Floorman279

iTrader: (11)

To those interested in coilovers, please read all 100+ posts. it will take you maybe 10 minutes but could not only educate you, but save u money.

really was gonna avoid doing this. they have been gone for close to a month now, and wasn't gonna do what sam strano wanted me to do......post my negative review of the viking warriors. wasn't gonna do it because i feel kinda like an *** selling them to someone else who may have a dislike about them too. also after posting in another thread just now, 2 guys pmed me asking my opinion so for anyone who wants to stick around, here we go. AGAIN, THIS IS MY PERSONAL REVIEW. IF YOU LIKE YOUR VIKINGS, GREAT POST UP A POSITIVE REVIEW EITHER HERE OR ELSEWHERE. nobody reads long posts but screw it.

the car, 2000 camaro ss with 400 rwhp, t56, mwc fab 9, full rear mwc suspension all with heim joints. STOCK FRONT AND REAR BARS. poly bar mounts and end links. front end is stock. the vikings were warriors. 350 spring up front, 175 spring out back.

car sat for awhile, got around to swapping everything all at once. got car reassembled with the vikings and began driving. one thing that i noticed was the ride felt firm and you really felt the bumps. i started the fronts at 10C and 12R and the rears were like 8C 10R. i was like ok cool thats the rebound. another thing i noticed was that any kind of larger bump, i heard a bang out in the rear and it jarred me and the car(will explain later). the ride was firm but acceptable. another thing i noticed was while attempting to corner weight and get all 4 corners adjusted to a good height, it almost seemed impossible to do. every time i drove the car and brought it back to remeasure the height, it was always different. so basically ride height was never the same, even when i wasn't adjusting it. that was annoying.

so i continue to drive and i decide to take it to work one day. 38 miles one way with about 35 of that being highway. i take this road everyday in my 215000 mile taurus with i think stock front struts and moog rears. so I'm familiar with the bumps.

you know how some bridges that u drive on the car is constantly bumping up and down like the car has bad shocks? well this road never did that in my taurus but guess what, it did it in my camaro with the vikings. Weird. i then started doing a little more testing. keep in mind i never pushed the car hard in the corners, 50% because i wasn't ready to do it since its new suspension and just getting a feel, 50% because the vikings just felt odd. i tried to do a few fast and the furious style ricer lane changes. felt fairly planted on the first. then i tried to do a few back to back. thats when **** got weird. did like 3-4 back to back. after the first when i would start the second one, it felt like the shocks were "behind" if that makes sense and they weren't caught up yet and ready to do another quick lane change. also after i would do 2-3 and attempt to straighten out, the car still swayed and felt minimally boat if that makes sense. what was weird was that on long expressway on/off ramps, the car felt pretty decent. so i believe this is where the whole non gas charged shock came into play. basically my opinion/what i felt was that these things needed a second or 2 after a sharp turn until they were ready for another turn.

so dissatisfied with spending $1200 bucks i was like, nope not worth it so i call sam strano. explain it all to him. he recommended i jack rebound all the way up and see what difference i felt. well tried everything that i stated above with the fronts at 19C and rears at 17C and it felt minimally better. except bumps were now a little harsher. the swaying was reduced, but still there. shocks still felt "lazy" and the bumpy bridge feeling where the car wouldn't stop bouncing was still there (obviously).

ended up buying the UMI afcos for the front, and koni yellow rears with strano springs.....i opted no coilover on the back because with the bigger rear i figured the car would sit about 3/4" lower which is a good stance in my opinion and i was right. so after messing around, i chose 30 clicks on rebound on the front (10 away from full stiff) and like 1.5 turns from full soft on the rear which i think is halfwayish. its not night and day between the vikings but it is significantly better.

Floorman279

iTrader: (11)

i do the fast and the furious lane changes and there is minimal sway afterwards, significantly less than the vikings, that part in the road i complained about feeling like a bridge.....isnt there with the afcos/konis. remember how i said it felt like the vikings needed to catch up? not there with this setup. the little bumps you hardly even feel anymore, but the bigger ones still feel the same. a little less jarring than vikings but still pretty harsh but acceptable. i wouldn't call it harsh but you know when you hit a bump. o and everytime i measure the ride height of my car after a drive, its always dead on the same as before. the vikings could be off up to 1/4 of an inch.

