The coilover thread.

Ceika have excellent response time, sometimes within minutes. I'll give the USA based guys some time seeing as I'm emailing from the future and it's only just come off the weekend.

Charles sometimes takes a few days but he is very informative and good to deal with. Whatever you get make sure that they have a proper thrust bearing at the top and do not rely only on a pillow ball, that's the main reason why I got the more expensive Powertrix race setup.

Yeah the replies are coming in now.

https://www.powertrix.com/z31/z31-suspension/z31ul

http://www.tf-works.com/stance-nissa…port-coilover/

http://ceikaperformance.com/Custom_B…389_p2847.html

Appear all 3 vendors are using the same method for installation. I was supplied the following instructions which may or may not be useful to some but for the purpose of completeness I'll include it below anyway.

Provided by Stance reseller on ebay;

WELD-ON TYPE NOTES:
Our weld-on type lower brackets are available for cars that feature a front spindle for the lower mounting point. This type, unlike any of our others, requires welding and cutting of OEM components to mount to the chassis. We recommend having an experienced fabricator follow these steps:

- First cut the front OEM strut tubes leaving about one inch of tube remaining on the spindle to weld the lower bracket to.

- Fully clean the spindle and weld-on tube of any paint; sand blasting them is recommended.

- Pre-heat the cast spindle to 500-600°F and try to not let it go below 400°F while you are welding. This step will prevent the welds from cracking.

NOTE - We recommend 309L tig wire as we find it works best. It is not possible to get a good weld pass all the way around the full spindle so we recommend to cut out a couple support brackets and weld those in as well.

- After everything is done being welded and cools down, we primer the metal and then repaint them black to prevent corrosion and for a nice finish.

So that's a pillow ball in the top mount and a thrust bearing supporting the spring?

Thrust bearings to prevent binding. There are multiple ways to do this depending on the amount of maintenance you put into your suspension.

There are a ton of universal applications kits out there and should never be a deal breaker. Look for brand that offer a various types of shocks and valving. While Stance only lists one option for z31, they can easily make their XR1s, XR3s and other applications. They have a shock dyno in house and can do all kinds of custom creations.

Yes. On the Powertrix race version the cap which retains the spring at the top is split to house the thrust bearing, the pillow ball is needed to take care of angularity in the mount. No Made in USA sticker on the Powertrix, I suspect that they are like the others made in SE Asia somewhere, look great. An important consideration for me was the valving, Charles provided a shock dyno graph which helped swing the deal. I did not get springs, they will be sourced locally because with them I know what I'm getting.

An update on my communication with these vendors.

Charles from Powertrix is very good and he informed me that the pillow ball top mount and thrust bearing support for the spring is now also standard on the Road/Track coilovers as well as the Ultra Light Road/Track. I'm probably looking at about $2,000USD landed including the swift springs upgrade with these coilovers which is about what I expected.

Ceika have probably counted themselves out for my application as another user here is still awaiting on replacement parts for their incorrectly filled order and I don't really have time to wait and see how that pans out!

Could you add a couple of photos of the top part of the fronts? Would be interesting to see the thrust bearing housing.

I had the first test drive today on these - on the firmest setting it is hard as nails! lol I am now readjusting these to sit on the softest setting.

They look mint when installed; particularly with the bronze Swift springs. I'll update with performance once I've driven it a bit more.

I took some twisties tonight and all I can say is wow. The softest setting is perfect me for me with the road/track coils and swift spring combo. I'm running some pretty serious semi slick tyres (Kumho Ecsta V70A K60) and for the first time driving i can actually feel the tyres doing what they're supposed to do. It just grips and grips! I can take corners at any speed it feels like! lol

What spring rate did you get?