My background. My NSX is a 1991 with 34k miles on original OEM suspension. I have 3-4 days worth of track experience and a basic understanding of suspension theory and very little suspension tuning experience. I am posting this review to share my experience and build on the information available on NSX Prime.
I have owned the following suspension setups:
1995 Integra SE
OEM
Tokico Illuminas on OEM springs and Eibach Sport springs
Toni Yellow on Eibach Sport springs
2000 Accord EX V6
OEM
Tein Basics
2009 Porsche 911 C4S with Sport suspension option
Thoughts on OEM suspension. Unsurprisingly I did not like the OEM suspension on my 1991. The only time it felt good was on the highway when the road was smooth. Otherwise on bad roads it was harsh and rolled excessively. Lots of understeer. The word that always to my mind to describe the experience was wooden. No wonder coilovers were the first thing I changed on my NSX.
What I was looking for. I wanted the balance of performance and comfort/refinement you would find in the Honda R/Porsche GT/BMW M products of today. Streetable enough for road trips, more than enough performance for the canyon run, enough performance for track use. I also wanted something that was ready to go out of the box, tuned and setup by people who are suspension experts experienced with the NSX chassis.
What I cross shopped. KW V3 including Clubsport version and JRZ RS2. Briefly considered the RS Pro before realizing it would be overkill and too much coilover for me to install, learn and figure out. If I had not gotten the Ohlins I would have gotten the KWs Clubsports I know the JRZs are the superior coilover but too many of RYU’s posts indicated a lot of time and energy needed to get them where he was happy with them.
Why I chose the Sakebomb Garage Ohlins Coilover. Maybe it’s just marketing magic but a part of me is drawn to the Ohlins brand. Beyond that irrational part of me, I had read many reviews on Porsche/BMW forums who loved their Ohlins for their ability to be stiff, compliant and silent due to the DFV technology. The KW’s had reports of leaking shocks and noise. I also didn’t care of the spring rates being equal front to back, although that could be have been changed for more money.
I wanted a Ohlins DFV setup before I even heard of Sakebomb Garage. I search and searched but nobody made a Ohlins setup for the NSX. I saw a post from Italy a few years back and that was it. It was only after watching a Zygrene review on Youtube did I hear SBG was working on a setup for the NSX.
The appealing aspects of the SBG Coilovers.
DFV. The promise of performance with comfort/refinement.
Spring rates. Same as the NSXR. I have no logic behind this other the NSXR is known for amazing handling and Honda chose these rates for a reason.
Recommended by Ohlins USA. I called Ohlins USA to see if there was a company local to me who I could collaborate with because I’m in LA and SBG is in the SF Area. Having the shop who tuned my dampeners close by seemed like a good idea. When the Ohlins rep asked me what car I drove, the first words out of his mouth were to call SBG. He said he had worked very closely with SBG to develop the coilovers using NSX chassis data.
Long Stroke dampeners. I knew dampener length was an issue on the S2000 and suspected this was probably the reason why nobody had come out with a NSX kit until now.
I hesitated in buying for the following reasons.
Price. At $3900 is about 1200-1300 more than a set of KW’s or JRZs. And there’s less adjustment than the KW’s. However you do get aluminum fully floating top hats and spherical bearings. So maybe more comparable to the KW Clubsports.
Spherical bearings. Everything I had read so far indicated spherical bearings were noisy. Heath reassured me the bearings on the SBG Ohlins were silent but I had my doubts. The reason he gave me was the bearings were needed to reduce the hysteresis of the system needed to fine tune the Ohlins dampener.
Scarcity of reviews. I was able to make contact with David Muy who gave me his overwhelmingly positive thoughts. But that’s it, 1 review. I’m not really in to being on the cutting edge with purchases involving substantial money and installation time.
Ultimately I decided the potential upsides outweighed the downsides and ordered a set.
