Like the title says, is anyone using coilovers ? if not why ? the cost versus just lowering springs ? the quality ? it seems like they would be the best option compared to the cost of an air ride system but give a lot more flexibility then just a set of lowering springs, am I missing something ? If so please tell me what

 

Cost, not enough 'gain' for the price is why i don't run them.

 

When you say gain, how do you mean? Like not enough drop? My concern with lowering springs is that they will either lower it too much & make the ride too harsh or not lower it enough, I have seen a fair amount of posts on here from guys saying they put lowering springs in & it raises their car

 

The only thing you gain is some ride hight adjustablility.

Doesn't shed any weight, doesn't increase adjustability of suspenison settings, does not 'improve' handling.

Yeah out of the box lowering springs often raises an old worn out car.

Cost a lot of money

I bought new moogs and cut a half coil off.

 

Search for weight jacks. That is what most people who want adjustable suspension do.

http://www.ground-control-store.com/...hp/II=20/CA=86


.

 

What kind of ride quality do you get by doing it that way & how much are the moogs ?

 

Less than $100 last I checked, avalible at any parts store.


Rides like a sports car is suposed to ride. Firm, not bouncy, not mushy either.

 

I've seen them talked about on here but don't really understand how they work, please forgive my ignorance on this

 

Firm or tight isn't bad but I don't need or want it to be rock hard, was that less than a hundred for all 4 ? & do you still have to use relocation brackets in the back if you cut them ?

 

Well I don't even have mine in my hands yet so I am not the best person to answer.

BUT

Like coil overs they are adjustable. They fit in your current spring location so you can keep your wide front tires. Just like coil overs you can scale balance your car.

Cutting springs is cheaper by far.

 

Check your local parts store for pricing, close to $200 for all four, IIRC, but it was about 9 years ago when I bought mine.

Do some searching, lots of info on the various Moogs offered for our cars.


If you want it to ride soft and smooth, don't lower it or get air bags.


Relocation brackets are needed any time the car is lowered, doen't matter what springs you use.

 

I wasn't sure how much of a drop cutting them gave so I didn't know if it was enough to affect anything like that

 

Half coil off front, 2 coils off rear and eliminated rear isolators.
Moog part numbers,
5662s front
635v rear

 

https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/susp...g-springs.html

 

I don't agree with people cotting springs that is not the right whay to do it.

 

Pretty much how I feel. I think if I understood how the spring rates changed better it would not be so bad but I dont understand that part so I will stay away from it.

Plus if you mess up and have to buy another set of springs you just hit the price of weight jacks and still don't have the adjustable they have.

I like to do things one time.

 

It does shed some weight switching to coilovers and you can lose even more by going to lightweight aftermarket a-arms without the spring cups, which improves handling by lowering the amount of unsprung weight considerably, like 10-20lbs. The issue is that it relocates all of the spring force which holds up the front of the car to the thin strut towers which were never designed to support the load, so you have to run some beefy strut mounts and brace the hell out of everything. Coilovers also limit front tire size to 275's or something like that, with weight jacks you can run 315's, important if you're road racing or autoxing and trying to stuff as much tire under the car as possible.

Nothing wrong with it as long as the spring doesn't get hot. TONS of suspension tuners have done it to get the perfect mixture of low center of gravity, high roll center, and spring rate. Modern setups with adjustable spring seats, either through weight jacks or coilovers, take all of the calculations and guesswork out as you just pick a rate that's good for the height range you want, spin the adjusters and dial it in. The drawback is that such setups are expensive.

 

Nothing wrong with cutting coils if you do it right. All coils are cut at sone point.

Beats paying more for lowering springs that have crappy spring rates and actually raise the car.

Plenty of good information on this site about the spring rates of various moog springs and how much to cut.

You can spend a bunch of money on springs playing around with weight jacks too.

 

These are the front adjusters. The threaded rod goes down inside the spring and the red pocket goes up on the spring mount on the K-member. The front springs then sit on the mount. The weight of the car keeps the spring seats from spinning and the threaded rod is held on by a bolt but able to turn freely. You just connect a half inch extension into the box on the end of the rod and it turns freely, raising or lowering the spring mount plate.


The rears are just a coilover sleeve that sits in the holes in the spring perches on the rear axle. Jack the body of the car up and let the axle droop enough to relieve the spring tension, then just spin the perch up or down. There is a set screw you can tighten with a supplied allen key that holds it in place once you get it where you want it.