I'm sure some guys buy the vikings and love them. its also possible that my factory shocks were still in real good shape and the guys who got the vikings who love them were buying them to replace worn out shocks and they are comparing new vikings to worn out decarbons or bilsteins. every time someone asks for shocks, the sponsors come rolling in saying hey the vikings are a great option for both street and strip. in my opinion, the sponsors are getting these things real cheap and just pushing these vikings hard. i think they are only hot right now, because all the sponsors are saying they are.

i wanted something that would handle/feel great when I'm not trying to corner, and feel great when i was. simply put, the vikings were not that. the crusaders I'm sure are significantly better, but your very close to umi/afcos at that point.

just my 2 cents guys. o and i put 450 miles on these before selling so i had a little bit of seat time.

Floorman279

iTrader: (11)

i shoulda just listened to JD AMG instead of thinking he's just an egotistical a hole. woulda saved me my 400-500 loss.

Randolph Ziskey

iTrader: (13)

What was your wheel setup? Reason I ask is with speedlines and nitto 555 up front and nitto nt05 rear I could feel the bumps. Even bottom out sometimes. I adjusted the c and r have it written some where and added to drag setup and don't feel it. I do hear some squeaks but sounds like it's my monster clutch chattering. Sorry you had a bad experience.

M4N14C

iTrader: (3)

Just goes to show how important shocks are.

Get some sway bars next, will really tighten the car up some more.

Floorman279

iTrader: (11)

Yea the bars are on the list im just temporarily over budget at this poiint.

Stock 17s with 555 rear and sumis upfront.

Floorman279

iTrader: (11)

Wait u guys actually read the whole thing? Lol

JD_AMG

Sorry if I ever came off as an A-hole, ironically this is exactly what I try to prevent as Ive seen this far too many times, and was almost talked into QA1s myself way back in the day when they were flavor of the month. Fortunately I got to eventually ride in a QA1 equipped car and glad I never bought them, non-gas charged shocks don't make good street/handling shocks, period.

JD_AMG

Ive been saying that since day 1, its the same marketing approach QA1 used (company is half run by old QA1 employees after all). Aggressive quantity discounts and probably sales incentives. Want to get rid of all the said inventory so gets pushed hard even though many times its not the right tool for the job, like in your case.

01ssreda4

iTrader: (96)

The core issue here is not the Vikings. Its the nut behind the wheel Seriously, they arent a handling shock, however, there was a thread somewhere where someone revealed the settings that put them the closest to Bilsteins (per a shock dyno machine). There is NO WAY you can't make a warrior shock ride decent. Had you come down on the C a few clicks I'm thinking the harshness would have subsided. Ride height? I dont get it. How accurate were you trying to get it? Why were you expecting them to be EXACT? My solution was set the collars equal L+R, mark them with a sharpie, then do equal adjustments (1 turn up, 2 turns down whatever) to height while focusing on one side of the car only and just matching the other by my marked adjustment. You way over thought that part of the install in my opinion. Regardless, sounds like you'll be happier with your new parts, they seem to be more like what youre looking for.

TheUrbz

well thanks for the heads up and breakdown on how they felt Floorman. back to square 1 for me on suspension apparently. although i dont plan to track or street my car, i still want it on rails regardless, to the point im budgeting for subframes as well.

Floorman279

iTrader: (11)

Yea but the problem is the sponsors are marketing them saying you can autocross and drag strip with them. I never saw that thread about the bilsteins, woulda liked to try those settings.

The harshness i feel is goona be there no matter what because it seems as if i like higher loads of rebound. Im sure i could have made them RIDE AND BE MORE COMFY, but how would that affect my feeling of boaty and floatiness at times?

