So, like most of you, I've been keeping an eye out for a set of coilovers for the tC2, and Tein has a set, along with another company that greenbean and Wellesley are signed up with for coilovers, but those are all ~$1500 give or take. I've heard good things about Raceland C/Os on the gen 1 tC, mainly from people just looking for a drop bigger than what coil drops can provide, but good reviews none the less. So I guess I have two questions:

1) are Racelands an ok coilover for dropping a tC (or any car for that matter)? Its fairly clear that they aren't made for the most serious AutoX competitor or anything, but for "the rest of us", how are they?

2) if they are a decent enough coilover for drops, would there be enough interest to get a group of preorders together to try and influence them to produce coilovers for the tC2? I contacted them by email and they said they didn't have plans at the moment to produce them, but as business goes, if they had a group of 10 or so people willing to pay more than the going rate for the gen 1s (maybe $400-$450 rather than the $320 they ask for the tC1?), it seems like it would be hard to turn down development money like that.

Any thoughts? Again, I'm not super educated on the Racelands, but the price is amazing comparatively. Just wondering if huge drop in price is worth a potentially small drop in performance since most of us don't NEED coilovers for anything more than the looks. I'll be preparing myself for flaming, but this is worth a shot. Lol.

i have a set of racelands, and you can get some decent dump with them (about 4" max). the lower you go the less stable they become, obviously, but for the money its really not bad at all.

i used to have a sets of racelands but after an accident i took it out and went back to stock strut & shock with trd springs(got a very good price). Racelands is nice for a drop but not for durable. Built is not as strong as other 1000+ c/o. But what you pay for is what you get. I like the racelands but due to pothole in MA gotta let it go.

Who did Wellesley and greenbeen sign up with

Fortune Auto: http://www.scionlife.com/forums/showthread.php?t=202217

I had Racelands on my tC1, they went really low and looked great, but like most things you get what you pay for! The struts were all worn out and bouncy after about 6 months. (rode like a farm truck with no shocks :P )

If you plan on moderately lowering your car, yes i'd say the racelands would work fine, but if you dump them all the way down the shock has literally no travel and wear out very fast.

^^^True, but maybe we can talk them into producing a set that allows for a better shock travel... For the money, I would get them either way.
Greenbean, seeing as how no one is hopping on the fortune auto ones, do you feel like jumping ship on them and going with racelands?

This is totally hypothetical for now. Even if we could just get like 10 people to say they'd POTENTIALLY be interested in the $400-$450 range, that's a better offer than the one or two people they think are interested now based off of individual emails, you know?

Well if you decide to start a list, you can go ahead and add me to it.

Sounds great! I just sent another email to Cody at Raceland and asked if a group buy pre-order of 10 or so people would be enough to get the development team on board with this project. I'll update this thread when he responds. He's been a huge help so far, and extremely nice.

Ok cool.

don't mean to thread jack but i've been bugging cusco the exact samething (coilovers for the tC2) and they want to see how the general tC2 market is for aftermarket parts first before they get into the r&d stage

anyways, i've never heard bad things about Racelands...i hope a good (but not too expensive) set comes out soon, there's just something in my gut that doesn't want to commit to TRD/Tien/Ebiach just yet

don't mean to thread jack but i've been bugging cusco the exact samething (coilovers for the tC2) and they want to see how the general tC2 market is for aftermarket parts first before they get into the r&d stage

anyways, i've never heard bad things about Racelands...i hope a good (but not too expensive) set comes out soon, there's just something in my gut that doesn't want to commit to TRD/Tien/Ebiach just yet

I have racelands on my tc1 and i am slammed. No complaints at all for $370 shipped to my door they are great. Like it's been said, they aren't made for an auto-xer, but for a DD that you wanna dump they are fine. The spring rates suck, but thats a given for the cost.

As for hearing bad things, the only bad i have ever hear from them are as follow: A: they are too stiff and bouncy (99.99999% of the time coming from a person new to modding in general and have no idea that coils are NEVER going to ride like OEM) and that they CAN seize if you have them maxed for long periods of time. I grease mine every-time my wheels are off and they have been flawless.

Racelands have been in the VW scene for YEARS, they are VERY VERY popular in the VW world.

Raceland wouldn't have to really R&D anything for these, the basic concept is going to be the same and the people getting them aren't looking for the quality of the Tein SSP or similar, they are looking for a cheap way to slam their car and these do it.

Get a hold of raceland and tell them there is a market for them. I know of at least 5 tc2's in my chapter of scikotics that would be all over them.

Josh, if you include Irishguys 5 scikotic friends, we have 7, I am sure we can get another 3 people to get in on this. There is definately a market for them...

for sure, all you need to do is get them to make a run of them. They will sell out. It happened when the racelands first hit the scion world.

People want a cheap drop.

So... I just got a reply from Cody at Raceland and it sounds like he's nowhere near interested in the tC2. Here's his response, copied and pasted from my email:

Josh,

The type of interest we are looking for to justify the cost will have to be considerably more than 10. If you look at the Tiburon community, in the last several months, they have generated 70+ that are interested. With that said, please let those who are interested, let us know of their interest as we unfortunately do not do group buys but base our decisions on sustained interest. Hope all goes well and hopefully we can get some interest generated in the next several months. If you should have any further questions, please let me know.

Regards,

Cody

... I guess we have to be a dead model in order to get attention. Maybe someday they'll change their minds...

^^^Black Dahlia reference.... nice.
Well I guess, screw em... I am off to figure out something else.

I would have been interested if they were thinking about making sleeves for the tC2..

They still might make them, but like he said, he needs more interest than 10 people as Raceland more than likely mass produces their components where as a company like BC may only make a few parts at a time.

I have three word for you!

Low, Looks, Slow!!!

anyways I just replace my Raceland with TRD Spring just 1 week, my TRD Shocks coming in today, did had S-Tech before the Raceland too. S-Tech + OEM was a bit better in handleling vs Raceland. with the raceland like the 3 words! I think I may even do faster cornering with stock suspension vs Raceland. it's just feel really unsafe for cornering fast. stiff and bouncy, but they do hold up pretty well! worth it if you just want to drop your tC if handleling is not an issue for you.