Fortune Auto 500 coilovers
This Saturday, we autocrossed the Mazda. Then Sunday we installed the Fortune Auto 500 series coilovers on my Subaru STi. This also allowed me to put my Wedsport SA-15R wheels on.
Front strut with spare lower sleeve for rear.
The Fortune Auto coilovers come with a shorter sleeve for the rear. I am not sure what you would need these for as they give you the same shortest setting. But with less support. So yeah, not sure what those are for, but I did not use them.
Optional radial bearing mount
I got my set with the optional radial bearing mounts to help the spring not bind up and get noisy while turning. Too bad the color doesn’t match, but they seem to be pretty smooth.
Now the reasons I went with Fortune Auto:
- Digressive valving
- Internals made by BC, but assembled, dynoed, and supported in the states
- Upgradeable to double adjustable if I decide I want to.
Those are the main reasons. But I had some other personal quirky reasons for choosing them over some of the others. I went with 8K front and 8K rear spring rates. Which is balanced much higher in the rear than stock. We will see how I end up liking that on the street. But so far it is really nice. Firm, yet responsive. Never feels loose at all. But I have not pushed it too hard yet.
Adjuster on the rear
Install took less than 3 hours. Everything went pretty smoothly other than forgetting to remove the rear top hat nuts prior to installing the shock then realizing I had to redo that one. That’s right, even perfect people forget. 🙂
I also still had my friend’s corner balance scales so I was able to corner balance the car a bit. That added around another 45 minutes to the job. Upon first check I was very left biased on the front. I ended up just adding a bit of pre-load to the right front to even things out.
Heavy Pig
And yes, I could have evened out that left bias and I could have put more effort into making it better when I am sitting in it as once you add me to the mix the cross balance goes to about 50.4%. But for a street car. It is plenty good. But wow, what a pig! 310 lbs heavier than the Speed3 with basically the same power at the crank.
Rear shot after a wash and coils and wheels
And here she is in all her glory. YUM! Wheels are WedsSport SA-15R 18×9.5 +38 which weigh just under 20 lbs each. Tires are Bridgestone RE-11 265/40-18. I had to roll the rear fender to get them to clear. Even with the coilovers. The front did not need a roll or spacers or anything.
Yum from the other end.
I do wish the wheels were bit more bronze like in the pictures on WedsSport’s website. But either way, they look pretty good. And the new stance makes me really want to drive my car again.
Vroom & BOOM! 
EXTREMELY A BIG FAN of your suspension set up. Can you provide more pics of your rims/wheels or do you have a NASIOC thread?
I just placed my order on my weds sa-15r with the same color and same car color as well!
And what’s your dampening settings and do you rub under full passenger load in the back after the roll?
I have no rubbing issues front or rear. The rear damper settings are set to the middle setting. It is kind of a pain to change them. I would set them a bit stiffer before install. If you are going to race, you should try to do something to make them more easily accessible. The fronts I have set to as much camber as I can to clear the fenders. I have no rubbing, but it honestly feels like too much camber. I think I was at like -2.8 degrees front. I would should for -2 degrees and see if it still clears. As for the damper settings, I change the fronts around a bit, but I lean a bit toward the stiff side as they can get a bit bouncy on softer settings.
Ahh dang, and you notice in your blog that the wheel’s has hardly and bronze into it.
Is it really hard to tell and do you have any other pictures of the car/rim?
Also do you think 255/45 will stop it from rubbing?
Thanks again for taking the time to replying.
The wheels were a LOT darker than I expected when I got them. I have seen some never ones that are more bronze, so maybe you will get lucky. But mine are very dark. In direct sunlight you can see some bronze. But still very dark. And yes, 255’s will clear easier. The RE-11 also has a fairly square shoulder so that on top of it being a 265 means I have less room for clearance.