Shock settings???
Shock settings???
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Discussion

WildfireS3

Original Poster:

9,917 posts

275 months

Wednesday 2nd June 2004
quotequote all
Ok. I have spent today repairing my exhaust which is still leaking. Guess it will be time for a SS one in August when I can afford it. Also have repaired my mirror, very esasy job, took me about 30 min. And lastly as birthday present from the GF added a pair of AVO adjustables and new springs top the front of the car.

My questions are:

1). What are good starting setting for the damping rate?

2) Is it usual that one side of the car is signifignatly lower than the other when the springs are set to the same length. My drivers side is. I have had to make about a 2 turn adjustment to compensate for this. The car is now level ( measured off the floor to the chassis, although the gap between the wheel and the bonnet is still smaller on the drivers side. I put this down to a slightly malaligned bonnet.

Also has anybody taken the springs off the Konis at the rear? I would like to adjust the, but can't get my spring compressor to fit them.


Tomorrow is try and figure out the rear suspension, install a Minidisc and CD Changer, polish the car , then go visit Podie and drool over his sports exhaust and full SS system.

Pies

13,116 posts

279 months

Wednesday 2nd June 2004
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Im not sure about how to set the damping rate on the front when you have different springs front to rear, my car was set to 9 clicks front 8 rear. The maximum number of clicks being 22 (avo's)

For setting ride height measure the distance from the CHASSIS to the ground.

GreenV8S

30,999 posts

307 months

Thursday 3rd June 2004
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For the dampers start off fully soft and stiffen them up as little as possible to get an acceptable compromise between body control and ride comfort.

To take the springs off the Konis (or off any damper for that matter) you need forged spring compressors designed for coilover springs. Most 'spring compressors' you will see for sale are designed for strut suspension and simply won't fit.

It is extremely easy to be mislead when setting the ride height. The first rule is to always set both sides up the same i.e. put the spring seat at the same position on the damper body. The second rule is to only wory about the ride height after you have set the car up on a perfectly flat level surface. Ordinary 'flat' ground won't do, you simply cannot see a difference of half an inch by eye over something the size of a car. If you are really concerned that the car is not sitting level, the only way to sort this is to level and corner weight the car at the same time. Otherwise you are certain to end up putting torsion into the chassis which can mess up the handling something rotten.