Mugen Gold 5 way adjustable coilovers


soxturf

Active Member
Joined
Jun 27, 2009
Messages
755
Hi Everyone,

I am 99% certain that I have the mugen gold 5 way adjustable coilovers on my ek9. (Really should be 100% certain after owning the car for so long but have never done anything with them as I was so happy them until now).

They are definitely mugen and the adjusters in engine bay etc have 1-5 on them. (Will try get a pic of this up tomorrow night).

Anyway, I am posting this as I am now at the stage where I am just sick of the ride quality been so harsh. I never track the car an I will never sell it. I take it out at weekends to enjoy on road an thats it.

My question is, if I let the coilovers backup an adjust the coilover dampers to their softest setting, will this make the ride quality much more comfortable or will the spring rate be just too stiff. Just thinking of trying this before putting back in uprated shocks an standard springs if I have too. (If 18 year old me saw this post when I bought the car I would of been embarrassed by myself haha but I am nearly 31 now an wanting something different from the car).

Any input appreciated.

Thank you.
 
Hi Everyone, pictures below of the 2 damper adjusters in engine bay. Anyone know how I adjust these to softest setting?
 

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Are these height adjustable or just damping adjustable? I had gold 5way non height adjustable in my old DC2.

I always ran my suspension at the softest setting when possible on the road. Get a small flat head screwdriver and rotate that dial to the left carefully (soft). You should feel a click on each setting, push down on the front end to confirm because you should definitely feel a difference here from Hard to Soft. Don't rotate the dial too far either way, this could damage the damper.
 
Are these height adjustable or just damping adjustable? I had gold 5way non height adjustable in my old DC2.

I always ran my suspension at the softest setting when possible on the road. Get a small flat head screwdriver and rotate that dial to the left carefully (soft). You should feel a click on each setting, push down on the front end to confirm because you should definitely feel a difference here from Hard to Soft. Don't rotate the dial too far either way, this could damage the damper.
Hi Kipper,
Thank you, that is the exact info I was looking for :). I am not sure if they are height adjustable but I will take off an alloy this Sunday and check. (They are very low at moment). I am really hoping they are currently set to 5 so that when I set them to 1, they are comfortable. Can I ask, if the softness is controlled by the damper setting, would raising the car even have an impact on comfort at all?
Thank you.
 
Hi Kipper,
Thank you, that is the exact info I was looking for :). I am not sure if they are height adjustable but I will take off an alloy this Sunday and check. (They are very low at moment). I am really hoping they are currently set to 5 so that when I set them to 1, they are comfortable. Can I ask, if the softness is controlled by the damper setting, would raising the car even have an impact on comfort at all?
Thank you.
I had the gold mugen 5way but the super low spring option. Essentially they look like OEM suspension but gold so you will be able to tell. And raising the car will have negligible impact on ride quality (if you can). All in damping and spring rates really unless you are silly low.
 
I had the gold mugen 5way but the super low spring option. Essentially they look like OEM suspension but gold so you will be able to tell. And raising the car will have negligible impact on ride quality (if you can). All in damping and spring rates really unless you are silly low.
OK, thank you for the info, really appreciate it. I'll hopefully get the time to adjust the dampers Sunday an ill take the wheel off an take a picture also, as from memory, I think mine might not be able to adjust the height either now that you say it. But even if I could, I would not adjust the height anyway if it would have negligible impact on comfort.

Thank you :)
 
5 damping settings is small compared to general aftermarket coilovers.

Remember the SPRING IS THE THING that is hard or soft - the damper is just there to control the mass attached to the spring.


What happens with aftermarket in general is this:-
* Damping adjustment is in a wide range - perhaps over 20 clicks of a knob and this is to accommodate different spring rates. On a single-way damper there may only be 3-4 clicks out of over 20 that are in any way suitable for use with a given spring. All the "personal taste" for handling style is absorbed in that tiny portion of the band. (a bit hard to a bit soft).
* Its very common for people totally misunderstand this adjustment and think that full soft = comfy and full hard = racetrack. In reality "full hard" is massively overdamped - the car will be using the tyres only as suspension and bouncing off the dampers, with very very little grip or control on even pretty smooth surfaces. Full soft will be massively underdamped and the car will complete several oscillations for any bump, making it bounce down the road and have very little grip or control. These people should be legally stopped from modification of cars and lumped in with the people that put big front brakes on a car, screw the bias and stop slower than stock while overheating their new front brakes and thinking they need to go bigger.
* Ironically its quite hard to tell the difference between full hard and full soft because both makes cars that judder down the road.

My EJ was set up 3 corners full soft, and one seized on full hard. This is testment to the absolute morons that had owned it and it was AWFUL to drivge

A standard damper of course is valved for a single setting - and funnily enough will be faster than most coilovers due to being set correctly for "critical damping".

IF your Mugen dampers have a very narrow setting range, then setting 1 MAY make a small difference to comfort. If they do have a small valving range they won't be suitable for different spring rates without being rebuilt.

If the 5 points are actually quite a wide range, full soft will make the car most likely worse. - But at least in this case you could get softer poundage springs (about 25quid a pair) and set the damping to them.

Basic damping can be set just by pushing down hard on the car's corner and seeing what happens. I've set up many cars this way - Civics included, kit and race cars too. I wouldn't be so good with 2 ways I expect, and 3 ways forgetaboutit!

You look for the car doing half a oscilation after the shove down, no no oscillation, or many oscillations.
Look for the graph here labelled "overdamped oscillator":-


After basic setting you make smallllll adjustments until the car feels neither like its juddering down the road nor over hard over small bumps. You get a feel for it.
In practice I've never seen full hard or full soft be anything but a totally ruinous setting, but "8 clicks" is the lowest adjustability I've seen.
 
