I have (finally) addressed most of my complaints with the Ohlins. Still have front tire clearance to go, but I think I have a solution for that as well.
The issue: The Ohlin R&Ts were optimized for the stock strut hats. Most camber plates (I believe all except maybe the TMS plates?) move the top shock mount point higher up. On lowered cars running stockish shocks, this restores bump travel lost by lowering the car, and doesn't have any negative side effects. On the Ohlins, which have shorter total shock travel but which are optimized to make the most out of the stock strut hat, this means you have too much bump travel (tire hits the fender liner under large compressions), very little droop travel, and a ton of preload assuming a reasonable ride height. The Ohlins only have 92.5mm of metal to metal stroke, so being off target can really screw up the setup.
I didn't go into this looking to recreate the stock strut hat geometry. My goal was to have ~4mm of preload, 40% of the travel be droop travel, and 60% of the travel be bump travel. But, when I was done, I happened to have a stock strut hat and realized I had exactly recreated the dimensions of the stock strut had. So, apparently Ohlins had the same design goals as me when they made these things, just not with a camber plate in mind :roll:
Anyway, made a delrin spacer and new rubber bushings for GC street camber plates that created that geometry, installed them this morning and HOLY HELL NOW THE OHLINS ARE WHAT I'VE ALWAYS WANTED THEM TO BE!
They ride nicely (for what they are), the car isn't too low, and the handling is kickass. It's been a long time coming, but I feel like I finally got them to where I always wanted them to be in ride and handling.
This also completely explains why other peoples experiences were so different from my own-- for those who were running them with the stock strut hats, this is what they have been experiencing all along!
One more trick up my sleeve yet to go-- The Vogtland springs I'm running are more resistant to coil bind than your typical spring (because they have less coils). I notice that at my current ride height I have ~1" of threads above my ride height adjuster. So, I'm thinking I'm going to order a 1" shorter spring, move the adjuster up an inch, ride height will be unchanged and I believe that should move the springs/adjuster above the tire, letting me run wide front tires like the TCKs.
I think. Need to throw her on the lift and verify the last bit before I order new springs.
After that, when they need a rebuild (not that long term of a thing with 35,000 mile rebuild intervals) going to measure corner weights and calculate desired frequencies, change the spring rates and have the shocks revalved to match while they're being built. Most likely will be going the opposite direction of everyone else and end up going softer :roll:
Anyway, I'm super excited already. Finally got the Ohlins to perform like I was always hoping they would/could!
