MaltBeer

I just put in my gc's/koni today with the GC top hats on all 4 corners. When i put the fronts in i just had the gold ring in the middle of the threaded sleeve to see what drop it would be. THe rears i had all the way up, when i put the car on the ground the front was really low and didnt like it. So i put it back up on the lift and tried to spin the front up but i cant there is just way too much tension on the spring that if i try to spin it everything moves with it (sleeve and spring) Any advice would be great, if need be i'll take it apart and spin the fronts up and put it back together but dont wanna go that route. Here are some pics...








Pics are just so u can see my current ride height and how low the front is. (to me at least)

chrisw85

umm is the 3/16 hex stuck? i'm sure you loosened that when trying to spin the collar...and do you happen to know what length springs you have?

MaltBeer

Yes I did loosen that hex nut but still no go couldnt spin it back up. About the length springs i dont know actually but i'll go take a look and see if i can spot the number thats on the spring and tell you.

Understeer

Did you install the rear springs in the front and vise vera?

It should be fairly easy to move up and down when you have the car jacked up.

Edit: That 3rd picture looks very strange to me.. the wheel and stuff.

MaltBeer

Hmmm, im not sure about the springs part. The way they came in the box was the way i put em in. The springs were packaed up over each sleeve so i put the shorter sleeves with those springs in the front and the longer sleeves with those springs in the rear. Whats wrong with the 3rd picture? The car was on the ground and wheel turned all the way right, my buddy wanted to see how it was together so he put teh camera up there and snapped away. But anyway are the springs different? I got off the shelf gc rates no custom ones.

Understeer

I believe the standard kit comes with 8" and 7" length springs. Usually the 7" goes in the rear and 8" in the front.

Jack up the car and tell us what the part #'s are on the springs, then we can tell you 100% if you installed them correctly.

I am pretty sure you have the rears installed in the front and vice versa.

R-Lug

longer ones should be up front man

SovXietday

Sounds like you have them on correctly if you put the spring with the sleeve it was packaged with.

ED7

I have a feeling the springs are switched also. On my civic i can can raise the front up alot more than that and then it starts to get difficult.

bad-monkey

it happens sometimes. It helps to have a spanner wrench to get it higher if it's preloaded too much to do it by hand.

MaltBeer

Hey alrite so i jacked up the car and got the numbers off the springs so hopefully i have them the right way so here they are...

Fronts

162886-1
GC 200.64.58

Rears

142312
GC 200.64.44

So the way i have it right now is that right or not?

Understeer

It seems like you will need a spanner wrench to adjust them.

Front:
8" Free Length, 2.5" Diameter, 330lbs/in
Or
800.250.330

Rear:
8" Free Length, 2.5" Diameter, 250lbs/in
or
800.250.250

chrisw85

thats weird with 8" springs.

on my setup i can adjust the ring to within 1/2" from the top of the threads before it gets really hard to turn but i have the full length gc/koni tubes so i dont know if the threads are lined up different versus the newer 'useable' threaded sleeves.

MaltBeer

Ok so I do have them on correctly then? Also where can i buy one of these spanner wrenches? And also i dont know if this matters but the perch on the front for my konis is in the middle. There are 3 grooves for them and its in the middle location if that makes any difference?

SovXietday

The sleeve should sit on an existing ring already built into the Koni's.

MaltBeer

The ring isnt built into the koni's...it has 3 grooves in the shock body for the snap ring to clip into. In the front its at the middle and so is the rear. But anyway i dont think that could be the problem. Where can i get this wrench?

Understeer

The middle perch is perfectly fine.

Which jack point did you use to raise the car?

You should be jacking it up on the front to fully have the springs loose.

MaltBeer

Well when i tried to raise the front the car was on a lift with all 4 on the sides. I havent tried it yet on my driveway.

MaltBeer

I will give it a try though of jacking it from the front and trying to move it up more. If that doesnt work where can i buy that spanner wrench?

94eg!

iTrader: (2)

Here is your problem. The DA integra has a really short shock stroke in the front. When you added the GC upper mounts to the front, you increased the amount of compression travel, but at the same time reduced the amount of droop travel. Droop travel is very important to being able to easily raise the ride height of the vehicle. Since your springs are preloaded, you are going to have to go one of two routes to raise the car:

1 - Call ground-control & ask them to replace your front springs with shorter ones of the same spring rate because the longer front springs don't work well with the top hats.

-or-

2 - Buy a spanner wrench & adjust them with the springs preloaded (pain in the ***).

I would go with option #1 because GC is know for good customer service. Just tell them that there is too much preload to "un-slam" the car when using their upper mounts. You will have to send back your old front springs...

MaltBeer

Yeah i understand what you are saying now. I've been tryin to call today a few times but they are busy as it seems. I'll ask them about changing the springs but do you think i would have to send my springs back first because if so i just cant do that. Thanks for your help, i'll keep trying till i get someone to talk to.

94eg!

iTrader: (2)

If you cannot send your springs back to them first, they have to charge you for the new ones until you can return the old ones. This is all speculation fo course because I've never been in that situation...

MaltBeer

Yeah i appreciate your help on this. So i just got off the phone with them a lil while ago and i told them what happened and they said they will send me one of those spanner wrenches for free. I told them about the springs thing and they said very nicely in a way that likely wouldnt happen. So im gonna see about the spanner wrench first if that works, if not then i dont know.

Tyson

sorry, lots of BAD advice and misleading discussion going on here.

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by xmaltbeerxcp &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">I just put in my gc's/koni today with the GC top hats on all 4 corners. .... tried to spin the front up but i cant there is just way too much tension on the spring</TD></TR></TABLE>

your problem is the top hat. 94eg is correct that youve just run out of droop travel. he and everyone else is wrong in suggesting you just need a spanner wrench to help rotate perch. youve run out of adjustment travel. raising the perch any higher at this point is only changing (static) preload on the spring, which only further affects ride height in a very limited way. youll eventually run out of "sag", the distance from full droop to the amount of stroke travel when sitting on the ground. the more you preload the spring, the less sag.

how much are you trying to raise the fronts?

if you really want to get back up an inch or two, near stock, then you have no use for the GC top hats. remove them and youll now gain back the adjustment range at the top end. top hats are meant for ppl who already run low and need to recover shock travel.

if you just want to raise it a (very) little, then can try to adjust the perch and i have a better way of raising the perch under preload. what you do is get a screwdriver or prybar or even a flat wrench, stick the tip on the top of the threaded sleeve or top of the shock body. then pry up to push the coil up. this relieves tension at the bottom half of the spring, and youll be able to move the perch much easier, but only a little at a time. so keep adjusting.

but let me remind you, that you dont want to keep doing this to the point that you significantly reduce the amount of sag in your suspension.

MaltBeer

Ah ok, so really using the spanner wrench with the top hats wont do anything for me in raising them back all the way up to the top? The top hats are only for people who want to be really low then. So if i put the old tops back on in the front i should have full adjustability in the front? In the rears i have the top hats and the rings are all the way at the top but that will change soon as i get new rims.