This is how it looks with the springs if you flip the picture as the red front adjusters go on top of the springs and the red/yellow rear adjusters go under the springs.

 

How do the weight jacks affect the ride as compared to lowering springs ?

 

I have coilovers front and rear. I love the handling (firm, but not bouncy, instant steering response), but for me the front Spohn kit did not lower the car enough, even on the lowest setting. I'm now experimenting with other QA-1 springs to get a bit more of a drop.

The rears however (from Spohn as well) lower the car plenty and have nice adjustability.

As for tire width on the front, I can fit 275/40-17 tires up front with no clearance issue. The 17x9.5" Z05 vette wheel with a 2" spacer comes within 1/8" of hitting the tie rod ends, so I couldn't fit wider wheels anyway without going to 18" or larger. The spring seat is about the same distance from the wheel as the tie rod end. I'm fairly confident that 18x10" wheels would even fit with coilovers because the strut/spring points at an angle away from the wheel.

As for weight loss, it was about 5 lbs per wheel on the front (probably as much on the rear), and if you have an aftermarket k-memeber/a-arm package without the spring pockets that's even more weight lost. IIRC the mild steel k-member/a-arm/coilover setup shaved a total of around 75 lbs off the front end. I just weighed my car the other day and it came to 1360 kg (2998 lbs).

 

How much did the spohn kit lower the front ? & do you have any pics ?

 

Rear suspension was stock at that point.




Rears

 

I was looking into coilovers for my 92 camaro until i found that the upper strut mount area wasn't designed to hold the weight and that it would limit the width of tire. I autoX so they wouldn't work for me. Mostly the drag racers on here run the coil overs. I went with the weight jacks. you can choose your spring rates like coil overs, ride height is adjustable like coil overs, and the third plus for me was all linear springs. There are dozens of options, biggest thing to consider is how you use the car.

 

These weight jacks are seeming interesting, so they basically just compress the spring if I am understanding correctly

 

They're basically an adjustable spring perch like with coilovers except not placed over the strut.

 

Does this pic put things in perspective a little better?

 

Just a few days ago there was a thread about all of this. That was the thread that made me decide on weight jacks.

https://www.thirdgen.org/forums/susp...cks-daily.html

I have read on here many times about the strut towers not being strong enough for coil overs. Like someone else posted I guess most of the guys running them are drag racing.

 

I've been running mine on the street for around 30,000 kms. I also do autoX on occasion. My strut towers have zero rust, which probably helps, and now I have significantly reduced weight on the front end with the new engine. The car actually does pretty well at autoX, except for the fact that it sucks in hairpin turns due to the stock steering angle max. Probably the only advantage over weight jacks is extra weight savings potential though.

 

Coilovers are a whole lot of trouble for very little if any gain over weight jacks. Coilovers make sense for drag racers and fancy part connoisseurs and thats about it.

 

From what i see, weight jacks would require a shorter, thus stiffer spring.

I would think it would be tough to get them to right as 'soft' as my firm cut Moogs are.

A good option for some, but the OP seems to want a softer ride, and I would not think this would be a possibility with weight jacks.

 

That was why I looked at them a couple years ago, figured, I needed them cause they are fancy. I soon discovered there was very little to gain compared to the cost, so, I went elsewhere.

 

Good point, but good luck finding someone to comfirm or deny IF weight jacks with low/soft spring rates ride quality suffers from the shorter springs. The price usually sorts out the serious handling enthusiasts from the lowered, cruising crowd. All the people I've seen with weight jacks have like 750-1200 lb fronts and 150(<--pretty normal rate but some racers like a soft rear spring) to 300 lb rear springs.

Weight jacks usually come with 8" fronts and 9" rears. I believe you can get longer springs than that to compensate for lower spring rates. I don't know how many inches of travel our cars have but i doubt there would be an issue.

Looking over what i wrote the short of it all is weight jacks are expensive (like coil overs) and IMHO the best option for an autoX/Road race car. If your not serious about real track performance then cut moogs, eibachs or whatever should satisfy your driving style.

As for the one guy successfully running a coilover set up on the street and the track for 30k miles, thats awesome, stand tall and be proud cause there doesn't appear to be many others doing what you're doing. It would be neat to find out what makes it work for you.

 

Honestly I think the dampeners have a much greater effect on handling quality than the springs. As I mentioned earlier, coilovers have much more potential for weight loss. It probably helps too that I now have a much lighter engine up front, and the tubular k-member probably helps stiffen up the front end as well.

