MrDude_1

so who here has a daily driver with coilovers? or atleast a street car?

ive been thinking about swapping my car over to use coilovers.. but i want to know if there are any "hidden issues" or gotchas that you wernt expecting.

now i do corner hard and often. and i do use my car for both autocross and drag racing.

im just looking for some real world opinions... PM me if you dont want everyone to know that your car squeaks or something..



im just trying to avoid another issue like i had with my current front control arms... they squeeked and had stiction... i later learned that almost everyone with thoes arms have the same problem, but noone ever posted about it.

ThirdGenLS1

I daily drive the spohn coil over for just about 15,000 miles now. Install was very easy (much easier then the stock set up), as for any gotcha's none that i can think of. Can't commet to much on the ride since i did so much to it during the coil over install. Car rides like a rock but i think its becuase i took off so much weight off the front with the LS1 that my springs are too stiff. Springs come really close to hitting inside the wheel well when going to lock but hasn't been a problem with mine. I can see that they might rub if you pulled the camber/caster in to much, but nothing that a BFH couldn't fix.

Overal i'm pretty happy with them, and basicly have had no problems with mine. Like I said the kit came with everything that i needed, but just remember that bilstein will not work with this set up becuase there shaft is to big in diameter. If you have any other questions feel free to ask.

Justin

MrDude_1

do you feel the wheel wells flex at all when you corner hard? have you ever autocrossed the car or done any other really tight hard cornering on it?

i dont know, i really want to do it, but the flexing of the front worries me, not the actual support, but more the movement of the towers under extreme loading.

ideally id like to do something like this with coilovers..... but i dont know if i'll ever get to it. its a little extreme for me to do to my daily driver, but ive done crazier things before.

MrDude_1

also, i know you said install is easy, but HOW easy?

im HOPING its just a matter of putting the car up, putting a jack under the A arm, undoing the nut and letting ti down...


reason i ask is, i swap struts for drag racing.. i run stiff ones on the street, for autoX, and everything else, then i put 90/10s in for big drag days..

swapping a strut itself is pretty quick and easy... other then letting it down with a jack, any diff??

ThirdGenLS1

i dont notice any flexing but i dont do anything crazy. I do take on and off ramps as fast as i possiable can, but nothing like autocrossing.

As for swaping struts its really easy. Jack the car up, take the wheel off, un bolt the top, unbolt the two bottom bolts to the spindle its off. Bolt the new strut on the splindle, jack it up in the strut tower and bolt it back down. After a few tries you could defintaly do both in under 20-30 min tops.

Justin

ThirdGenLS1

for auto crossing or somthing on that sory you will prolly want to talk to somone a little more experienced since the only reason i went with them is becuase my hawks k-member wouldn't fit my pro-kit springs. But for everyday driving i can prolly ask most of your question.

CrazyHawaiian

I dont have any experiences because I also dont trust those strut towers. But if I was going to do it I would have the strut towers seam welded, then I would have bars welded from the firewall on each side to the towers, then another set to connect the towers to the radiator support. kind of like how those dirt track racing chassis cages tie up the front chassis. Then on top of that a 3 point strut tower bar over the engine. I think thats about as strong as you can make the area without doing something like that picture. How realistic this is for a street car depends, some stuff might need to be re-located (like overflow tank, washer tank, battery, maybe even the fuses by the drivers side firewall), some stuff deleted (like the blower motor?), but I think its do-able.

Whats the reason for wanting coilovers? Less weight or the tunability? If its just the tunability aspect you can get close with weight jacks and adjustable struts (just stuck with a static spring rate but you can also change that). Adjustable ride height and dampening (or damping) without having to take the suspension apart is pretty sweet.

KagA152

iTrader: (5)

havent driven on mine yet. the one thing thats gets me is that with the spring protruding through the hole for the strut, you dont have much adjustment for your angles. ive been trying to think of ways to reinforce the tower area, but havent done anything yet

Kandied91z

iTrader: (7)

i ran coilovers for several years with no issues with the strut towers, i have been running air struts which are the same now for 2 years with no issues with the strut towers. i prefer the air struts 100% but that's purely for the ease of adjustment. coilovers are nice but they aren't that easy to adjust compared to the air struts. you'll definately need a decent stb though, it makes a world of difference.

PGdynamics

Where did you get your air struts from?

Kandied91z

iTrader: (7)

Air Ride Technologies built me a custom set of qa1 12 way struts with airbags on them.

PGdynamics

Awesome, thats who i was thinking of going with. Thanks.