I've heard people say that the Eibach springs are the best money can buy, my Mk2 Sei came with Eibach springs on, I also had a set on Weitec -40mm springs in the garage. With Eibach springs showing signs of 'cento lean & the car looking a little to high for my liking I decided to install the Weitech springs to see how things would work out.

Firstly, the Weitec are firmer, they're far from bone shakingly firm but you feel a lot more of the lumps and bumps in the road, with the Spax dampers ride quality is still much improved over the the fiat items. The trade off however is lower levels of body roll. This also means that there's more pressure on the inside wheel letting you get on the power earlier &/or harder without it spinning up.

The road between my house and the motorway has a lot of camber changes & ridges at odd angles across the road, the Eibach springs tended to let the car 'drop' over the ridges causing some weird reactions from the chassis, with the Weitec springs each wheel is 'put back down' making the whole sensation less unnerving at higher speeds. I've also found the rear of the car feels far more certain.

There is more feedback from the steering with the Weitec springs, along with a little more kick from larger bumps in the road surface & a touch more low-speed weight to the steering. Turn in is a little slower, more than corrected for with an additional 6mm of spacers, but mid-corner grip is increased.

All in all I'd recommend both of these springs to anyone. Both deliver handling advantages over the standard fiat item. The Eibach delivers a more supple ride but sacrifices handling to do it, the Weitec springs handle better but lack the ride quality of the other springs.

Great post, thanks for the detailed comparison. So many people say 'what are these like?' or 'whats the best ones i can buy' but its refreshing to read that you have actually done a back to back on 2 springs (well 3 if you include OEM).

Now, where's my kids piggy bank, I think I need some lowering springs.

I have to agree about the Weitech kit

I run an Apex -30mm on the N/A cinq and -40mm Weitech kit on the Turbo.

The Weitech kit gives a much better ride than the Apex kit not as jarring on bumpy roads and you can get on the power much sooner the ride is even more of a suprise as the Turbo runs 195/45 tyres compared to 185/50 on the N/A

It has also stayed at -40mm where as the Apex kit has settled and is definatly now lower than -30mm, but neither of them has developed Cento lean.

The only down side of course is that teh Weitech kit is quite expensive but you do pay for the quality

allanhelen, I found the springs to be reasonable, about £10 more than similar gmax/apex springs, not Eibach/H&R prices. Also only changed the springs I didn't have a kit, I kept my spax adjustable dampers. When the weather warms up again I'll ramp up the damping levels to see how they respond.

In both my cases they are the full kit with matched shortend dampers by the same manufacturer.

Whether it is the springs or the dampers that do the job in the Weitech kit they are far superior to the Apex stuff. However price wise the full Weitech kit is ~50% more than the Apex so if the spings are the same cost they must be expensive shocks

My experiences are these.

Cinqs;

Eibach 30mm lowered springs with Monroe Gas shocks (which state 30mm drop is maximum), nicely damped, spring rates good, a nice compromise between out right road holding and ride quality.

Apex lowered springs with OE Bilstein dampers, not bad really, spring rates seemed to match the dampers well, but dampers were much improved on OE Fiat, the same springs with OE Fiat dampers I think would be pretty poor. Fiat dampers in my experience seem to be woefully underdampered which when matched to stiffer springs makes the set up poor.

Spax full adjustable damper shock kit, bound far too hard (only bound adjustable no rebound adjustment, i would have liked less bound more rebound) on shocks even at lowest/softest setting, spring rates too hard for IMHO road use made car a bit skittish, ride quality poor, but Iwould expect to be very good on a track.

Weitech on what is Martins car, excellent matched kit, good ride comfort, damper rates well matched to springs, a good all round kit, body roll still evident but much less than standard, but by all accounts was good around Gaydon test track when Emma drove it round with her Dad.

Seicento;

H&R springs standard low mileage shocks, damper rates all wrong for the springs, too little bound and even less rebound, made for a very mismatched kit, springs on all accounts looked very well made, and rates seemed good, hard to give a proper account because of dampers. Roll was less, sat lower, so looked better and turn in was improved.

KW full matched spring/damper kit. Again like Weitch excellent matched kit, very good road control, nicely damped, sits low but not too low, body roll reduced substantially. Again pricer but IMHO worth every penny.

Spax adjustable kit, this is a strange one because we drove a Cinq all the way to Glasgow near 400miles on a Spax adjustable kit, and it was uncomfortable, even on softest setting and that was on motorways, drove back from Glasgow in a Sei with again Spax kit and it was completely different, dampers were more compliant, car felt well controlled, no skittishness, and even after trying on some A roads, still felt controlled. The part numbers are different on both kits, though as we know all interchangeable between cars so i would say go for a Sei kit even if you have Cinq as it seems a better kit.

When it comes down to it, you pays your money you makes your choices, the more expensive kits, in particular the German stuff seems to be well worth the extra, not on this car but on others cheap kits are exactly that cheap because the research and development is not as good as more established manufactures, its not the cost that they are recovering by selling at higher costs, its the r&r they are recovering.

On the set ups Aaron comments on:

The Munroe/Eichbach set up is an extraordinarily good compromise (as fitted to Blue). You'd like a touch more rebound damping, maybe, on the tub, or some anti-rise simply to counter the nose up in the air characteristics when the boost comes on. No issues with speedbumps or ride comfort. The powder coating is coming off the rear springs, so that will need to be re-done.

The Spax set up on Blue 2 is pretty uncompromising. The set up is lower and very stiff. On the Falkens it originally came with there was a lot of tramlining and general skittishness which is very much improved on the Uniroyals it now has (which is by way of saying don't discount the effect the tyres may have).
It will ground out fully laden on speedbumps, and all the bushes and top mounts are on their way out now, and the chassis has developed a stress crack! I think it's plain too low, and generally too much. Does need more rebound, but in a more general sense than Blue's set up. It is very good on fast, smooth, sweeping A roads and motorways (particularly likes the A1(M) north of Leeds!), so might be good on track, less so on bumpier B roads and round town.

And here is a picture for people who want to now, the top with Eibach the bottom with Weitec (with about 1/3 a tank of fuel). Interesting that the front ride hight is simlar but there's a large difference at the rear of the car.