With the new dampers and springs installed, I get the prefect ride height for my Alfa 156.
The ride height reduction with the Eibach Prokit Sports springs is slight more than the Sachs Performance Set. In the Sachs set, I could put two fingers between the fender and the tyre, now it is a bit tight to do so. Therefore, I reckon Sachs lowers the car about 25mm while the Eibach does 30mm. The new height is exactly what I want.
Preliminary feeling with the new dampers and springs
The very first impression about the new suspension set was that it is firm, indeed uncomfortable on deteriorated road surface; there was one time I even felt sick as the passenger when the car went through a very rough concrete road surface. I could tell every little convex and concave, the car kept bouncing up and down. On the contrary, I didn’t have chances to test the handling seriously due to the rainy weather.
New suspension run-in
After several hundred kilometers run-in, the new suspension becomes much better. It is not bumpy as before running on the same concrete road, the feeling of discomfort has gone, Instead of having the whole car bouncing up and down, I feel solid up and down movement of the suspension absorbing the unevenness while it still maintains to give very rich feedback about the road surface condition. At the same time I feel the car is sticking to the road.
Comparing with the previous Sachs Performance Set, both sets give very firm shock absorption feeling. While both are performance skewed, the B12 set is less comfortable without doubt but its response control to vertical movement of the wheel is faster.
Conclusion about the ride quality
I can hardly say the B12 set is comfortable but the ride quality is absolutely acceptable to me even on roads with very rough condition. However, if you have GF/Wife/Kids who want comfort and you want handling improvement, Sachs would be your choice( you may need to find something similar as the set I used is no longer available). The question is if the compromise of ride quality could exchange for better handling.
Decision of the new dampers and springs
Part 3 – Handling feedback
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