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Yellow Speed Racing Coil Over Kit

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coilovers
17K views 71 replies 12 participants last post by  Rogue Leader 
#1 ·
So the coil over kit has arrived. I wish I could tell you how they drive but it looks like I won't be working on the car till late October or early November at best. Here is their website https://yellowspeedracingusa.com/ however the kit is not listed you need to call or email to order it.

Anyway first some pictures:









Front mounting bracket:



Rear Mounting bracket:



So the first thing you may notice is no camber plates. I was under the impression this kit did have them, however in reading their site closely it says "most kits" have camber plates. I'm not sure but I guess its possible their plate design doesn't fit the top of the tower well. I'm not totally bummed about this but I did email them to see whats up. The second thing to know is to adjust the ride height your are adjusting the lower mount. On the front this is no big deal as the top of the strut has a spherical bearing so you can just turn in the mount once the lock ring is released. In the rear though you will need to unbolt the top and rotate it to get to your desired height. Obviously you're not doing this daily or even yearly, but it makes the ride height setting process a bit tedious.

The dampers have 33 adjustment points. They give you some baseline starting points in the manual. They are adjusted via removable knobs that insert into the top of the strut. You can feel a good click between each adjustment point. Overall the build quality seems solid and just as nice as my ST Suspension (KW Suspension's lower end brand) coilover kit on my race car. they are definitely beefier, they weigh more but I can attribute that to the mounts which are thicker heavier metal than the ST kit which is stamped. The coloring is a bit gaudy but honestly you're never going to see them so whatever.

Each kit is built to order so they take some time to get, I ordered this kit August 27th and it arrived today September 19th. Anyway let me know if you have any questions or want me to take more pics of specific parts.
 
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#3 ·
No, in fact the first page of the manual says multiple times "for off road use only". I will say I searched quite a bit and couldn't find a bad word said about these kits, only happy customers and no failures.

I got an answer back from them regarding the camber plates and they said according to the design spec for the 164 it doesn't spec it with a camber plate, he said he can follow up with the engineers but most likely its due to fitment and suspension geometry, so maybe theres not enough room in the tower for the strut to move within its full camber range safely as well as turn, or maybe the hole in the top of the strut tower doesn't have room for the adjusters. Who knows, I'm fine with it.
 
#4 ·
Not much you can do with a camber plate on these cars due to angle of upper mounting and angle of front fender. If you move out the top of the wheel for some positive camber it sticks out of the wheel well. I can adjust mine about 5mm max for a little less camber or throw it back to stock position which I have done. We have discussed slotting holes for a long time here and it can help with slight adjustment but nothing drastic. There would have to be some adjustment at the lower mounting for the camber plate to work and still be within alignment spec but even then it wouldn't.
 
#5 ·
Ok then that makes a lot of sense as to why they wouldn't include a camber plate then.

The only other thing is how the tops of the rear struts mount there isn't much room to be able to insert and remove the adjuster knob. I may just leave them in and put some tape over the top to hold it in there. Also the stock boot will probably hold it in place as well.
 
#6 ·
I'm glad that, at last, someone is taking the leap (be the guinea pig) to experiment with a coil-over system. The units look really well built and designed. It remains to be seen whether you'll have full functionality (you already touched on some of the problems) and whether the ride will be acceptable. I don't know exactly what your objective is (racing?, street?), or the roads you drive on, but it strikes me given the short small-diameter springs that the manufacturer's disclaimer "for off-road use" might be exactly what you get. I have a car (Lotus 7) that I get seat-of-the-pants performance on a very tight suspension, and another (Alfa 164S) that provides a very different and agreeable ride, driving roles/experiences I would not like to reverse.
 
#7 ·
Objective is a fun street car, lower than stock, something I can carry the family in that is still kind of racey, without being a $90k AMG benz lol. That said I'd prefer to lean towards comfortable than punishing. I am hoping by going conservative on the dampner settings I can dial out the harshness somewhat of the setup. If this setup didn't have adjustable dampners I may not have gone for it simply because it would probably be way more aggressive than I'd want. Unfortunately many of the roads here in NY are awful. And every time they fix them up, they do it as cheaply as possible and the first snow storm destroys them.

