front coil overs

[honourablepickle]

has anyone out there converted the front end to coilovers ?
if so have you got any pics / advice / component specs please
it's on my job list before the car goes back on the road for the spring and i'd like to shamelessly copy someone else's hard work to make my life eaiser
hope you all had a fun xmas
rich

[blaineuk]

i did, but then went back to the original set up, you will need to weld chassis and bottom arms.

[honourablepickle]

no problem moddng the metalwork blaine
what problems did you have that made you go back ?

[blaineuk]

top mounts where starting to bend, but due to having my chassis powder coated i didn't want to be welding it, so put some cut down standard springs back on.

[GV]

The picture below shows what can happen if you have weakened mounts, or if the spring rate supplied with the damper is not correct. My own view when going to coilovers is that you need to chop and change your existing set up to safely accomodate the system as I did. This means fabricating upper and lower mounting brackets and having them welded into place.



The next pcture shows my upper mount conversion using 2 brackets I had made from a template that were made to fit preceisely to the chassis point. I might consider welding a cross brace for added strengh although I don't think it's needed as my car doesn't do tracks.



The last picture shows the lower mount converted, again with fabricated brackets welded to a 20mm steel bar that was welded onto the lower wishone where seen. The lower brackets go through the gap where the old shock was mounted and are also welded into place. I also had the suppoting plate welded to support the factory welds already in place. The key point here is that the downward force is being applied and held in place by the strengh of entire lower support and brackets as opposed 2 x 13 mm nuts on a flimsy piece of thread as used by a conversion bracket.



In all, the total cost for brackets and welding came to £90 as well using the brackets I designed myself. I got a mobile welder who I could supervise as to what I wanted whilst it was being done as opposed to using a rip off garage...

Needless to say that I have total peace of mind when driving as opposed to having the thought that one of the nuts could sheer off whilst under load which is exactly what happned to me....!!!

Edited by GV on Monday 27th December 12:13

[honourablepickle]

thanks for that GV - your set up is pretty nuch exacly what i was going to make
what damper (length stroke etc) and spring rate did you end up using

[RedRum350i]

blaineuk said:

...so put some cut down standard springs back on.

Blaine - did you cut the springs yourself? I put new springs on last year and the front end now rides a bit high! How much did you cut off?