5 damping settings is small compared to general aftermarket coilovers.

Remember the SPRING IS THE THING that is hard or soft - the damper is just there to control the mass attached to the spring.


What happens with aftermarket in general is this:-
* Damping adjustment is in a wide range - perhaps over 20 clicks of a knob and this is to accommodate different spring rates. On a single-way damper there may only be 3-4 clicks out of over 20 that are in any way suitable for use with a given spring. All the "personal taste" for handling style is absorbed in that tiny portion of the band. (a bit hard to a bit soft).
* Its very common for people totally misunderstand this adjustment and think that full soft = comfy and full hard = racetrack. In reality "full hard" is massively overdamped - the car will be using the tyres only as suspension and bouncing off the dampers, with very very little grip or control on even pretty smooth surfaces. Full soft will be massively underdamped and the car will complete several oscillations for any bump, making it bounce down the road and have very little grip or control. These people should be legally stopped from modification of cars and lumped in with the people that put big front brakes on a car, screw the bias and stop slower than stock while overheating their new front brakes and thinking they need to go bigger.
* Ironically its quite hard to tell the difference between full hard and full soft because both makes cars that judder down the road.

My EJ was set up 3 corners full soft, and one seized on full hard. This is testment to the absolute morons that had owned it and it was AWFUL to drivge

A standard damper of course is valved for a single setting - and funnily enough will be faster than most coilovers due to being set correctly for "critical damping".

IF your Mugen dampers have a very narrow setting range, then setting 1 MAY make a small difference to comfort. If they do have a small valving range they won't be suitable for different spring rates without being rebuilt.

If the 5 points are actually quite a wide range, full soft will make the car most likely worse. - But at least in this case you could get softer poundage springs (about 25quid a pair) and set the damping to them.

Basic damping can be set just by pushing down hard on the car's corner and seeing what happens. I've set up many cars this way - Civics included, kit and race cars too. I wouldn't be so good with 2 ways I expect, and 3 ways forgetaboutit!

You look for the car doing half a oscilation after the shove down, no no oscillation, or many oscillations.
Look for the graph here labelled "overdamped oscillator":-


After basic setting you make smallllll adjustments until the car feels neither like its juddering down the road nor over hard over small bumps. You get a feel for it.
In practice I've never seen full hard or full soft be anything but a totally ruinous setting, but "8 clicks" is the lowest adjustability I've seen.
Hi John Turbo,

Thank you for taking the time to post. I found it very interesting. Based on what you have wrote , an what I have managed to look up myself, I'd say it is most likely that the 5 clicks has a narrow range an most new coilovers would have a very wide range with 30 clicks etc.

I can understand why the softest or hardest setting on a range of 30 clicks would feel terrible. It will be really interesting to see on the mugen ones I have, if the softest setting I have is disastrous or not. I say this because when I look up what setting to have the Mugens at, in almost every Honda forum I come across, people using them for street are saying that they only ever have setting 1 on, when on street. There is of course some people running them above 1 also.

Once I adjust them I will report back an let you know how it goes :).

Thank you.
 
I think you may well be right. Its a damper engineered for a very specific application - where the "guts" of something like BC damper will be used for very many many.
I've not known Kipper be wrong either. :))

Its far more likely IMO Mugen would go for this "foolproof" approach than KW or BC.

I'd certainly be interested to hear.
 
Hi lads, looks like bad news for me. I don't understand if it is possible for the dampers to be seized or what, but I turned all dampers 5 clicks anti clockwise and it has made no difference to the stiffness of suspension. The mugen's were on the car when I bought it nearly 13 years ago, an I have never adjusted the dampers so I don't no if it would still click when seized etc.
 
Seized is seized normally - ie the knob wont turn. Possible the springs are super high rates?

I would start by taking the spring off one and checking the dampers move smoothly to both ends of the travel. It might take a lot of force. Springs may be marked for rate on the endface too...punched or painted numbers.

How stiff are you talking anyway? Small pothole = end of the world?
 
Seized is seized normally - ie the knob wont turn. Possible the springs are super high rates?

I would start by taking the spring off one and checking the dampers move smoothly to both ends of the travel. It might take a lot of force. Springs may be marked for rate on the endface too...punched or painted numbers.

How stiff are you talking anyway? Small pothole = end of the world?
Hi JohnTurbo,

In the pictures above, when I use a flathead screw driver, the metal part the flathead goes into moves an clicks but the black dial around it with the numbers on it does not move at all. So I don't no if this is how it's meant to be. Spring rates could be very high all right. Been honest, they are in such bad condition from our salty roads, I am afraid to take them off unless it's for good. Nearly embarrassed to attach pic below but they are in terrible condition. At the moment I am working horrendous hours an studying in the evenings/weekends so the car is not getting the time from me it needs but come Septeber ill have my weekends back an will be able to look after it properly again.
 

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An sorry, no its not the end of the world when I hit a pothole but the ride is extremely harsh, but its the exact same as the day I bought it so I don't know any different in it ha:)
 
I should also say, although they look terrible, the car still handles perfect. It's really fun to drive and corners really well. Just to harsh
 
Most 13 year old dampers look like that, it doesn't mean they don't work. Corrosion on the shaft or signs of weeping would be a worse sign.

Not sure you've much chance of finding an intelligable spring rate or if they'd be worth perserveering with mind.
 
Most 13 year old dampers look like that, it doesn't mean they don't work. Corrosion on the shaft or signs of weeping would be a worse sign.

Not sure you've much chance of finding an intelligable spring rate or if they'd be worth perserveering with mind.
I agree ha, they will not be on the car much longer, I will update with the route I decide to go thank you for your help. It is very much appreciated :)
 
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