The rear strut tops do have a hardened rubber bushing inside the aluminum mount, but the fronts with their spherical bearing are solid, so thats another spot where I may encounter additional harshness. Right now other than trying to build your own with modifying stock parts this is the only game in town for coil overs for this car. There is a set available on eBay but its not much cheaper and its from an unknown manufacturer in China. There was an American manufacturer AMR Engineering that had a beautiful set similar to these, however they seem to have gone out of business.
 
#10 · (Edited)
These are very interesting, but I can just imagine the cost. I do wonder what you will gain, and lose, in using these, since the OEM S struts work well, and can be rebuilt. Time will tell after you have had a chance to try them out.

"The only other thing is how the tops of the rear struts mount there isn't much room to be able to insert and remove the adjuster knob"

It is tight. The aftermarket adjustable rear Konis leave just enough room at the top for the adjuster knob.
 
#11 ·
Cost wise the set was only $880 shipped to my door, so less than the cost of 1 new electronic Boge, or 4 new L struts.

Unfortunately considering the collapse I had last week I would not spend the time or money to rebuild my struts and I'm glad I didn't, they are rotten. If the OEM struts are in good shape it probably is worth it to do if you're not looking to lower the car. But if you need to replace parts this becomes more worth it.

I've read folks with these on other cars compliment them on their ride quality. That said people have different expectations of a Ford Focus or a Honda Accord than an Alfa 164. But their home site shows many installs on BMWs and Mercedes so I'd imagine someone must be happy with them on luxury cars.
 
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#12 · (Edited)
Ok, waiting to hear of your driving impressions, esp if you can more or less successfully match the existing front to rear shock/spring rates within reason. Price sounds reasonable. Same price as I paid for the adjustable Konis when they were available. Might be the way to go if the OEM strut mountings are rusted out. And, new OEM S shocks are no longer available as well, and were ridiculously astronomic in price.

Of course, you could lower the car by just changing springs in the existing struts if they were good.
 
#13 ·
That was the original plan, either rebuild mine or find a way to use a cartridge insert Koni. Spitfire and i were discussing it but then this came up and I went for it.

I'm excited to drive them but it doesn't look like I will have this together till sometime in November.... I hope.
 
#14 ·
Coil over kit availability update.

So before finding this kit I had found another one from a company called AMR Engineering (yes the URL strangely says acura TL but its right):

https://amrengineering.com/product/1993-to-2003-acura-tl-amr-engineering-coilovers/

I had emailed them twice with no answer. Tried to call multiple times over a 2 week period and their phone was busy all the time. Then I went to social media and sent them a message on Facebook. No answer to anything (this was almost 2 months ago). Looking through their social media it was extremely active right up until early February then completely dead, with some folks complaining of unshipped product and lost deposits. There was a cryptic post about a death in their family at that time, but that was it. At this point I was frustrated at how hard it was to give this guy money for product with him having to do no work for it whatsoever, I said screw it and started exploring other avenues.

At 1 AM today I got a message through Facebook:

We had issues with our phone system which have been resolved. Rarely have time to get on FB and we have blockrd it at our workplace due to employees going on FB and Instagram too much. Feel free to email us at info@amrengineering.com as it's our primary communication. We can be reached by our 1800 number as well. Good day!
Honestly sounds like BS to me. How many employees could he possibly have (making custom suspensions to order with a 2 week lead time) that he has to go so far as to block that stuff on his internet. And suddenly he goes from super active on SM to nothing for months. I don't know if the guy had some family issues going on or whatever, but considering there were some people left in the lurch here, I wouldn't be so inclined to send this guy $1600 to get a suspension set built.

