I installed the rear coilovers on a friend's '95 Accord the other day (we did the fronts previously). But I ran into a major issue; the rears are WAY too low. I mean the lip of his rims are tucked below the fender line.

I understand you spin the bottom fork area (sorry I don't know the technical name), and that's what lowers or raises it. When I turned it, I counted a total of 9 and a half full turns before it was completely unscrewed. I turned it 1 and a half turns from the bottom (7 and a half turns from the lowest it would go). It's just too low, and as far as I can see, the car needs to be raised another 3 inches or so to have good clearance (and match the front).

The problem is, that it appears that if I unscrew it enough to get that much of a raise, it may only be on there by a couple threads. Maybe I'm wrong, but that seems pretty unsafe to me. Am I doing something wrong here, or should I just unscrew it as much as possible to get a reasonable ride height?

 

No one has a '94-'97 Accord, with Function and Form Type 1 coilovers on them?

 

Screw the metal threaded part by the adjustment on the preload.

 

Well I don't have an accord. However, most of the coilovers I have seen have a hole drilled in the side of the lower cylinder (that fork thing) that bolts to the control arm. That hole indicates the minimum amount of threads you can have.

So then if the car is still too low you have to adjust the other spring perch, the one next to spring itself. You want to adjust it so you start compressing the spring more. This will add preload to the spring, and will raise the ride height.

 

Let me say this in a better way. You should see the threads of the shock in that hole. That is the minimum amount the shock must be threaded into the lower part that bolts to the control arm. That is the longest you can safely make the shock.

If at that point the car is too low, you have to start adjusting the preload on the spring. You should adjust the spring perch directly under the spring to compress the spring more. This adds more preload and raises the ride height.

 

Awesome. Thank you for the response. A friend of mine said to do that as well, but everywhere I read said that the spring perch would only change the preload, and wouldn't adjust the height. I'll also look for that hole you're talking about as well. I can't even get Function & Form to respond to my e-mails; which is kind of a bummer. Thanks again.

 

No problem, I am always happy to help!

Let me know how things work out.

 

For anyone who wants to know, or find this in a search, I found out the problem. My friend finally got ahold of F/F, and they told him that they are set up for people who like the slammed car look, so they are meant to be low. They also have some option for longer rears, that raises it by an inch to an inch and a half; for $70 or so. As far as how many threads the bottom part can be lowered, they said you have have it threaded on by 8 threads (about half of the threads in the bottom part), and there won't be any issues with the threads stripping out or any thing failing. Unfortunately, that's still not high enough, so my friend has to send them back and get the longer ones.

 

Any pics of how it looked?