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What With All This Coilover Talk And All...


The Poi

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Guest Hank Scorpio

any particular reason why not?

do you really have to ask?

not that many inventive people on here. Guess it wouldn't hurt to try... though welding something directly to the strut tube makes me kind of nervous.

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do you really have to ask?

not that many inventive people on here. Guess it wouldn't hurt to try... though welding something directly to the strut tube makes me kind of nervous.

well thats the thing, if you can get one thats a reasonably snug fit, you jsut need to rest the bottom of the sleeve on the stock spring mount (cut down to fit, for astehtics sake). A heavy application of polyurethane will keep the sleeve in place, and the moutn is the actual weightbearing part

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Guess it wouldn't hurt to try... though welding something directly to the strut tube makes me kind of nervous.

Welding to the strut would be OK, just don't go laying down long beads. Keep the heat down, and quench with water soaked rags.

If you just want to slip a thread sleeve onto a strut assembly, I would suggest an idea...drill a hole through the sleeve at the bottom or top or both, grind the paint off the strut, and put a tac on the tube, though the hole in the sleeve. That should keep it from spinning/moving.

You have to figure a few numbers before you go buying short springs.

the spring free height

the number of coils

the coil thickness

estimated corner weight (although the dynamic weight shift will be hard to pinpoint)

Example, 8" x 2.5" x 400lb Eibach. 12mm coil thickness. 7 coils. Call it 90mm compressed height. If you reach that point, the spring binds, spring rate tends towards infinity, and you understeer if it's on the front, oversteer if it's a rear spring that binds.

So, ~200mm free height, ~90mm compressed height. 110mm to play with, which is about 4-1/3". If you compress the spring 4.5", you're screwed. My 240 has, on average, about 1600lbs on the front (800lb per spring). So it should compress a 400lb spring about 2" at rest (you'd actually subtract unsprung weight from corner weights to get the static compressed height when installed, and a 400lb linear spring won't be exactly 400lb per inch throughout the full compression).

Hypothetically, if you got 100% weight transfer on the front (lift the inside tire), could you put ~1500lbs on the left front? Possibly. Could get a lot of weight transfer under braking/turning sharply, too. 8" length and 400-500+ is probably OK for most cars. If you can fit 10", it would be better.

the thing is, if its resting on the stock spring plate wont that limit travel? I guess you can just use a shorter spring I guess.

Not sure what you mean by limiting travel. If you just stick a 10"x500lb spring on the stock perch, it may limit how low the car can go, where as if the perch wasn't there, and a threaded sleeve were mounted lower, the car could then be dropped more. The struts determine max suspension travel. But if it's not low enough when on the stock perch, then a shorter spring will let it go lower, obviously. But it could be a bad thing to throw on 6"x400lb spring on a nose heavy 850 just for the sake of lowering it more.

Choose your springs wisely. The 8" x 275lb I have would probably be borderline safe on the front of a 240. They're on Mike's Corolla now. ;)

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