I have read the QA1s are not very good as far as longevity is concerned but for now they're handling pretty well and they're not terribly expensive either.

As for being expensive, the kit from AJE is only $279 for the fronts, and the Spohn rears are $550 including dampeners vs. $459 for the weight jacks kit.

Up front I'm currently using the AJE upper spring pockets with 9" QA1 350 lb springs because I didn't like how the Spohn kit limits camber adjustment. That combo rides about the same as the Spohn kit did with 12" 325 lb springs. My struts up front are Tokico Illuminas. I'm probably going to get some QA1 7" 400 lb springs because I'd like to go a little lower and a little stiffer.

For some reason this combo works well for me. The guys at the autoX track tell me my car handles really well for something its size. There's not much to compare it against here though cuz I'm always the only F-body there. I also have the factory WS6 sway bar package and solid bushings everywhere except the rear control arms (poly) and the sway bar bushings (poly).

 

Shouldn't make a noticeable difference. Due to the car being generally lowered all the way with weight jacks, most cars run stiff springs. That will change the ride quality but even stiff springs arent a problem with quality shocks and struts. It may ride firmer but it's not going to be directly because of the weight jack.

 

With 850/175's 8"/ 9" and with fender heights of about 26.5" and 27" respectively and the Koni's on full soft the ride was firm but not harsh. I settled with the front fender heights at just under 26" and the rears at just under 27" (going to cut the bump stops and go down to 26.25-26.5") and the struts turned up one full turn and it's pretty stiff but it's not bad compared to Civics and 240's I've driven on coilovers. A shorter spring will have a higher coil frequency rate but I think some softer, slightly longer springs would ride fine, though you are never going to get a third gen to ride like a Cadillac.

However, if you're lowering the car you're going to have to give up some ride quality if you want it to handle decently and stay off of the bump stops. I wouldn't go under 700lb/in without some serious weight reduction or an LS swap period, and even then I wouldn't go much softer.

 

I don't want it to ride like a cadillac, but I don't need it to be race car hard either, it is a street car that I like to sometimes drive a little ..... "enthusiastically" we'll say, I just want to get it a little bit lower & help eliminate a little more body roll, I did put new Tokico shocks & struts on it a couple years ago so it's not the same 26 year old factory pieces still in it, & I do have an adjustable panhard bar & after market lca's, also replaced all the sway bar bushings with new poly ones when I did the Tokico's & I have a strut tower brace & sub frame connecters if any of that info helps

 

You should add a wonderbar to that already nice set up, but thats another thread.

Of course you do, otherwise you would be driving a cadillac instead of an IROC. I know you can get a 2 door Eldorado with the northstar for about the same price these days. Anyway, keep in mind that 700# springs are 700# springs and 800# springs are 800# springs etc etc whether they are moog, Eibach, Global West, Hotchkis, ground control weight jacks, or whoever. If you go with springs, every brand has a different spring rate so do your research, call them up and ask them. Decide what works best for you. The formula for figuring spring rates is on here somewhere. This thread started with looking at coil overs which are fairly expensive. A majority of people on here say that coilovers are a bad idea cause of where they relocate the load but then caffine is running them successfully. Weight jacks are also pricey and have all the pluses of coil overs and plus they keep the load points where they were designed to be. Spring kits are what they are. Cheaper yes, and the only adjustability is one way. Shorter, and firmer. What ever you go with also keep in mind how struts, shocks and swaybars play into ride and handling.

 

I thought I had a wonderbar already, from the factory, I thought they were standard, maybe not maybe I'm confused on that, but that is something else for me to check on haha, but the more I look into this the more the weight jack option is sounding like the better way to go for pretty much all the reasons you just gave plum92_camaro

 

Your right, duh on my part, IROC's do have the wonderbar.

 

Ok I thought so, my brain is mush lately with all this stuff

 

So can weight jakc or any aftermarket suspension for that matter help run a wider tire in front/rear?

 

LOL..Funny

 

I don't think there is anything that "helps" run a wider tire. But coil overs can prevent wider tires in front. Not sure about rear. I think the body gets in the way first in the rear . They say 18's help cause they can go over the tie rods.

 

I've had the GCWJ kit for a few years now and I dig it. I'm running an 800/250lb combo on mine and while it may be a bit harsh; the car handles like it's on rails. I recommend them.