hey guys have purchased bilstein front and rear shock absorbers for my xr6 N/A ba model
B46 1255BA front
BE5 H286 rear
part numbers and am now wondering what your opinions/experiences between the 2 types of springs are? i will be either getting "low" kings or "Sport Low" lovells. Opinions? queries? answers? thanks corey

Pedders make a good spring

lovell

i like lovell over in kings

Its all to do with personal preference. Choose what you like.

Iv heard that the king springs are too harsh and Pedders springs also cost a mint.

That would put Lovell's at the top of the list yeah?

Just asking people's opinion and yea Lovell seems to be them

If you call Lovell's, they will tell you their springs for a B-series range are about 25% stiffer through out entire travel than stock.

I don't know what Kings are in relation to stock, but if you call them, they will happily tell you.

Althought I wouldn't write Kings off immediately. They are releasing new types of springs that I understand to be more of a progressive rate in some applications than their older counterparts.

Might be worth giving them a call to see whats available and making an educated self pick rather than accepting personal opinions of everyone else. What is harsh and s**t to you might be acceptable to me, and vice versa.

A mate of mine bought a NL5.0 Fairlane with new pedders in it and pulled them out, cause he doesn't like Pedders and replaced with Bilsteins and King springs, I just put the Pedders from his car into my NF 5.0 and I'm stoked! so I'm sure that doesn't really help!?

I've nearly always had king springs and never had a problem with them. Mates have used lovells but I found them to be far to stiff. I have also used Pedders myself but found King to be just as good and much cheaper. However I have found with King inconsistincies with ride height, which can be annoying

The choice in springs isn't personal choice if you know what your looking at and for. Lovells and kings sprigs are cheaper because they are manufactured to a lower quality and don't go through as stringent testing processes which is why you get inconsistencies on height mainly. Pedders sports Ryder springs go through a process called scragging which basically means they are conpressed fully before sending them out and in essence basically "pre sagged" is what you would call it. This is why you get the price variance.

Most of you won't know Pedders do a heaped range of springs called "touring spellings" which are grey in colour and are the equivalent of a kings or lovells, they cost about 150 a pair.

Basically its simple If you want the car to stay at the height you set it at hoosegow Pedders sports Ryder. If you dont care if it sags or have inconsistent height choose something else

Pedders are really nice springs... They are stiffer than Kings and Lovells and ride alot better. I have Kings in my EB and ED and they are good for the price. I would like to get something stiffer though so probably upgrade to some pedders springs down the track when the shocks wear out.

The are other names out there too other than Pedders, kings and lovells. Dobinson and Eibach are two that come to mind.
I had kings superlows in my car and apart from being very stiff in the rear, they were much about 10mm lower than they should have been and were unmatched left ot right by 7mm at worst.

Dobinsons used to have a comfort option low spring which was a progressive rate one so your ride was a little smoother.

I was going to use Dobinson springs in my car but I came across a sale price for an Eibach set and went for them instead.

I like them. They feel softer in the rear but dont bottom out like you would expect and they didnt need time to settle in after installation. Overall very nice and feels planted on the road.

A word of caution: When I first fitted Bilsteins to my ED I also got a set of Low (ie. std height for XR6) King PROGRESSIVE rate springs - but found they interacted badly with the progressive rate function of the Bilsteins. The result was quite nasty - nuff said.

I fitted "normal" King Low springs and she was fantastic.

As far as quality etc. of the various springs I can't really comment - altho I tried Lovells (low - ie. same as std XR6 - same as "low" Kings) at one point as part of the desperate attempts to make Koni shocks give me SOME sort of handling, I then went back to kings with the Bilsteins and didn't really take notice of the difference between them - and the fact that the two types of spring were used with different shocks - ie. s**t in the case of the Koni's and back to excellent in the case of the billies doesn't help either.

BTW The koni's didn't even make good doorstops as the oil leaking out of them makes a mess...

King springs are always "sided" - ie. the driver side ones are a bit higher than the passenger side ones - for obvious reason - the little tag can be easily missed. And I can also confirm that for some reason King Low rear springs end up sitting about 10mm lower than they should. I used Superpro 10mm rear spring spacers in the ED.