First impression is that these shocks are awesome.
It took about 1.5 hours to get the swapped out and the worst was figuring out how I was going to mount the bottom. SC&C recommended on top of the arm but due to the construction of the VBP arm, I would have had to do a lot of fitting to the front side of the cross bar.
Since the lower mount is three piece, I disassembled it and slid the eye through the arm and re assembled. This proved the ticket and it mounted up perfectly.
While I was at it I checked total wheel travel and I have 5 1/4 inches.
I checked with Bilstein and the Hotchkiss shocks were 1.81 times stiffer in rebound than compression. Varishock recommended starting on 3 and working from there. I put the compression on 3 and since I needed more rebound than the Bilsteins set the rebound to 6.
On my normal "test" circuit it road like a new car. Bumps were soaked up and no "bouncing."
Two bumps in 10 miles felt a little soft on rebound but the ride was so soft, yet controlled I am leary of going stiffer. The nice thing is I can try and go back. One on ramp at speed used to feel real jittery and it was so smooth now.
Turn in is amazingly quick now even though I backed of the tension on the sway bar endlinks. The front end does not roll at all, or at least it does not feel like it. The car is a little tail happy now but not unnerving.
If anyone considers the VBP setup, go with this shocks as they let you dial in the unique properties of the suspension. I am so happy with it that I was others were closer so I could let them ride in it. It is so much better than the factory setup.
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