I have the Tanabe's and I just put them on yesterday. They tighten up the wheel gap nicely but I'm not sure exactly how much lower they are than stock. I would guess 1" in the front and 1.3" in the back - not 100% sure. The ride quality is just a tad stiffer but its still reasonable with stock shocks. I would highly recommend these to anybody who wants to lower on a budget.

I'll post some pics up when I get a chance.

 

The Tanabes are (and probably have always been) the best overall spring for the SC chassis.

They sit the car very nicely compared to a lot of the Eibach setups, and the spring rate is dead on for better handling and ride comfort.

The Espilirs drop the car a little too much which kills the suspension travel, and on top of that the spring rate is so soft that the car will bottom out even just from making a hard turn at speed. Good in theory to use a soft rate spring, but bad in the real world on this particular chassis.

Also the Tanabes are some of the lightest weight springs which helps with unsprung weight - also important. Their winding equipment and materials used are top of the heap as well.

A good setup is to couple them with some Tokico HPs.

 

I installed the Tanabe springs made for the SC model with Tokico shocks made for SC model. The ride is fine, but the look is intolerable. That's why I had to spend another $830 for the Supra Tein SS coilover and wasted $500 for the Tanabe/Tokico setup.

Although Tanabe advertised the springs will lower approximately 1.0" for the front and 0.4" for the rear. That's not true at all. The front is fine but the rear sits lower than the front, which makes the car ugly and not even. I didn't measure how low in inches the car was with Tanabe comparing to before, but with Tanabe, the front gap was 1.5 fingers and the rear gap was 0.5 finger. In stock height, my car was approximately 2.5" front and 2" rear. I believe in stock height, most cars have the front gap larger than the rear gap, except for some true sport cars. Anyway, as I believed in Tanabe advertisement, I went for it to match with the height, but it turned out oppositely. Therefore, I have a slightly different opinion from yours. I wouldn't recommend the Tanabe for a perfect look. But if for a low budget, then it might be a choice because the car still looks better than stock height.

 

The springs really have no problems unless maybe you didn't reintall some control arm or lower shock bolts with the suspension at the correct position. No way to confirm this as if you already don't know any better or know what this means, then that's probably what happened.

Also note that any drop measurements are not very relevant nowdays, since most of the cars have sagged to some extent, usually more in the rear than in the front. In some cases the car may raise up slightly!

The rear gap is less than the front to start with but people don't seem to understand that. In any case, the differential in the gaps is LESS with the tanabe springs, so it is still doing more good in this regard than anything else on the market.

As far as the specified drop, Tanabe springs pretty much drop pretty close (if not dead-on) to spec. Once again, if they don't, you probably have something else wrong.

 

kratos, please post some pics. i'm convinced the tanabes ride great though i've already bought the Espelirs before your comment came in ...

wanted at least 1" drop. now, i'm debating myself weather i should replace the shocks, though at least i'll pick up 2 KYB AGX Adjustable shocks (for Supra - $112/piece shipped) because they are comparable to SC springs for the front. I probably just re-use my stock shocks for the rear (instead of using non-adjustable KYB GR2).

 

DoubleWoosh is spot on with his advice, as those are the most common suspension installation errors.

Definitely check the way the lower shock bolts and control arms are set. If they are improperly set and torqued down, the car will be riding on the bushing, and the arm will not travel correctly or freely...as a side result, the car will sit higher. Additionally, worn out shocks can throw off the height of the suspension (the fronts are particularly prone to going out)

One thing about the SC300's is that the wheel cutouts are not even. This is similar to how BMW 3 series vehicles sit. While the rear cutout sits much lower and the "gap" is much less in the rear of the 3 series, the car is level.

It's not entirely noticeable when the car is stock, since the car tends to ride fairly high. The NF210's have a very balanced drop so that when you look at the car's profile on a flat and even plane, you will see that the chassis is level, but the rear wheel has slightly less gap than the front. This is more the design of the vehicle.

If the springs were designed to have an even gap, instead of a balanced drop, then the car would have a forward rake. While an even gap is aesthetically pleasing to the eye, it's not that beneficial for handling. Essentially, the center of gravity shifts towards the front of the car, which will detract from the balance and performance of the rest of the car.

If you imagine a see-saw with the pivot point moving farther forward, it might be easier to visualize.

Hopefully this helps!

 

scsrock,

Here is a pick of espelir/tokico my previous setup...

I don't have the pics of my current tanabe springs but only diffference is front sits little bit high.

