Now this is what I'm talking about!! Truly the correct method! Thanks for not spreading misinformation, which seemingly most content on coilovers does sadly. Even more wacky is that some manufacturers don't get it right....smh. Keep up the great videos!
Great video! Always good to see the correct info spread around. Flyin’ Miata has some great videos videos on this subject too. This way of adjusting this type of coilover always seems to cause some backlash even though it is the right way of doing it.
Nice video, had no idea of the proper way. Even the instruction manual that came with my coilovers said not to adjust the spring perch. I'll have to dial them in like this after I get some helper springs.
Great coincidence! I was just working on dialing in my bump stop last night, since I took it apart for the new spring rates! All in the name of maximizing droop lol
Not saying this is an incorrect method. But doesn’t make sense to me I’m afraid. You buy a coilover kit specific to your car and you’ve chosen the spring rates depending on what brand you buy. You simply assemble to suspension, with the preload specified by the manufacturer, which means the springs are not loose when static or on full droop when jacked up. Then you adjust the cars height with the lower perch. You can then adjust the bump and rebound to suit your needs after….. depending on your coilovers of course. Mine are BC BR Racing coilovers.
I have my 2003 MR-S at a similar ride height to yours and I've noticed that my control arms seem to be nearly parallel with the body of the car. I'm assuming this means that upon compression the arms will pull the bottom of the wheel in reducing camber, I'm considering raising the car about an inch in hopes to avoid this. I was wondering if your arms are similarly positioned, or if my understanding of McPherson strut suspension is lacking.
Great video! Do you take bump stop deflection into account when you're setting the shock length? I imagine the bump stops will compress quite a bit under load.
No. Just adjust to the point my car is jacking up with the bumpstop. They just came with the coilovers and im not aware of how much they deflect/rate. I know there is a whole world of bumpstop tuning/progressive bump stops but I have no experience with that.
@@TougeTime ok cool. It's worth thinking about if you get close to the bottom of your travel. Keep an eye on the inner fender area and you'll see if it rubs at all.
This is interesting. I've messed around with my spyder's bc coilovers a few months ago. Turned out I had 2cm of rebound and 8cm of bump. I left it at 3.xcm of rebound and 6.x cm bump, with the spring a bit loose on full droop. There is something Im not sure about though, isn't it true that once the spring gets loose while on droop, the rest of droop is a bit useless since the spring is not pushing down the wheel anymore? This still applies after installing a helper spring to prevent the main spring from being loose, since helper springs won't actually help push the wheel down since the rate is pretty low.
@@TougeTime yes, that's not my concern. The thing is, you are doing this to gain more droop travel right? What I mean is that I believe that that new droop achieved isn't going to be of much help, since the main spring is going to be unloaded (the helper only keeps it in place but isn't making any force pushing the wheel down)
@@ivan_b28 The shock still has an effect even when the spring is unloaded. It controls the speed of motion as the load comes back onto that corner. Think about it as if you were doing a jump: if your wheel can travel further downwards, the damper has more time to dissipate the energy as you land. The same is true if you're transitioning through a left/right section of corners - as you change directions, the extra droop travel will give more control over the cars movement.
Wouldn’t it make more sense to just put a longer spring with the same rate? Doesn’t using a helper spring make the suspension completely useless once you’re in the part of the travel that relies on the helper spring? And why do some people use bump stop spacers? Doesn’t that reduce overall travel?
the whole purpose of a helper spring is to keep the spring positioned against the mating surfaces of the suspension at all times. Coilovers by design are much shorter than typical oem struts' springs, and since the car's suspension doesn't necessarily travel less with a shorter spring - they are notorious for bouncing around (floating is probably a better word) in those instances when one tire goes airborne and the shock's stroke exceeds the length of the spring momentarily. this poses a few risks to the suspension itself - possibly the frame of the car (like the shock towers) when coming back down (impact damage) but also that extra play means there's no "suspending" taking place immediately after the tire touches the road again, it f**ks with the geometry. But more importantly in a worst case scenario, the spring can become derailed from the upper and lower seat. The helper spring "extends" the spring's profile within the strut so that it's longer than the max stroke, ensuring it keeps positive pressure with the seats. Helper springs are very very soft. they don't have any damping force at all, less than a few pounds of pressure. just enough spring force to lift the main spring up into the top seat. at static rest, the helper springs are completely flattened under the main spring.
Hey buddy, who ever taught you that that adjusting ride height is done on the spring was definitely wrong. Your not making the shock body longer your moving the wheel hub assembly up and down the shock body. Travel never changes. You said it your self the helper spring remains compressed until the wheel comes off the ground. Buy moving the spring collar all your doing is compressing the helper spring till you start adding preload to your main spring. And ride height will remain unchanged till your start compressing the main spring.
