Coilover help, Please!
 

Ok so I am the new guy here. I just finished putting Ground Control coilovers on my car yesterday. I started off setting them at the halfway point on the front. Now I want to adjust them on down in the back before I have my alignment and camber kit set.

I have read that you have to jack up the car to do this. I can understand how this would make it easier to raise it up, but I don't understand why this makes a difference when you are lowering them. After all how can I put it exactly where I want it when I can't tell where it is going to be until I let the car back down.

Also I read somewhere that the rear springs don't fit up into the perch until the car is let off the jacks. Mine does this, but it does fine once you let it back down. That really scares me, though. Is this normal. Will they not come out if I hit a bump. And why do the fronts do fine.

Please help me (and go easy on me)!

damn u just had all the fears i thought of

Well, when you are adjusting them, you may think it would be easier to adjust them w/the cars weight pushing down....but you most likely wouldnt be able to move them. On the other hand, how are you going to get underneath the car or get your hands behind the wheel if the car is still on the ground? Its much easier to adjust when the car is jacked up.


Im not sure about the rears... but as long as they are fine when you drive, and you dont plan on going airborn or jumping your car off a ramp or something then you should be fine.

hmmm i saw a nice way to do them but not sure if u can do that with every car or worse the price but alot of people put a adjust plate at the top of the strut tower which allows them to raise lower their car at different settings and know that at "whateva" mark that its even in the front and even in the rear..

i just use a small ruler and measure from the bottom of the threads/perch to the bottom of the adjustment washer things (you know what im talking about: the things you turn to adjust the height, measure from the bottom one) then you can scratch in a little slash on one of the washers so you know whether or not you have made a full rotation. that way you can be pretty exact.

Thanks for all the help! I have one question for decibel. What is this plate you are talking about?

Well what I did was take a small ruler, measure the distance between the top of the thread sleeve down to the base of upper ring, it should tell you how much you've been lowered that is if the specs of the coil said 0 to 3" lower, if it's 0.5" - 3" then add the 0.5 to that measured amount the have the exact value.

As far for the short rear spings, it's because the spring rate is stronger, that's why they didn't make full threaded ones like some other companies do. I have tokico full coil, the FUll threaded springs just compacted to a whole bunch of dead coils and give off awfull squeaking sound, I had to put some cushion between the coils so that they won't hit each other. As for Ground Control, they made it short and stronger so that you won't have many dead coils hitting each other once your car's been lowered.

You have nothing to worry about except check to make sure them mechanics who did your installation put the front and the rear springs where they suppose to be. The springs should have labels, F = front vise versa.