Still in the interest of full disclosure I'm providing the info here anyway in case someone wants a US built set of coil overs over one built in Taiwan. Keep in mind also it says "assembled in the USA" . I'm thinking he gets the dampers from somewhere else (maybe even Yellow Speed!), and only makes the tops and bases. They look fully threaded similar to the yellow speed ones, but use a lock screw on the spring perch instead of a lock ring. I personally prefer the lock ring as it can be torqued down with a torque wrench, but I have no basis not to trust the lock screw, I've never had a failure there.
 
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#16 ·
Unfortunately can't see his images without registering.

I'm sure in this car's case the stock struts are best, but in my case they are literally rotting out, and replacing them vs this solution is cost prohibitive. While I have yet to try them, these coilovers have reviewed well on other cars.

I was hoping to get this going this year but I blew the engine in my race car last weekend and its quite cold here. So these parts may need to hang out until Spring. The race car I'm taking somewhat of a break from for a little bit so i can work on the Alfa.
 
#17 ·
#19 ·
Good question, I don't know the stock spring rates to compare but I believe they are not a huge amount stiffer. This is more of a road kit, and from reviews of other cars there have not been complaints of them being overly stiff.

In english instead of metric they are 560 front and 230 rear.
 
#21 ·
The Alfa set does not come with Camber plates. The photos are stock photos, but when I received mine there were no camber plates included and I contacted them whom then got in touch with the manufacturer who said in testing there was no way to make the camber plates work within the Alfa shock towers.

Go back to page 1 I posted photos of what the set looks like. Hope to have them on the car in March or April.
 
#22 ·
i see what you are talking about Rogue, i have a lot planned for my Alfa before i consider Coilovers but it is on my shopping list though. sometime in spring i want to have my Alfa repainted white as i have clear coat issues and i have found someone that can repair my 2 front seats, after these 2 things i should have a pretty solid and clean Alfa. hope your Coilovers work for your alfa!!
 
#24 ·
The fact they are more than half the price of the entire coilover kit tells me I don't need to adjust my camber THAT much. Not worth it unless you're racing it.
 
#26 ·
Ok so my car is on the ground, I will have impressions of these soon. Still needs some work to be driveable. As of right now I'm trying to set up the ride height. I did take stock measurements of my stock parts but I would like some for comparison as EVERYTHING was worn out in my car.

If someone with a 1991-1993 164S with STOCK suspension and wheels could take 2 measurements for me, the ground to the edge at the top of the wheelwell, crossing the axle so its centered, front and rear, that would be very helpful. Thank you!
 
#28 ·
Of course I was in that thread but don't remember it. I wish I had taken that measurement like that when I had the stock parts on the car, just for reference. But this is good stuff thanks for remembering.
 
#29 ·
And here it is on the road:



Thats about 1 1/8" drop all around which is about as high as you can safely go on these. I started out with the recommended stock stiffness settings from Yellowspeed which is 12 clicks up front 8 in the rear

I took it around the block a few times, very smooth, feels probably smoother than my '14 Mercedes E350 Sport, handled very well, car was flat in corners. I think I am going to stiffen it up just a tad for my own preferences, maybe 15 front 10 rear.

I'd offer a comparison to stock, but TBH my old ones were really beat, these are noticeably better but I may not be the best judge.

They really are worth it.
 
#30 ·
Hello, I hope the following helps.
I am Paolo and I am the owner of a 1995 Alfa 164 24v. I bought the AMR coilovers, around 1700 dollars VAT and shipping included. Order made in February, coilovers received in July, but I knew that. The last 3 weeks were horrible because although I had sent 3 emails, 2 faxes and I had left 1 or 2 messages in their mail box, I got no response... I could not sleep.... I was able to find the "correct" way to deal with AMR eventually, and after a couple of weeks I received everything. I went to my Italian (I am Italian too, BTW) mechanic this morning to finally install them on my car (fingers crossed...). Attached are the pictures I took this morning. They look pretty solid and relatively heavy too, although no camber adjustment. In 1/2 weeks I should get the car back and I should be able to tell the new "feeling" :) . So far I can just tell that the old shocks seem to have never been replaced therefore the car seems a ship in a storm even at the speed of 50 miles per hour... Moreover, the left posterior shock was licking oil too... very dangerous in any condition, even while parking ah ah ah! Things are going to change soon hopefully. Keep in touch if you want to know how I feel them, but if you decide to buy the shocks from AMR be prepared to the unpredictable. The owner seemed a nice person in several email exchanges I had with him, honestly, but I do not know why at the very end no one was even able to respond to one of my several email just saying: "Paolo, it's fine, we got your email and we will be sending your stuff soon. Best." Ciao! P.
 