@@TougeTime the helper spring adds droop yes. But using the the collar on the spring perch for ride height is a bad and removes the droop if that’s what your adjusting ride height with. And conversely lowering the perch is just letting the piston back in the shock body and at max stroke let’s your spings loose
@johnbuckley1754 the point of the helper is to hold the spring in place when unloaded. Lowering the perch lowers the car. The helper does nothing else. Raising the perch will raise the car
if that's the right way (bottoming out the tire until it's pushing onto plastic and thin metal body panels), I'm probably ok with never ever doing it properly.. lol I like my car too much. I'll continue my no-contact method.
Did allot of research on this and this is not 100% true. It all depends on the vehicle set up (FWD,RWD,AWD)rwd would require some droop but not to the point where you measure till the bump stops hit. Of course this is for a track pavement car not rally which would be completely different. Hence depending on the set up. FWD would require less droop in the rear for better rotation (less grip) you’ll see allot of time attack FWD cars lifting the inside rear tire. Having a a helper spring may help keep the spring in place BUT. Remember most of these coilovers come with linear spring rates not progressive like OEM. Your bump stop will NEVER bottom out with high spring rates UNLESS they of course fail and brake which is highly unlikely. 2. Setting up the suspension this method makes the shock already compressed (close to bottoming out due to this) and possibly wearing it out even more (possibly blowing the strut) and the spring regardless of a helper spring would not be able to rebound the strut cause it’ll always be compressed under the vehicle’s weight. To negate this either you get a taller spring or.. get dedicated suspension for your car. KW for example.
Now this is what I'm talking about!! Truly the correct method! Thanks for not spreading misinformation, which seemingly most content on coilovers does sadly. Even more wacky is that some manufacturers don't get it right....smh. Keep up the great videos!
Great video! Always good to see the correct info spread around.
Flyin’ Miata has some great videos videos on this subject too. This way of adjusting this type of coilover always seems to cause some backlash even though it is the right way of doing it.
Nice video, had no idea of the proper way. Even the instruction manual that came with my coilovers said not to adjust the spring perch. I'll have to dial them in like this after I get some helper springs.
Good video and nice explanation of the correct way to do this w/r to the body length adjustment vs. perch/pre-load adjuster.
What a great video! Had every piece of information I was looking for!!!
Great coincidence! I was just working on dialing in my bump stop last night, since I took it apart for the new spring rates! All in the name of maximizing droop lol
Great, i knew that the other videos were wrong, thank you.
Were those helper springs ordered from S3 as well? If not, where'd you buy em?
What helper spring did you use with this setup?
What’s the length of the helper spring that you used?
How are s3 coilovers holding up? How is the quality? I was thinking about purchasing these. There on special right now.
I remember watching a Stickydiljoe video and Kristian touched on this a bit. The coilover companies have lied to me 🤯
TE’s replacing the k1s?
Nobody mention the silver car
is prolly the k24 car he reviewed a while ago
@@WTGRacing I think he may secretly own it now
He talked out it a few videos ago in passing
Not saying this is an incorrect method. But doesn’t make sense to me I’m afraid. You buy a coilover kit specific to your car and you’ve chosen the spring rates depending on what brand you buy. You simply assemble to suspension, with the preload specified by the manufacturer, which means the springs are not loose when static or on full droop when jacked up. Then you adjust the cars height with the lower perch. You can then adjust the bump and rebound to suit your needs after….. depending on your coilovers of course. Mine are BC BR Racing coilovers.
I have my 2003 MR-S at a similar ride height to yours and I've noticed that my control arms seem to be nearly parallel with the body of the car. I'm assuming this means that upon compression the arms will pull the bottom of the wheel in reducing camber, I'm considering raising the car about an inch in hopes to avoid this. I was wondering if your arms are similarly positioned, or if my understanding of McPherson strut suspension is lacking.
Arms are like /_\ not like \_/
Great video! Do you take bump stop deflection into account when you're setting the shock length? I imagine the bump stops will compress quite a bit under load.
No. Just adjust to the point my car is jacking up with the bumpstop. They just came with the coilovers and im not aware of how much they deflect/rate. I know there is a whole world of bumpstop tuning/progressive bump stops but I have no experience with that.
@@TougeTime ok cool. It's worth thinking about if you get close to the bottom of your travel. Keep an eye on the inner fender area and you'll see if it rubs at all.
Those Wilhelm coilovers 🤌
Yo man does this method can be apply to all coilovers such as bilstein, cusco, tein and etc?
This applies to "taiwan style" coilovers that have adjustable length. As mentioned in the video high end coilovers are built to the car
are you running aftermarket sway bars and control arms?
Swaybars ya. Arms no
What alignment specs do you use?
-3f -4r
This is only for helper spring setups?
Only if you want it lower than the limit of no helper
This is interesting. I've messed around with my spyder's bc coilovers a few months ago. Turned out I had 2cm of rebound and 8cm of bump. I left it at 3.xcm of rebound and 6.x cm bump, with the spring a bit loose on full droop. There is something Im not sure about though, isn't it true that once the spring gets loose while on droop, the rest of droop is a bit useless since the spring is not pushing down the wheel anymore? This still applies after installing a helper spring to prevent the main spring from being loose, since helper springs won't actually help push the wheel down since the rate is pretty low.
