OEM to coilovers, height changes/perch locations

[Modern Motorsports Ltd]

Danno, I started this topic here as I didn't want to distract from Mike's original thread.

 

Danno wrote: I know we’ve been down this road a gazillion times before but here goes. I went out this morning (18 deg. +4†of snow) to the ZShop and measured the top hat on the 260 strut and it is the same dimension as the 240 ~2.5â€. At this time, I prefer not to cut the strut tube. Question. If I remove the OEM lower spring perch, rest the coilover aluminum sleeve on that weld, assemble my coilovers and somehow use the existing

isolator will this alone lower the car and by how much? With my coilovers I received both the conical shaped top piece and the flat one. I was thinking about using the flat one and somehow fitting it into the OEM isolator to alleviate some road noise."

 

Danno: You can have your car back at stock height if you wish after the above changes using the OEM spring perch bead weld to rest them on. That's what's nice about coilovers, you can have it stock or drop it an inch etc if you like. If you're not dropping it much and your car isn't under much 'peering' eyes on the innards you can leave the complete OEM perch etc intact. My dad's setup is like this as he wasn't going much below stock (can't recall his rail height right now, above 5 and below 6?). He was very busy/needed them installed shortly for a long trip out here and that's how the shop put them in. The existing 'perch' limits how far you can lower it as you can't lower the adjustble lower nut full depth with the cupped perch preventing access to the lower 3/4" or so of the sleeve.

 

His car corners very well. I know and don't dispute that lowering your car helps cornering but they can still corner VERY well at or near stock height which some forget at times. If our roads were better I'd enjoy being lower but it's not feasible around here for my 24/7/365 use.

 

Most typically do use the stock upper strut tops (only other alternative is camber plates or homemade mounts etc). The coilover alum. tops fit in the stock isolator/bearing setup quite well. A cone top is taller in height usually so if one was lowering/short springs (ie. trying to retain as much travel as possible) you'd want to use a 'short' top perch; some I have now are only 0.25" thick vs. up to 5/8" or more depending on which top perches you have. For the short ones you trim the rubber 'lip' that protrudes down so they can fit up top in the inset of the isolator to bear on the rubber isolator.

 

Hope that helps.