How to set up a Coilover

Equinox

Sooo what would you describe as the ideal way to adjust a coilover? I have HKS Hipermax III on the way in, and they adjust both by compressing the spring with preload(most coilovers) AS WELL AS the lower bracket is adjust, basically shortening and lengthening the shock body.

I wanna know the best approach to set the car up. From what I understand, I heard one thing to do is, compress the spring with as much preload as available, attempting to smash the uppermount down to the bumpstop, then with the coilover on the car, you adjust the lower bracket extending the shock body to the point that the tire of the car ALMOST rubs/bottoms out/touches. Then you lock the lower bracket in place and never touch it again. Then just loosen back up your spring preload, and set it to your desired load - mine is going to be just tighten it with maybe 2 or 3 turns of preload, then that's it.

Using this idea, this basically means that under full compression, your coil will hit the bumpstop before it rubs the tires. What do you think?

What I mean by preload is, most coilovers work by just smashing the spring to whatever height you want, but what this is also doing is 'pre-loading' or already smashing the spring instead of your car taking a corner and making it smash that far down. By preloading your spring, the spring will get progressively (or linearly) stiffer, along with your ride, BUT this also lowers the car. A way to lower the car without making the ride stiffer is a coilover system that has an adjustable lower bracket, that can just shorten or lengthen the shock body, and only use the spring preloading locknut to set what sort of stiffness you want.



As you can see the bottom bracket will spin, then you can lock it in place with the gold locknut. Also, the upper locknut will - wait, epiphany.

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Equinox

So am I retarded, does the upper locknut just lower and raise the seat for the spring, not preloading it or anything, and the lower bracket adjustment just make it possible to change car height in an easier fasion, making my whole schpeal wrong? lol. I learn when I explain it seems.

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memorylasts

The lower locknut is there to adjust the lower portion of the shock body without affecting shock travel, if you want to lower it more then what they might allow you might have to reduce the shock travel and move the locking ring next to your spring. But the best way to really go about it is to keep as much travel in the shock as you can to maintain comfort and handling and just move the bottom mounting bracket.

so the lower you put the spring the more bouncy the car will be if you hit any kind of bump because you are that much closer to the bump stop and you have that much less travel available.

I hope that helped!

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abakja1

So this setup looks the most like the ones on Subies.
Was told and how I had done it is to adjust the collars so that there is just enough tension on the springs so that it will not rattle. This way, your ride will not be bouncy or too stiff as preloading it more changes behavior of the ride more..Bottom collar is to lock the top collar in place....

You adjust height by adjusting the bottom portion of the strut/shock eye....but only things is that you need to take the mounting bolts on and off to do this....

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batman_4

sub to read later.

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jmlenz

I believe only the fronts will have the adjustments you are speaking of. The rears are just a basic strut with a seperate coil+adjusting collar. From my research the best way to set the rears up is with slight preload. Maybe you already knew this but incase others dont this is just a quick how to coutesy of azn370...

For the rears what you need to do is remove the stock strut and spring
Take the spring seat collars and set them at the same level not tightening them yet
Put the springs on, put the tires back on and bring the car to the floor
See if the height of the car is the desired height, if not then raise it back up doing the prev steps
(be sure to keep the height about 1/4" higher than what you want as you still need to set preload)
Once you have achieved the height you want, raise the car back up, take out the springs and spring seats
tighten the collars on the spring seat and reinstall (if you try to tighten them while on the car there is a possibility you can strip them)
You should have a bolt that goes through the factory lower arm and bolts to our spring seat, at this point tighten that too
Take your spare jack and place under the hub raise the hub so that the spring sits snug but not compressed

Now install the strut, tightening the top only
Measure the distance from the center of the hub to the fender
Raise jack 1/4" creating the preload on the spring
Scroll the lower mount of the strut up so that its level with its mounting bolt, slide the bolt through it and tighten
At this point you should have the spring preloaded 1/4" and the ride height at your desired level.