The helper keeps tension so it shouldn't be loose unloaded
@@TougeTime yes, that's not my concern. The thing is, you are doing this to gain more droop travel right?
What I mean is that I believe that that new droop achieved isn't going to be of much help, since the main spring is going to be unloaded (the helper only keeps it in place but isn't making any force pushing the wheel down)
@Ivan it's more for the bumpstop to do its job. Droop just comes with it. Either way I have a plated lsd haha
@@TougeTime all good then! Hahah
@@ivan_b28 The shock still has an effect even when the spring is unloaded. It controls the speed of motion as the load comes back onto that corner. Think about it as if you were doing a jump: if your wheel can travel further downwards, the damper has more time to dissipate the energy as you land. The same is true if you're transitioning through a left/right section of corners - as you change directions, the extra droop travel will give more control over the cars movement.
What was height before and after helper springs?
The same. U adjust the height however u want
@@TougeTime you kept the same height, but you were able to correct the bump and droop ratio with the helpers right?
how did you get 6 degree caster ?
Turn the top hat. Set camber with the bottom bolts
... the zzw30's appear to be multiplying asexually.
Wouldn’t it make more sense to just put a longer spring with the same rate? Doesn’t using a helper spring make the suspension completely useless once you’re in the part of the travel that relies on the helper spring? And why do some people use bump stop spacers? Doesn’t that reduce overall travel?
You use helper because it doesn't do anything really besides hold the spring in place. That's the point.
If you put a longer spring in, the ride height will lift up and you're back where you started.
@@truenotch ah I see thank you
the whole purpose of a helper spring is to keep the spring positioned against the mating surfaces of the suspension at all times. Coilovers by design are much shorter than typical oem struts' springs, and since the car's suspension doesn't necessarily travel less with a shorter spring - they are notorious for bouncing around (floating is probably a better word) in those instances when one tire goes airborne and the shock's stroke exceeds the length of the spring momentarily. this poses a few risks to the suspension itself - possibly the frame of the car (like the shock towers) when coming back down (impact damage) but also that extra play means there's no "suspending" taking place immediately after the tire touches the road again, it f**ks with the geometry. But more importantly in a worst case scenario, the spring can become derailed from the upper and lower seat. The helper spring "extends" the spring's profile within the strut so that it's longer than the max stroke, ensuring it keeps positive pressure with the seats. Helper springs are very very soft. they don't have any damping force at all, less than a few pounds of pressure. just enough spring force to lift the main spring up into the top seat. at static rest, the helper springs are completely flattened under the main spring.
Yeah, but do 205s even fit??
Front yes, rear no
175 max
@@TougeTime thats pushing it bud, thought you would know the limits of these cars smh
TEs look sex what width/ET are they?
This is the way👌🏽
Hey buddy, who ever taught you that that adjusting ride height is done on the spring was definitely wrong. Your not making the shock body longer your moving the wheel hub assembly up and down the shock body. Travel never changes.
You said it your self the helper spring remains compressed until the wheel comes off the ground. Buy moving the spring collar all your doing is compressing the helper spring till you start adding preload to your main spring. And ride height will remain unchanged till your start compressing the main spring.
It adds droop. The height definitely changes by lowering the perch.
@@TougeTime the helper spring adds droop yes. But using the the collar on the spring perch for ride height is a bad and removes the droop if that’s what your adjusting ride height with. And conversely lowering the perch is just letting the piston back in the shock body and at max stroke let’s your spings loose
@johnbuckley1754 the point of the helper is to hold the spring in place when unloaded. Lowering the perch lowers the car. The helper does nothing else. Raising the perch will raise the car
if that's the right way (bottoming out the tire until it's pushing onto plastic and thin metal body panels), I'm probably ok with never ever doing it properly.. lol I like my car too much. I'll continue my no-contact method.
first 🗿🗿🗿🗿
🙏🗿
Did allot of research on this and this is not 100% true. It all depends on the vehicle set up (FWD,RWD,AWD)rwd would require some droop but not to the point where you measure till the bump stops hit. Of course this is for a track pavement car not rally which would be completely different. Hence depending on the set up. FWD would require less droop in the rear for better rotation (less grip) you’ll see allot of time attack FWD cars lifting the inside rear tire.
Having a a helper spring may help keep the spring in place BUT. Remember most of these coilovers come with linear spring rates not progressive like OEM. Your bump stop will NEVER bottom out with high spring rates UNLESS they of course fail and brake which is highly unlikely.
2. Setting up the suspension this method makes the shock already compressed (close to bottoming out due to this) and possibly wearing it out even more (possibly blowing the strut) and the spring regardless of a helper spring would not be able to rebound the strut cause it’ll always be compressed under the vehicle’s weight. To negate this either you get a taller spring or.. get dedicated suspension for your car. KW for example.