Installation. I’ve worked on Hondas quite a bit and done all my suspension installs. However this was the first time I worked on my NSX and was a bit nervous. Installation fortunately was easy once I figured out on the NSX Prime Bilstein install guide how to drop my coilovers. Heath helped out quite a bit and provided useful tips. No installation guide is provided so you have to have a good idea of what you are doing. Coilovers came assembled which greatly simplified installation and provided me the confidence the coilovers had been assembled properly.
Thoughts.
Appearance and build quality: Coilovers look gorgeous and ooze quality. Candy of course because they soon will be covered with dirt and road tar. The SBG bracket for the brake line looks to be of high quality.
Weight. Saved about 20 lbs all around.
Comfort. I’m seriously impressed. I had serious doubts about whether my expectations would be met. The OEM suspension on my 911 is well reviewed on Rennlist as being hard to to improve on. To me it always had a harshness to it that I didn’t care for even though the handling otherwise was outstanding. My test for harshness is going over railroad tracks at 25-40 mph and the suspension didn’t crash or bounce with the SBG Ohlins. And this is at 5/20 clicks away from full stiff.
Handling. Car is not aligned yet so these are preliminary thoughts. Understeer is dramatically reduced, unsurprisingly. I expected this at a minimum from any coilover setup I was going to get. Much more responsive, again unsurprising given the huge increase in spring rate. Car is way more fun and takes corners like a NSX should.
Noise. None so far. Way quieter than my OEM setup which probably had worn bushings.
Service. Has been great from SBG. Responsive and available, service that is hard to get nowadays.
Adjustments. The weakest point by far. The adjusters are at the top of the coilover and at the front are too short and just level with the engine compartment trim making it hard to grip and rotate the adjustment. It’s even for the rear worse for the rear because the adjusters are too tall and almost make contact with the rear engine hatch trim/garnish. I don't see how I can turn the adjuster without removing the 7 phillips screws each time. A short adjuster that could be rotated with a flat blade screwdriver would be have been ideal.
Final Impression. Very happy to have found a product that has met my high expectations so far. Can’t wait to get the car aligned and take it to the canyons/track.
I have owned the following suspension setups:
1995 Integra SE
OEM
Tokico Illuminas on OEM springs and Eibach Sport springs
Toni Yellow on Eibach Sport springs
2000 Accord EX V6
OEM
Tein Basics
2009 Porsche 911 C4S with Sport suspension option
Thoughts on OEM suspension. Unsurprisingly I did not like the OEM suspension on my 1991. The only time it felt good was on the highway when the road was smooth. Otherwise on bad roads it was harsh and rolled excessively. Lots of understeer. The word that always to my mind to describe the experience was wooden. No wonder coilovers were the first thing I changed on my NSX.
What I was looking for. I wanted the balance of performance and comfort/refinement you would find in the Honda R/Porsche GT/BMW M products of today. Streetable enough for road trips, more than enough performance for the canyon run, enough performance for track use. I also wanted something that was ready to go out of the box, tuned and setup by people who are suspension experts experienced with the NSX chassis.
What I cross shopped. KW V3 including Clubsport version and JRZ RS2. Briefly considered the RS Pro before realizing it would be overkill and too much coilover for me to install, learn and figure out. If I had not gotten the Ohlins I would have gotten the KWs Clubsports I know the JRZs are the superior coilover but too many of RYU’s posts indicated a lot of time and energy needed to get them where he was happy with them.
Why I chose the Sakebomb Garage Ohlins Coilover. Maybe it’s just marketing magic but a part of me is drawn to the Ohlins brand. Beyond that irrational part of me, I had read many reviews on Porsche/BMW forums who loved their Ohlins for their ability to be stiff, compliant and silent due to the DFV technology. The KW’s had reports of leaking shocks and noise. I also didn’t care of the spring rates being equal front to back, although that could be have been changed for more money.