As far as ride height, i wanted them close to proper heright as in probably off by 1/8 tolerance. I mean if i wanted them dead on i should have been able to achieve that goal. What im saying is i would drive it and say the height was 27 1/4 inches, id be like ok ill go half a turn lower in my attempt for 27. Go drive, remeasurw and be at like 26 and 3/4. How can i drop half inch by half a turn? Basically im saying even when no adjustments were made, the car measured different at each corner after each trip. That doesnt happen with my stranos and konis. 100 percent the same pretrip and postrip

HioSSilver

iTrader: (8)

Good write up floorman. Answered alot of things i have been wondering about them. I just put a set of viking warriors on my uncles 56 Belair . Mostly because anything even half decent cost almost the same as the vikings but without the adjustability. His car will be more street/strip oriented so hopefully we will find a happy spot on it..

If i were to put them on my camaro i would most definitely try the crusaders.

I'm hoping the vikings are better than the qa1's were we put on my buddy's ws6. He moved and got rid of the car before we got to sort them out much but i was not overly impressed by them. I have koni sa's on my camaro. I wish i had went with da's but sam said these worked well so i went with his advice. I can't say I'm unhappy with them but i really haven't put many miles on them and none with my r compounds to know.

Overall for price/performance standpoint i think bilsteins are best bang for the buck. Especially the slp valved ones if those are still available.

Floorman279

iTrader: (11)

Stick to tried and true, koni yellows and a good spring. That option wasnt for me because in my opinion all aftermarket performance/ lowering springs were to low for my driveway and my appearance. Thats y i needed ride height adjustability. With the bigger rear, the stranos put my car right where i wanted it, atound 1/2 to 3/4 inch drop and i just matched the fronts to the backs

Floorman279

iTrader: (11)

Bilsteins arent the best with lowering springs ive read

i had to ask myself if a few tenths at the track is worth not feeling planted all the time on the road and was like, hell no. I want plant. My car is fast enough and 1/4 times are cool but so is feeling comfident in the ability to turn.

As for koni da, i believe my strano afcos were $999 for the fronts with a spring. Obviously u dont get the C adjustability but you do get ride height.

HioSSilver

iTrader: (8)

My car came with slp suspension thus the slp bilsteins. I changed to Hotchkis lowering springs and they worked well with the bilsteins. Now before i bought the springs i investigated the rates of the lowering springs available and chose the hotchkis because they were closests to the slp spring rates.

That could be why i had decent luck with them.

2ToeRacing

iTrader: (5)

If there is a different series of Viking shocks why didn't the vendor sell you the correct ones?? That's why we go to them instead of blindly buying something. Viking SHOULD have a starting point on the settings per vehicle. Compression/rebound can be tricky. I've dealt with this with motorcycles, it takes a lot of tuning. When you tune for the track the surface is the same. On the street every road is different and that's where the tuning/time is spent.

01ssreda4

iTrader: (96)

They are still being sold as "SLP" bilsteins by some places but I think Sam confirmed they are all now all valved as the HD shock, which was similar anyway. "SLP"'s exact valving is defunct and has been for several years.

Autocross? Heck no. Confident "street driving", I would say yes. I have a drag rear sway bar so my car has zero body lean, it feels very controlled going into corners (I dont push it obviously). I'm super happy and feel like Ive given up next to nothing even driving with drag settings. Its all perspective. I think softer settings and bigger swaybars would have gotten you more of the ride you were looking for. Thats irrelevant now i know.......

Floorman279

iTrader: (11)

Yea i know the adjustability could be difficult to find a good spot. But even if i adjusted them for days weeks or months, wouldnt change the how they naturally felt to me, lazy after a few turns, floaty on that one section of highway, and also the height problems. Thats y i cut my losses and called strano for his solution

Floorman279

iTrader: (11)

I never complained about the harshness......ive accepted that with lots of rebound comes harshness.

If you want, go and try a few real fast lane changes like i did and come back and let me know how It felt on the second or third back to back.

Explain the floaty feel and bouncing on the highway for 2 straight miles......what kind of adjustments would have solved that?

They specifically come with autocross settings on the adjustment paper......so yea, they are being marketed with "autocross" capabilities, at least thats what they are saying