I seems to have a weird assortment of suspension components and bumpstops. I'd like y'all's opinion before I bolt it all up.


Here's some crappy pictures of a front and rear setup. In the front, I have a 1.2" bump stop, and only about 1" of travel. Should I be cutting these to free up some travel? Or just raise my spring perch and therefore ride height to get some more travel? This 1" of travel was measured once I compressed the top hat onto the top of the spring.

In the rear I seem to have decent travel, but I haven't checked the ride height yet. I lowered it 1" of threads from the other side, which sat about 2" higher than I wanted it; we'll see what that 1" does and adjust from there.

When I first bolted this setup onto the car on one side it honestly looked like that picture of the guy that put the fronts on the back and vise versa. This is before any settling:

Also, does anyone have any tips or tricks for bench setting the ride height on these? I haven't measured my ride height in a long time, I think I'm going for ~12", but I need to reread a couple of saved posts I have on suspension setup first.

 

No one? I'm going to go over to my parents to finish this job up, and I'd really like to know about the front suspension. Doesn't seem right.

 

I thought the rear springs had to be a few inches longer then the front?

I'll also assume they are on the correct ends of the car....

 

Well I have no idea actually. The springs are both identical. Just one's labeled 450, one's 300, and the 450's are noticeably thicker. In that first picture, rears are on the left, fronts are on the left.

I finished the 2nd side today, and the fronts are about 1/2-1" too low, and the rears were 3" too high. This is at the setting that those pictures were taken at. Just seems like I could go an inch or two above and below stock height and still have useless threads left over. Seems like by the time I get the rears at the height I want, the top of the spring is going to be even with the top of the shock body.

 

I'm not sure what hats those are, but my ISC hats needed an 8-9 inch spring, depending on spring rate.

 

NB top hats with FCM spring isolators. I'd be an unhappy camper if I needed longer springs.

 

They are like 15 a piece on eBay for used quality springs

 

We'll wait and see. I can get about an inch of travel from the front, as they're ridiculously low, and then I'll just have the backs to worry about. I'll do some measuring to figure out how much travel I have, maybe cut the bump stop a little bit? What kind of travel should I be shooting for in a lowered NA in the back? I know it's not much.

 

What rates are these?

 

450 and 300, I'm guessing you know which is front and rear.

 

Funny, going from FCM hats (which I think are NB hats with isolators) to ISC hats, the ISC hats actually need the collar in the rear to be LOWER on the sleeve. I currently have a 7" spring, without regard to when spring bind happens, I could easily go with a 6" spring with the ISC hats and be cool. This is with non-shortened Bilsteins, btw.

Unfortunately I left my specs at home, but I just measured travel yesterday. But I can tell you, I am at around 12.25"+ rear ride height with 350# springs, .75" bump stops, on the NB hats I was bottoming really hard with a lot of r-comp grip. My point is, with those stops you have, unless they are shortened shocks, you are almost definitely going to be on the stops at static ride height, let alone when the suspension is traveling. You are going to want to cut those stops.

By all means, though, don't take anyone's word for it. Fit up the shock without the spring, support the car on stands and jack up the rear suspension to your static ride height and SEE what the stop is doing. Then move the suspension through it's range and see what the suspension does.

I learned that I have another 1.25" wheel travel after my .75" stops bottom before my short Hoosiers bottom. Then I've got another 1" before the rear upper control arm hits the chassis. By this, I know that I need either a shorter stop, a taller hat, or a combo of both. This experiment is enlightening, and shouldn't be skipped when you are building your setup.

If you are fast, btw, you will probably want stiffer springs. The ones you have are pretty light. I know now that I'm going to end up with at least a 450# rear.

 

 

Nice poem.

I'm using the hats to gain travel at the shock body/bump stop/top hat interface. The hat, in my case, has nothing to do with heights. Even at the tall rear heights I am running, I am almost guaranteed to blow up a shock by bottoming it so comprehensively. I know I can shorten the shock too, but don't have time to send them off right now for modding.

 

when I had isc racing top hats, I had to install spacers to lower the bump stop cause I was binding 8" 250# springs in the rear...I'm on NB tophats with the same bumps now and it's perfect travel. I find the isc racing tophats to be a gimmick, I can put the tire almost in the fender as in now.



here I jacked the control arm up until the car lifted off the jack stand..there's another maybe .5" of travel before the spring binds...but there's another 2" before the shock would come close to hitting my bumpstop, let alone compress it...

 

Hmm. I have QA1 7" springs. For some reason, it doesn't appear that QA1 lists specs on when their springs bind. I want this info. Does anyone know where it can be found. With the heavier springs I have, I'd rather not do the experiment of jacking the a-arms with the spring in place, I'm sure it would lift the car within 1.25" of wheel travel. I'd also rather not put it in a vice to test for bind, safety issue when it lets go...

 

Measure the coil, count the coils, then finish it off with the math

 

To test travel you're really supposed to jack the control arm up with the spring removed. then do it again with the tire in place to make sure it doesn't hit fender.

 

Sounds pretty reasonable. Thanks.

Are they shortened shocks? I am on the .75" stops badly way before the tire contacts the fender. I guess the important takeaway here is that you need to measure your setup to see what's happening. My setup is obviously quite a bit different than yours.

 

Well I do plan on raising the front, and lowering the back. However I'm currently about 1" higher than I want to be in the back, and I only have about .75-1" of travel, which I can test at static ride height by putting my finger in the spring and seeing how far the bump stop can bob up and down.

I'm think I'm comfortable with the front setup. I have about .25" of travel, and I'm sitting at least 1" lower than I'd like, even just for appearance.

These ride heights are complete random estimates, I'm just going for the tires being even with the fenders, which I think will actually be too low. Looking at my signature picture, my car is about .5" higher than I'd like in the picture. There's a really good post form Eddie at Adrenaline Racing on CR.net about suspension setup, and it says the ideal ride height for a car like mine, along with saying that 450F/300R is a great track/street compromise. I think it's something like 12.5". Keep in mind I'm coming from FM springs, so my fronts were hardly stiffer than what my rears are about to be.

Uhh...after 8.5 hours of night shift that's all I can think of. ISC hats weren't even mentioned, were they? No plans on buying them. Only plan right now is possibly cutting the bump stops, at the very least cutting the backs, they're a little over an inch right now. I may email FCM to jump into this thread as well.

 

no, just koni sports...so they are the shortest of all NA shocks by about an inch.


1" of rear travel is pretty typical, IIRC.