 

skpark70,

The drop is great. And your SC looks awsome. Must be some serious reason not to keep that setup.

 

Tanabe and DoubleWhoosh,

Come on guys! You meant to put me down by assuming I missed a bolt or a nut here and there. I've been working on car suspensions/brakes for nearly 7 years. You might have been working longer than I have but 7 years of experience isn't trash. Those basics that you mentioned had to be done and could only be said for a guy who first started working on his car. Let me explain a little further. Due to the un-even look of the rear, I even changed all swaybar links and bushings. The result was still the same. I used the correct SC repair manual for this job so all components were put and torqued in their correct positions/specs. Like I said, the Tanabe springs aren't bad. They ride good with factory shocks, but the only problem is their un-even look.

As with Tanabe, I disagree with your statement that the rear sitting lower than the front is the correct position without giving "forward rake" and "not beneficial for driving". Thousands of people have used coilovers with adjustable height to make the look even, and I haven't heard anyone complaining about an even look for the front and rear that caused them troubles, except the bottom-out, stiffness or smoothness of the coilovers. Of course, the benefits of using coilovers vary on individual's use. You also made several coilovers and I'm positive you didn't mention this "even look will cause troubles....." in your manual. It's normal because every coilover manufacturer does the same as you do, and that's nothing wrong. The springs that you made for the SC might not look evenly, but I think the springs that you made for the Supra TT look perfectly on the SC. I do appreciate for your business and the products that you made for the car industry, but I just say what I feel is right.

 

It was too FIRM.

 

okay, didn't re-read page 1 ... i've been reading so many and got lost
skpark70, do you still have the used Espelir springs?

 

Hmmmmmm you changed your sway bar links and bushings in hopes of changing the height of your car????

As far as whoever from Tanabe posted, what they are saying is from a cosmetic but concurrently a technical standpoint. From your posting above it sounds like you have never corner weighted a car, or additionally seen the effects of such when you "overlower" the front or rear simply based on looks. So maybe you just misunderstood what they and I said??

 

Uhh! Uhh! Again, you're trying to degrade my technical knowledge while I haven't done that to you. I'm still respecting you at this point, but please don't go too much. Anyway, I changed the links & bushings not to hope for a change in the height. However, I changed them out because I thought technically that with old and worn links & bushings, they would create some saggings. And with saggings, the suspension height wouldn't stay in its correct position. Should I explain any further? I guess not.

I understood you and Tanabe well on your statement about corner-weighing a car, or weight balancing for the front and rear, including cross weight balancing for tracking. I know them all. There's no such thing as "Over lowering" with the coilovers in this case. If you read carefully on my previous statement, I like the front of the springs, but the rear sits way too low. So with coilovers, the front stays the same height, but the rear is raised a little bit to match with the front. At this point, I guess you want to jump in and say "when the rear is raised, it'll cause....etc". No, at this point, the rear is still a little lower than the stock rear height.

 

Ok, i'm not sure if you are understanding the technical terms we are using here so let's go over them again.

Sway bars will not change a car's height (unless they are bent or mangled or something - if so, you've got some other issues!)

When you say you want to fix sagging, that would be considered the same as changing (raising) the ride height. This would be a consensus among those of us who are experts. Not sure about Tanabe but I think they are experts too and would agree. There is no disagreement here that I can foresee about this statement.

Now you say clearly here that you want to change your sway bar hardware to fix "sagging" - which is exactly what you just wrote above, which means you changed your sway bar hardware to try fix your ride height. This won't happen, as at both static and on flat, a sway bar moves freely together up and down on both left and right sides, at least at normal ride height. This is true as long as there is no binding. Some cars use a bushing on the end, which does bind at each end of travel, but this does not apply here. Maybe you are just getting confused with this. These Lexus cars are not like that, some older chevy trucks come to mind, maybe you are getting chevy truck bushings confused with these? Not sure here. Maybe an 80's Chrysler car? Those are like that too, maybe you are confusing the SC300 with a Chrysler LeBaron setup? I don't know.

And the statement about overlowering (which is not a word BTW, I just made it up for convenience). The front drops more than the rear, but you say the front is ok and the back is too low. Maybe your car is a salvage wreck or something? Sometimes that happens and people don't realize it. It may have been totalled and fixed and people with untrained eyes cannot tell right away. You should run a Carfax to see, even though that still won't reveal a whole lot. Maybe your car was driven over a curb before you bought it. That might do it too. You should ask the previous owner if they drove over a curb.

Man, I hope your car is ok, you should have it checked at a body shop just to make sure.

 

No, I sold them.