover setup can be purchased separately and used in conjunction with stock honda suspension parts anyway. Which goes to show that coilovers are really nothing more then a spring + shock combo anyway.

In short, I think the stereotype of coilovers being uncofortable is largely incorrect. It should be said that a high spring rate mated with stiff shocks makes an uncofortable ride.