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#31 ·
I will say those AMR Engineering coilovers look a bit higher quality with that reinforcement around the mounting points that the yellowspeeds do not have. The strut tops look identical, spring coils are spring coils, and the threaded sections look the same as well. Set the preload first, put them in the car, and then set height and torque down.

That said I've never heard of one failing yet so I don't know if that extra reinforcement is a big deal or not. As thats the only visible difference, and considering how the Yellow Speeds drive, AND considering the guy takes 5 months to get them to you, I don't know that the AMR ones are worth nearly double the price that they charge.
 
#32 ·
Hi, and thank you very much for your precious advice.

You are very much right. Initially I had found the Yellow Speeds on carid.com, but they could not confirm me 100% that their adjustable coilovers designed (just?) for the 164 12v could perfectly fit my 164 24v too. This, although I had provided them all the Alfa Romeo code numbers as well as the diagrams of the suspensions of both car models. They actually asked me to take some measurements from the old shocks.... something that I did, until just by chance I found AMR and I bought the shocks there. Otherwise, now I may have already the Yellow Speeds installed on my car.


Yes... waiting so many months is really absurd, and the AMR were around 500$ more than the Yellow Speeds.
Unfortunately for these cars just a few years ago (no less than 7 or 8) and according to my mechanic, one was able to find Koni or Bilstein from Europe, mostly England and Germany. Even in Australia I believe, and in one of those old catalog there were listed under "Alfa Romeo 168". In Italy I could not find anything for the 164. What a shame!

On another note, I just installed the Squadra Chip and the intake runners (45mm, mine are 40mm), both bought from Alfissimo.com. The 45mm intake runners are the same of the 250 horsepower GTA. Another slight modification to the catalytic converter and I can say the car runs really great now. Nice sound, never annoying or too loud. I was already able to tell the difference especially after 4000 rpm. But I preferred not to push it until installing an A/F meter, hopefully in just a few days too.

Ciao!

P
 
#34 ·
Hello,

very nice car my congrats! Unfortunately I was here and there until 2016, when I came back to the U.S. after several years. I was in Roma and I had an inglorious FIAT Cinquecento 1998 (35 horsepower AHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!)

That's the result I hope to get in term of height, I mean similar to the red 164 of the picture: not as high as stock but not too low too. Did you have any problem with the camber and similar stuff? Does the car handles well? I can't imagine with 4 225/45 on 17'' wheels... :)

Ciao!
Paolo
 
#36 ·
I increased the stiffness by 2 clicks all around. It made a decent difference I can feel in the corners a bit and the car is a touch less smooth. I took it on a much longer drive today and even over some bumpy crappy road and the car felt great, smooth, it really absorbed those bumps without much fanfare. These really are good units. Highly recommended.
 
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#37 ·
Update for anyone considering these. The bolt holes are a touch elongated on these. Getting an alignment today this allowed for +- 2 degrees of camber up front. Maybe even more if we really hammered on it. Another nice feature.
 
#39 ·
Hi sorry it took so long to reply. I haven't driven the car in almost a year as it blew a head gasket once I got these on.

The measurements I took on the stock suspension was from the ground to the top lip of the wheelwell
F 26 7/8"
R 26 3/4"

After the Yellowspeeds I am
F 25 1/2"
R 25 3/8"

That is about as high as I'd go with them. I don't think I have enough thread on the strut bodies to go any higher. That said I was planning on taking measurements to be sure, once I start working on the car again some day.
 
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