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MeisterR is out of England. They offer three grades of coil-overs, ZetaCRD, ZetaCRD+, and GT1. Z34 and V36 get CRD or GT1, not CRD+. I don't know what the "+" adds. The CRD is their base offering while the GT1 is custom and costs about 80% more than the base model.
I acquired the CRD model, which are made in Taiwan to MeisterR specs. These are OE-style and offer 32-position adjusters (symmetrical compression and rebound) on the top hats and height adjustment separate from preload. Springs are Eibach only, they wouldn't consider Swift. Rates are 10k/8k. The springs wear a rubber sleeve for a full coil at the top to reduce noise and shock if the coils ever bind.
Installation was straight forward. The only wrinkle for me was my stubborn refusal to permanently alter the car, so I don't have the remote rear adjusters installed through the package shelf. Like a dummy, I forgot to measure the car height before installation. The dampers were installed with out-of-the-box height and preload. MeisterR suggested 15/15 from full soft but I went with 19 front and 17 rear. Car is dropped nearly two inches with the rear a little low compared to the front, aka droopy butt. There is plenty of height adjustment available for me to raise the rear.
Only 55 mostly freeway miles on them so far. Freeway ride is much better than the OE sport dampers. Concrete roads were jiggly, now I feel almost nothing of the low-amplitude surface waviness generated by the hand-smoothed concrete. Spring rate increases over stock but it's not really obvious due to strong OE compression damping that gives the sporty ride despite soft springs. Haven't hit the bump stops yet. More miles should make rate difference more pronounced. I'll be playing with damper settings, too, to see what happens to ride and handling.
Thankfully, I have the Hotchkis sway bars, I believe I'll have to go from full soft to intermediate setting in the rear to regain cornering balance. The MeisterR rates make the fronts a bit stiffer than the rear leading to more understeer than the stock suspension had.
I'll update this review as things change. I paid a little over $1k installed.
[Edit] Added photos. The first photo shows the rear remote adjuster sandwiched between the seat back and the rear cabin structure. Third photo shows the stock left rear spring/damper at 52k miles along side its replacement. Fourth photo is the car on stock suspension, the fifth after the install out-of-the-box and then the car after height adjustment. I raised the rear (to its upper limit) so my ARK tips would stop dragging the driveway as I transited. It also visually better matches the front.
Still need an alignment, more negative camber than before and I assume more toe-in.
Last edited by slartibartfast; 12-13-2018 at 03:19 PM.
Had to raise the rear to the max so that my ARK muffler tips would clear my driveway.
Ran both front and rear full-stiff for today's track event. Even though car is lower by only an inch, stability is up as I increased my exit speed of a very long carousel turn by 8 mph to 83. Tighter turns exhibited more understeer, though. You gotta pick your poison. I do not recommend street driving at this setting, I find it tiring because my head is moving too much. It's like the car is running 16/12 instead of 10/8 spring rates.
I've bottomed the front pretty hard twice now. Front structure hits before damper bump stop on angled entries at more than a walking pace. Lesson learned.
Gotta get pics off my phone. Haven't figured out how to post pics from phone. [Done. See original post]
Build quality looks good. Three wrenches though only two sizes of rings. A long wrench with a different size on each end and each smaller wrench has one or the other size. Actually quite thoughtful.
The rear adjuster cables used anodized red fittings on each end.
Last edited by slartibartfast; 05-15-2018 at 05:32 PM.
theyre quite vague and beat around the bush but it sounds like it comes from a factory in China but I guess meister provides the factory with the specs.
from wat I read same factory as bc coilovers.
04-28-2018, 12:53 PM
