Coilover height?

[mugen_ctr]

Hey chaps, was wondering with adjusting coilover height, ive pretty much maxed out the fronts, and the tires tucks in ohh slighty, ride height is just perfect on my car imo, good mix of daily and looks...

But my question is, if in the future, i wanna go more low for show car reason, how can i get more low? ive maxed out the lower coilover sleeve body, an cant turn any more, can i adjust the spring perch? or a big no no?

If not, in future, might get another set of coilover which can go even more low for show purpose lol....

[chargeR]

By the sounds of things you have coilovers that are both base and spring perch adjustable so yes you can lower the spring perch to achieve a lower ride height, but keep in mind that by doing this you are sacrificing shock bump travel, the shock will bottom out sooner than it would have before. This may or may not be a problem, but at a ride height that low it is fairly likely that your tyres will smack into the seam on the underside of the chassis rail and cut up your tyres or your upper control arms will bottom out on the chassis before the shock itself will bottom out.

[mugen_ctr]

By the sounds of things you have coilovers that are both base and spring perch adjustable so yes you can lower the spring perch to achieve a lower ride height, but keep in mind that by doing this you are sacrificing shock bump travel, the shock will bottom out sooner than it would have before. This may or may not be a problem, but at a ride height that low it is fairly likely that your tyres will smack into the seam on the underside of the chassis rail and cut up your tyres or your upper control arms will bottom out on the chassis before the shock itself will bottom out.

Very good points! wouldev never thought of that.... hmmm....

And also iv noticed with RSB, its very close to the control arms now, so if any lower, id say id need to take if off as well :S

Alot of sacrifice for some looks lol..... Kinda doubting getting it any lower now hahahahaha, cheers man

[dougie_504]

I've seen people take the spring off and remove the top adjusting ring to get another few mm lower

[u mad?]

By the sounds of things you have coilovers that are both base and spring perch adjustable so yes you can lower the spring perch to achieve a lower ride height, but keep in mind that by doing this you are sacrificing shock bump travel, the shock will bottom out sooner than it would have before. This may or may not be a problem, but at a ride height that low it is fairly likely that your tyres will smack into the seam on the underside of the chassis rail and cut up your tyres or your upper control arms will bottom out on the chassis before the shock itself will bottom out.
oh shit, i have this exact problem in my dc2r on toda da coilovers. so if i lower from the spring pearch (if this can be done on these types of coils) the shock itself will bottom out rather then cutting up my front tires on that seem you are talking about and scraping my sump on the road :O

its not even THAT low and i've got them on the stiffest setting (front only)

[mugen_ctr]

Im not so keen on changing the spring pearch height, as its already set at optimum height for preload, i suppose if i was to do it, id change the spring pearch to sit another 50mm shorter, should be ok i hope lol.....

How do other ppl get away with a low as height? is it just the actual camber they use after maxing out the coilover height or the design of the coilover with the lower sleeve and shock body

does camber plays a big role with determining the actual ride height?, an seen heaps of guys run massive neg camber to get that extra low, but im not keen on it..... its my DD, i need tires to be worn evenly which is why ive gotten camber arms, an setting the toe back to zero

[chargeR]

oh shit, i have this exact problem in my dc2r on toda da coilovers. so if i lower from the spring pearch (if this can be done on these types of coils) the shock itself will bottom out rather then cutting up my front tires on that seem you are talking about and scraping my sump on the road :O

its not even THAT low and i've got them on the stiffest setting (front only)

If your suspension look like the picture below yes you can lower the car using the two spring perches rather than the single perch on the base, and this will result in the shock bottoming out sooner than if you just adjusted the height at the base. This isn't a great idea though if it means your shock is bottoming out long before the suspension runs out of travel. Ideally you would want the bump stops on the shock to come into play just at the right part of travel to prevent hard contact of tyre with chassis or UCA with chassis, and you could achieve this by carefully adjusting the spring perch height and the base height. This is messing with shock stroke unnecessarily though, and a better way would be to tune the length of the bump stop rubbers so that they prevent the tyre contact, or just do the right thing and raise the car up :).

Setting the shocks stiffer to avoid rubbing is a band-aid at best.

http://img231.imageshack.us/img231/6021/dc2da1.jpg


Im not so keen on changing the spring pearch height, as its already set at optimum height for preload, i suppose if i was to do it, id change the spring pearch to sit another 50mm shorter, should be ok i hope lol.....

How do other ppl get away with a low as height? is it just the actual camber they use after maxing out the coilover height or the design of the coilover with the lower sleeve and shock body

does camber plays a big role with determining the actual ride height?, an seen heaps of guys run massive neg camber to get that extra low, but im not keen on it..... its my DD, i need tires to be worn evenly which is why ive gotten camber arms, an setting the toe back to zero

For most inexpensive shocks lowering the spring perches by 50mm, effectively reducing the available bump travel by 50mm, will make the shock either basically bottomed out with the car static or very close. I doubt many coilovers have more than 3" of useable shock travel. So be careful of moving the perches that much, I took about 10mm of "preload" out of my front coilovers with no ill effects but I am using very stiff springs so I don't use a lot of bump travel anyway and the tyres will smack the chassis before the shock bottoms out either on the bump stops or internally.

Camber has a very small effect on ride height, when using sane amounts of camber. If you are adjusting the upper control arm length then the knuckle is effectively pivoting about the lower ball joint and since the effective horizontal distance from the lower ball joint to the tyre is very small a large angular change will only result in a relatively small vertical movement of the tyre. Pretty sure the USDM guys that have massive camber either do it for wheel clearance, or it is just natural camber from lowering and they don't want to deal with the consequences of camber kits.

[u mad?]

^totally get what your saying, legend!

[gensport]

any easy way to get it lower is to rate the springs to see what they are, then order a set (i'd get about 20% stiffer as your going lower) in the motorsport style spring. go to the king spring's site, and download thier motorsport catalogue. you'll then be able to order a spring that has the right inside diameter, outside diameter, length and rate. as far as camber correction, we use skunk upper arms with the adjustable ball joint. works great.

[mugen_ctr]

thanks heaps guys, totally agree with every point noted...... and i suspect if i was to drop the springs perch another 50mm, odds are it may very well bottom out...

Although it does make me think, when i had lowered springs in, dropped around 1.5 inches which is quite alot imo, losing that amount of shock travel, the oem shocks felt fine, but on a coilover may very well be a different story.

Ive sorted out all my tire alignment now, running hardrace camber kit, couldnt be more happier, pretty much oem settings now :D no more twitchy steering or hairy moments hahahhaa.... although they did struggle to do the front camber adjustment due to limited space lol..

If i was to go about ordering new springs would it be a bad idea?, atm its sitting on F10 R6, im finding the rear is too soft

[vtecing]

http://honda-tech.com/showthread.php?page=113&t=2077238

[mugen_ctr]

http://honda-tech.com/showthread.php?page=113&t=2077238

cheers man, gives a very insightful look into the world of slammed civics, an i must say, for the amount of work and headaches, its just not worth it imo, think ill just stick to my height as it is... no point in going lower, an plus i have had all the settings to how i want them, alignment is all done, no need to mess around any more :D

[nzjdm]

you need to total of about 40mm shock travel including the bump stop(which can be made smaller). so by effect you can lower the bottom spring seat this however is only a means when you have maxed out the base of the coilover. i have only the one seat ring in the front of my car so it is by effect base-ring-spring this allows the car so sit very low if need be i have no rubbing issues or upper arm touch issues i run adjustable upper arms and no inner guards this is on an ef