I wanted a Ohlins DFV setup before I even heard of Sakebomb Garage. I search and searched but nobody made a Ohlins setup for the NSX. I saw a post from Italy a few years back and that was it. It was only after watching a Zygrene review on Youtube did I hear SBG was working on a setup for the NSX.
The appealing aspects of the SBG Coilovers.
DFV. The promise of performance with comfort/refinement.
Spring rates. Same as the NSXR. I have no logic behind this other the NSXR is known for amazing handling and Honda chose these rates for a reason.
Recommended by Ohlins USA. I called Ohlins USA to see if there was a company local to me who I could collaborate with because I’m in LA and SBG is in the SF Area. Having the shop who tuned my dampeners close by seemed like a good idea. When the Ohlins rep asked me what car I drove, the first words out of his mouth were to call SBG. He said he had worked very closely with SBG to develop the coilovers using NSX chassis data.
Long Stroke dampeners. I knew dampener length was an issue on the S2000 and suspected this was probably the reason why nobody had come out with a NSX kit until now.
I hesitated in buying for the following reasons.
Price. At $3900 is about 1200-1300 more than a set of KW’s or JRZs. And there’s less adjustment than the KW’s. However you do get aluminum fully floating top hats and spherical bearings. So maybe more comparable to the KW Clubsports.
Spherical bearings. Everything I had read so far indicated spherical bearings were noisy. Heath reassured me the bearings on the SBG Ohlins were silent but I had my doubts. The reason he gave me was the bearings were needed to reduce the hysteresis of the system needed to fine tune the Ohlins dampener.
Scarcity of reviews. I was able to make contact with David Muy who gave me his overwhelmingly positive thoughts. But that’s it, 1 review. I’m not really in to being on the cutting edge with purchases involving substantial money and installation time.
Ultimately I decided the potential upsides outweighed the downsides and ordered a set.
Installation. I’ve worked on Hondas quite a bit and done all my suspension installs. However this was the first time I worked on my NSX and was a bit nervous. Installation fortunately was easy once I figured out on the NSX Prime Bilstein install guide how to drop my coilovers. Heath helped out quite a bit and provided useful tips. No installation guide is provided so you have to have a good idea of what you are doing. Coilovers came assembled which greatly simplified installation and provided me the confidence the coilovers had been assembled properly.
Thoughts.
Appearance and build quality: Coilovers look gorgeous and ooze quality. Candy of course because they soon will be covered with dirt and road tar. The SBG bracket for the brake line looks to be of high quality.
Weight. Saved about 20 lbs all around.
Comfort. I’m seriously impressed. I had serious doubts about whether my expectations would be met. The OEM suspension on my 911 is well reviewed on Rennlist as being hard to to improve on. To me it always had a harshness to it that I didn’t care for even though the handling otherwise was outstanding. My test for harshness is going over railroad tracks at 25-40 mph and the suspension didn’t crash or bounce with the SBG Ohlins. And this is at 5/20 clicks away from full stiff.
Handling. Car is not aligned yet so these are preliminary thoughts. Understeer is dramatically reduced, unsurprisingly. I expected this at a minimum from any coilover setup I was going to get. Much more responsive, again unsurprising given the huge increase in spring rate. Car is way more fun and takes corners like a NSX should.
Noise. None so far. Way quieter than my OEM setup which probably had worn bushings.
Service. Has been great from SBG. Responsive and available, service that is hard to get nowadays.
Adjustments. The weakest point by far. The adjusters are at the top of the coilover and at the front are too short and just level with the engine compartment trim making it hard to grip and rotate the adjustment. It’s even for the rear worse for the rear because the adjusters are too tall and almost make contact with the rear engine hatch trim/garnish. I don't see how I can turn the adjuster without removing the 7 phillips screws each time. A short adjuster that could be rotated with a flat blade screwdriver would be have been ideal.
Final Impression. Very happy to have found a product that has met my high expectations so far. Can’t wait to get the car aligned and take it to the canyons/track.
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