OK everybody. I just read all 280 posts on this thread and I have learned alot thanks to all. I just had my Ksports installed on my 2004 today and it is stiff, I mean really stiff. It feels like there is no travel whatsoever front or rear. I took it to a reputable place that knows what they are doing, or so I thought! They did not adjust the height and left it a bit higher than my car sat with the Eibachs on, I'm going back tomorrow to adjust everything.
I just would like some guidance on what to ask/tell the guys when I take it back to the shop tomorrow. I am assuming that they just preloaded the springs too much?

ANY FEEDBACK WOULD BE HELPFUL, AND THANKS FOR ALL THE GREAT INFO...

 

Give it just a bit of time for them to settle. I noticed that the first day or two of riding on them, they were very bouncy and stiff. They settled a bit after that.

 

Are you sure it's correct to have absolutley no travel at all? Just doesn't seem right. I could see if it were just stiff, but this makes me wonder.

I also noticed that they have left my eibach springs in with the rear coilovers? Now again please don't bust my *****, this is completely new to me, but that can't be right??? Right?

I just want some solid info to tell these guys tomorrow because I'm getting the feeling they might be as lost (OK maybe not as lost) as me...

Thanks again...

 

Wow I just blazed through your post too fast.

I HIGHLY doubt that your Eibach's should be in the rears, you should keep the springs that CAME with the coilovers, first of all.
Second of all, as far as travel is concerned. The rule of thumb we have been going by is to load the bottom perch of the spring just enough so it holds the spring in place, but not too much that it compresses it. (This is done, of course, when the car is off the ground) That will ensure the correct amount of travel.

 

@ the preload rule. That's basically gospel. Also, you're supposed to adjust height by changing the position of the lower mounts. Make sure your shop uses that, and not preload.

Keep in mind that when you're sittin' on 20s, you'll feel a stiff suspension a lot more. It's all about unsprung weight, and you have a lot of it. Once things are in order and you can be sure your preload is where it's supposed to be, how it rides then is going to be as smooth as it gets on those rims.

As far as having your Eibachs in the rear... how can you tell? Do you see the little "Eibach" logo on them, or are they progressive-rate? I wouldn't even think the Eibachs would fit in there. The shop would have had to disassemble your rears to put them in anyway... it's just more work for them. But if they actually did do that without telling you, get an explanation and be ready to roll some heads cuz that is really not cool.

Good luck, man. Welcome to the world of low cars and semi-real handling.

 

You guys rock!! Thanks for the solid info. I feel good now to go talk to them and feel like I 1/2 way know what I am talking about!!

 

So I looked under the car again and the coilover is installed and there is still a spring seperate from the complete coilover. Shouldn't the old spring be removed from the control arm completely and the entire coilover is mounted where the shock mounts?

Here's a pic:


Again thanks for the help!!

 

WHAT THE HELL?!

if the correct coilover spring is IN the coilover, that spring shouldn't be there, in fact, that spring should not be there in any case.
yes, the old spring/strut combo gets REMOVED and the new coilover (spring/strut) assembly replaces it and uses the same bolt points that the old one did.

who the hell did your work?

 

Thought so, I am going to raise hell with these guys today!!
Thanks!

 

Also, it's quite possible thats why your ride is SO stiff, you're running two sets of springs

 

What in gods name is going on there??? How did they bolt that setup in there?? Take more pics, this is beyond wierd.

 

wtf... i mean i dunno what a 6th gen suspension is supposed to look like but that cant be right....

 

Holy freakin' crap. That is the dumbest thing I've seen so far today. And I had to drive through morning rush hour traffic in Philly this morning, so I've seen some pretty dumb things today.

It's not really unusual to have the spring separate from the shock in a suspension, especially in fully-independent suspensions. Apparently that's what the 6th gen's stock setup is, and obviously the shop concluded that the coilovers were only supposed to replace the shocks.

That makes them pretty clueless. They've probably never even seen aftermarket coilovers before, and either way they don't seem to know much about suspension.

In other words, nothing's wrong with the car, but the shop's competence is... in doubt.

 

If that were the case, then wouldn't k-sport have shipped the spring and CO strut assembly separate from each other since they are not to be mounted together??

 

No, because then they wouldn't be coilovers.

Separate mounting for the spring and shock can give you more flexibility in designing the suspension on a budget (any budget at all... not saying the car is cheap). It's not the way the car absolutely has to be... it's just a design choice that the Nissan engineers made.

In order to have adjustable height and preload, you need the spring and shock in one assembly. Otherwise you'd have to replace a lot more parts in the suspension besides the springs and shocks.

EDIT:
You know what, though... I'm starting to think that with coilovers, you'd be focusing all the stress on the strut mounting point, whereas in the stock suspension it's at least distributed between the spring mount and the shock mount. This bears further consideration...

Anyone care to furnish pics of the 6th gen's suspension, showing the mounting points for the shocks?

 

Ah, so then all the shop really needs to do is remove the stock springs, correct?

 

I called and gave them a bit of hell!! I asked if they had ever installed a coilover kit and they said they have, in fact a friend had his installed there? Anyways I'm going down there this afternoon with much more knowledge than I had yesterday thanks to you guys and this thread!! Wish me luck...

 

Yup.

Gah... you know, if I were super painfully hugely rich, I would buy a 6th gen just to turn it into a total track ***** and start tinkering with double-spring setups. The possibilities would be limitless!

