Thread: Ohlins DFV Thread

Ok, here it goes:

General settings:
Alignment (see above posts)
Tyres: Toyo r1r 245\40 r18
Other relevant chassis\handling mods: Polyurethane bushings, sway bars (progress techs on full soft f\r), f\r 2 point strut bars.
Coilover set-up: slightly lowered car, full hard -7 clicks front - full hard -10 clicks rear.

Now on to the actual review:
Dry (Spa\Ring)
The Ohlins DFVs are simply amazing and clearly better than anything i have tried before. Scrap the entry level coilovers and put to shame KW\Bilstein\HKS and the likes.

Compression and rebound are greatly balanced, turn in response is sharp and the shock is very progressive during fast turns (flat out on the doettinger hoehe - 170 or so for the double gauche at spa with a drying track). You can really feel the tyres working without that "too hard" feeling of being about to hit a wall.

Despite this progressiveness the car is still sharp during quick changes of direction and correcting the line with just the throttle becomes an easy task.
This features also makes the life a hell of a lot easier for trail brakers. Even if your nose-dive your car and lose grip to the front (what usually ends up in a spin, flip, hit, whatever bad you can think of) the shocks still do their job well. Lift the brakes gently and you'll be pointing straight to the apex. Forget the unpredictable spring decompression that many other coilovers offer.

It actually saved my car on a couple of occasions
The only downside i can think of, without a rear clutch lsd, is that the rear inside tyre might lose some grip under the right circumstances. That may very well be a sway bar set up issue though so i'll leave it as a guess and an overall impression.

Wet (Spa):
I adopted the same dry settings for the sake of testing the setup under different scenarios.
This type of coilover prefers the gentle driver when grip isn't a must. Digressive braking gives place to progressive techniques. Slam on the brakes and you'll end up in the gravel (ask me how i know...), brake release becomes even more important.
Given the extremely reduced grip levels and the shock set-up it's better not to force the lines: gently point the apex a tad earlier than you would on a dry surface and let the car gently slide out of the corner. Play with the throttle and not with the steering wheel! Even if they were intended for dry tarmacs and with dry stiffness settings the Ohlins have a great feedback and even the little oversteer they offered was more than manageable. It actually becomes and advantage if you have the guts

Road
With my settings cold tyres don't help on the road, nothing to worry about.
They managed the extra cargo (luggages, backpacks, tools etc) nicely, a bit noisy but still great all-around potential.

That's all I can think about for now and i don't intend of re-reading this post. If anything is unclear or you have any questions just contact my manager well, just friggin post back

Great to hear

The "race" version is the same shock, revalved with higher spring rates.
This means that it will be worse with any tyre that isn't a slick, on any surface that isn't completely flat track tarmac.

Then there are their real race shocks but they cost more than what our cars are worth.

8-6 i guess.

I'm with bse, I got them for almost a year and I wonder why the fuck did I waste time on stock and the HiperMax III that I had(raped by great NYC roads, the bottom mount was snapped in 1/2)

I mean HiperMax III is not bad (HiperMax III Sports is much better, but not available for our 8), but it's a bit harsh for NYC roads even at the softest setting. and its bound/rebound is not that balance.

I kept mine at the default 10 settings for NYC great roads, last AutoX I kept it at default and performance was ok. next time I'm gonna turn it to -10 from hardest like bse and see what happens.

it's 8/6K