Bottoming out on Coilovers ... Shiet

So had the coilovers on the Genesis Coupe set and corner-balanced. The car feels pretty neutral and feels pretty stable.

The problem is the front driver side, I had to jack up the height on get the left vs. right even. I feel jacking up the height shortened the suspension travel in that corner. Every once in a while, I'll bottom out in the front, which I only rarely did before the corner balancing.

Would making the dampening stiffer help? Any other remedies to this problem?

Sorry just getting paranoid about bottoming out.

Increase Compression. That will help, had to do that in the rear on mine, which was able to be done with a rebuild or change out of shocks.

This means that I hope you have double adjustable coilovers....

Are your coilovers adjusted for height by moving the perch or by adjusting the length of the body? If it's the latter, you can certainly affect bottoming out with adjustment. If it's the former, not so much.

Is the car sitting level? Usually if you're having to raise one corner to make the car sit level, the opposing corner will also be jacked up.

You cannot shift weight left to right using coilovers, you can only shift it from one diagonal to another. The proper way to corner balance is to set your ride heights, then when you're on the scales you adjust all four shocks at the same time. If your RF/LR diagonal is heavy, then you drop the RF and LR corners and raise the LF and RR corners by the same amount. Doing this will ensure your ride height does not change.

If you have one corner that requires excessive adjustment, you've either got a bent car or a crap spring. Pull the springs and check the free length.

If they are Koni and you don't have the bump stops in the shock / strut you will trash the internal valving (ask me how I know this)

What coilovers? Home brew?

If it bottoms out you may not have enough spring.3 to 4 inches travel should be max

I have the entry level Stance Coilovers. I put the dampening up a click. We'll see how that holds up. I think you might be right GTVVette. The springs do look a little short. Car feels great, feels like every corner is working the way they should be.

Stance coilovers... That might be the problem. If they're meant for the "scene" kids to look cool, they probably have very little travel and are expected to be run with insanely stiff springs so the suspension hardly moves.

rslifkin wrote: Stance coilovers... That might be the problem. If they're meant for the "scene" kids to look cool, they probably have very little travel and are expected to be run with insanely stiff springs so the suspension hardly moves.

What I ran into was they used very soft springs compared to some of hte others, at least for the Forte. I think they were trying to make them ride better, but with the limited travel they'd bottom out.

If the springs are too short, the problem is coil bind. That's when the springruns out of travel before the suspension does, and it feels like metal-to-metal contact because it is. Very hard hits. It also leaves characteristic marks on the coils where they've come in contact.

If the spring isn't long enough to reach your chosen ride height, you'll have the adjuster all the way at the top.

If it's not coil binding and you still have adjustment room, going to a longer spring won't do anything.

Here's a comparison. What do you think?

That spring on the left side looks like it could hit coil bind pretty easily. If those are the same springs in those two pics, there must be a massive difference in weight on those two wheels to get that kind of difference in spring compression at the same height. Either that or the springs are extremely soft, which is more likely considering that you're running out of travel.

GameboyRMH wrote: That spring on the left side looks like it could hit coil bind pretty easily. If those are the same springs in those two pics, there must be a massive difference in weight on those two wheels to get that kind of difference in spring compression at the same height. Either that or the springs are extremely soft, which is more likely considering that you're running out of travel.

Could they have added some preload on to the left wheel reducing travel? I know with used coilovers i bought the guy had put a tremendous amount of preload on the springs making the ride unbearable.

Or Stance has crap metallurgy, and the left side spring is failing. Which means you need to raise the perch to maintain ride height, which means it will probably coil bind, which makes it fail faster. To check, pull the spring and measure the free length. Compare to what it should be. If it's shorter, throw the spring away.

The myth of preload is another conversation Although we still don't know if these coilovers have adjustable length bodies (a design flaw marketed as a "feature") which add to the potential of bad setup.

Keith Tanner wrote: The myth of preload is another conversation Although we still don't know if these coilovers have adjustable length bodies (a design flaw marketed as a "feature") which add to the potential of bad setup.

I'm curious what you mean by this?

I'm on Stance crap too. Not happy with their customer service, but they ride alright and don't leak yet. It's been doing alright when I autocross my car, but the moment they leak I'm getting rid of them.

Adjustable length bodies are a way to use a generic shock insert in multiple vehicles by screwing an adaptor on the end. You always lose on overall shaft travel with them, which can be a real problem on some cars. A shock/strut designed for a specific vehicle will be designed to take full advantage of the maximum compression allowable by the chassis without sacrificing droop travel at the same time.

And of course, you've now introduced a new way to misadjust the suspension. You can have two shocks set up for the same ride height, but one has only 1" of travel before it hits the bumpstop and another can have 2".

Preload is only a factor when it starts to approach the amount of load on the spring when the car is at rest. The spring will compress the same amount regardless of the amount of preload on it. Put 800 lbs on a 400 lb/in spring, it'll compress 2 inches from free length. Not from the preloaded length, from free length. Doesn't matter if it has 50 lbs of preload at full droop or not.

Here's a thought experiment - if I take a shock and add an inch of shaft travel at droop, I've just decreased the preload. But the only time that affects anything is in that bottom inch of droop travel, it's exactly like the shorter version everywhere else.

THE nice thing about them is the springs are 2.5" springs you can buy in any length and any lb/in you want.

I went and got some Swift Springs hopefully that'll fix things

Let me know how it goes. I've often debated on replacing the springs with swift springs, however in my mind I keep thinking a spring is a spring is a spring.

seyhan3535 wrote: Let me know how it goes. I've often debated on replacing the springs with swift springs, however in my mind I keep thinking a spring is a spring is a spring.

that's like saying all tires are the same.