 

Can the camber from a drop be adjusted without using the Plates???? How?????

 

OK, everything is all good now. They had some rookie guy that didn't know to remove the spring since it is seperate on the 6th gen. Anyways they removed the springs and the rear is fine, a bit stiff still but I imagine the break in time will handle that.
As for the front they did preload the springs too much, all is good now.There was another guy at the shop that wasn't there yesterday that knew exactly what was going on, he was giving the installer a pretty hard time about it all...
Here's a pic:


Thank again to all for the help on this, I felt like such a newb!!!

 

Can someone make a write up on how to adjust the ride height and camber plates once the coilovers are installed on the car? I know how to install the strut, I just don't know what I will be turning or not turning once it's on there. A picture explaining each part would be very cool.

Thank you!

Aaron

 

Adjusting the camber plates is easy. Just find an allen wrench of the appropriate size, jack the car up, loosen the 4 screws, and move the whole thing by the top bolt to adjust. If you need to adjust it past what it allows, you can move two of the screws to the center holes.

Adjusting the ride height once the coilovers are installed shouldn't really be possible, unless you use the preload/spring position to do it. You would adjust that by moving the lower spring perches: jack the car up, move the spring perch up or down, and when you put the car back on the ground, the car will settle to its new height. That's not necessarily the best way to do it, though. It should be okay for fine-tuning, but lowering it too much by just moving the spring down could shorten the life of the shocks because they'll be constantly pre-compressed. Raising it by adding preload will make your ride *really* stiff.

Large height adjustments are supposed to be made by changing the positions of the lower mounts before you install the coilovers on the car.

 

Adjusting toe will also affect camber, but that'd be a terrible way to do it. So really, the answer is "no".

 

The K-sports have a seperate height and spring preload adjustments! You can raise or lower your vehicle height without changeing your spring height or spring preload. A word of caution. I have my car set at just about full height on the coiovers and that is still about a 1-1/4" drop front and 1-1/2" drop rear. This leaves me with about a finger and a half worth of gap between tire and fender.

Black Maxima: If you want to take a ride up to Rocky Hill I'll show you my setup and how to adjust them.

 

I'm aware. You just can't really make that adjustment with the coilovers installed, which was what I was saying.

 

You're right. There is no simple way to screw it up or down once installed. You need to remove the two spindle bolts and screw the body up or down then reassemble and check height. It is a PITA, especially if you are trying to get the car level side to side, but not imposssible. It just takes time and patience!

 

Man, I really have to say thanks to d00df00d, I took alllll the preload off the springs, and what a difference, I mean holy poo, I am on 18's, 40 series bald crappy tires. And the ride is so dandy, its only bad when you go over bumps slow, These coils can handle NY roads if adjusted right, i'm sure more adjusting will make them ride even better. and handling is bad *** of course =D, thanks again.

 

Thanks for the replies. It looks like there are a lot of adjustments I can make on these coilovers. First of all maybe I should get some of the definitions down. What is preload?

Tommy Boy - You have a PM!

 

preload is when you tight down both the top and bottom lock nut of the springs and compress the springs. By doing this you will increase the spring rate of the kit.

 

Good answer. I understand that. Now what needs to be adjusted so my wheel gap decreases?

 

When you get your coilovers you will see that on the bottom of the strut can be turned, it will raise and lower the car by shortening the strut, but it will not affect the travel what so ever. Shortening your springs will affect the travel because there will be preload on it. It took me about a week to adjust the ride height, and is till dont have it right, just havnt had time to raise my back end. It is a pain the *** to adjust the ride height after installing the coilovers, and you need a lot of patience. so be ready

 

The big orange pieces on the bottom of the strut? I guess the strut mounts are the pieces that you turn to adjust the height? I'll find out today, I'm meeting up with someone...

 

What is everybody doing about brake brackets for the front brakes? I've seen a few people asking about them in earlier post, but I haven't seen a reply as to where to get them. The brake lines hanging down on the axle can't be good.

 

Yup, that's them.

Those thin black wrench-looking things that come with the kit are the brake line brackets. It seems some people are using them and some are just using zip ties to tie the lines out of the way.

 

Ok, thanks for the quick reply. I just put mine on today, I need an alignment but the ride quality good. Better than I expected after hearing people talk about coilovers being really stiff and bouncy.

 

Why is it that people impulsively go get an alignment after a car is lowered? I've done suspension work on cars that had perfect alignment before and after being lowered. I don't see how the alignment would be changed if you dont mess with the tie-rod ends. Can someone please explain this.......?

 

the alignment was fine... I just needed to have the camber set.

 

Well, with this particular set, there are two factors. The biggest is that the strut bolt holes on each strut mount are not both circular. The top ones are ovals, which permits some variability in the angle the struts make when they attach to the spindle. The other factor is imprecision in setting the positions of the bottom mounts.

 

WOW, I used the camber plates after dropping the car about 2 1/2 inches in front and a inch and 1/4 in back and my tow was scary OFF... Had an alignment done today and the mechanic didn't understand how I was able to drive it. Tow was corrected, camber is near spec, love the ride. Word to the wise, if u plan on adjusting the camber plates get an alignment after wards or alot to strengthen your arms......

 

It's because your alignment changes with ride height. every car has a small amount of bump steer in the chassis, and when you lower it, it gets worse.