Coilover Adjustment

[Calza]

Apologies for the photo quality.



I'm reading about different types of coilovers going in opposite directions to adjust. Am I correct that the type I have here need to screw up to increase the ride height? But this will also reduce the amount of spring travel available (which seems bad) ?

If so, is there any issue taking them all the way the top of the available thread?

[Calza]

Thanks for the replies.

It's not lightweight and it's not a track car. The reason I bought these is that the standard ride is awful, and the lowering springs which were meant to improve ride quality dropped it much further than I wanted.

These are now fitted with the adjuster fairly near the top, but the ride hide is even lower than before. For some reason my car seems to ride lower than it should (was fine as stock), and I just wanted to make sure the coilovers weren't wound the wrong way. I also think it could be bottoming out over larger bumps in the road, perhaps due to lack of spring travel.

I've read about / am interested in corner weighting but the issue is the only adjustment is lower which would make it fairly intolerable!

Edited by Calza on Friday 6th October 10:43

[Calza]

This is how it is set now, (i.e. at the top):




And this is how low the car is:




Something just doesn't seem right.

[Calza]

e30m3Mark said:

Buy some new springs from somewhere like Faulkner. It seems lots of people buy coilovers and assume whatever spring comes with them will be the best for the car. More often than not they're just not ideal. I would do some research on your specific car and the best spring rates for whatever use you need.

How does that work, can I put non H&R springs on?

You're right, I totally did assume that. They advertised it for the car so I assumed it would go from anywhere near stock to fairly low. Not fairly low to scraping.

Edited by Calza on Friday 6th October 18:52

[Calza]

Thing is, 30mm would be absolutely fine I think (this is stock):



But I feel I'm already way lower than that, despite being at the top the thread basically You are right though, there is no room for the spring to do it's thing like this, it's already very compressed, but I simply can't go any lower to free it up. The ride actually isn't that bad even like this, certainly better than stock or the lowering springs I had on before.

Lose lose!

[Calza]

Going to contact them and Faulkner as listed above, cheers!

[Calza]

e30m3Mark said:

Give those threads a good clean and waxing too. I appreciate you'll probably find a ride height and stick with it but it's worth keeping those units in good condition.

What do you suggest using?

GreenV8S said:

Ignore the spring at first. The damper bump and droop stops limits the total range that the damper can travel. Typical dampers have about 100mm range and for a strut that gives you roughly the same distance total vertical travel in the suspension. The vehicle has to stay within this range of heights under all circumstances. You should already know the fully extended length so this defines the maximum vehicle height the car can have with those dampers. You can either unload the springs and collapse the damper, or estimate the amount of compression before the damper hits the bump stop rubber and how much compression the rubber will have (maybe 25mm) to find the fully compressed length. This defines the minimum vehicle height with those dampers.

If those upper and lower height limits are acceptable for you, you need to decide where you want the normal ride height within that range. Typically you will want it to be in the middle of the range to give you maximum travel up and down. If you want it higher or lower, bear in mind you will be limiting the available travel in that direction so you will need to increase the damper and spring rates to reduce the travel used. From the spring rate and vehicle weight distribution you can estimate the spring deflection at rest. You can then go ahead and choose the spring length and spring seat position which puts the vehicle at your desired ride height at rest.

TL;DR Sort out whether the damper dimensions fit your needs before you worry about springs, because if the damper length is wrong you can't fix that by changing the springs.

I appreciate the more detailed explanation. The thing is it's not that expensive a car, and nor is it a track car or b-road blaster. I was honestly just hoping to achieve a half decent ride in terms of comfort and height.