Hi all, just got a set of Progress CSII coils, went with the 350/250 setup.

Down to business. Had these for little over week, and noticed the ride has been a wee bit rough. Not sure if I am being a pansy about it, but I feel quite a bit vibration on the road, and I hit some bumps and feel it. Not as bad as it was on my ebay setup the car came with, but still.

Main question here is this; is the car too low? I know that raising it will help, but not really looking for that high of a ride. I do feel the front is a bit too low however. Looked fine when I first installed, until the next day when I noticed the suspension settled and went lower than previous.

Just looking for feedback. Also, my front axle is bad, so I plan to replace this (once I get paid next week), but was curious if this would lead to a hampered ride quality.


Thanks for the help. Here is a picture of how the car sits currently.

 

i'm also looking to buy this suspension from the h-t sponsor and would like to know how you felt about the suspension overall ride quality. what size wheels and tires are u running?

where did you order your kit, and how long did u wait for them?

 

Currently running 15 inch tires, on mixed 205 50. I say mixed because thats how they came.

I was going to go through progress, but were on back order. I ordered them on ebay through karuma motoring; had 99 percent feedback and power user (had 66K transactions). took 2 days to get them.

The ride is good compared to how bad the ebay coils were. However, I still feel shaking when driving on the freeway, and my steering wheel tends to have vibration. I dont know if this is normal, if this is my ride height or what. Was hoping to get further feed back from others.

 

usually the steering wheel shaking has nothing to do with the coilovers, you might want your wheel and tire balanced, and make sure u get an alignment if you havent yet. And if you feel vibration under braking, then you might want to check your brake disc to make sure they arent wrap.

i was also thinking about picking them up off ebay from the same seller, since progress is out of stock till next month. but when i contacted progress, and they couldnt tell me much about the ebay seller.

 

I did some research on the company, pretty reputable and have some great comments from other members here. Plus I had a special financing offer, so figured why not and pulled the trigger. They are legit, checked everything out.


No vibration under braking, just when driving every once and awhile. Just had alignment done, and perfect. Should look into getting tires balanced however.

 

that's one of the things i would do, or try rotating the tires from the back to front and see if that helps. and check the wheel bearing to make sure there's no play.

and when you say special financing offer, is that the bill me later 6 months without interest?

 

Fix that axle and you should notice an improvement. I ordered my Progress setup from Karuma. My ride is smoooth. You might want to also inspect the rest of your suspension system. Tie rods ends and bushings for starters. Your Ebay kit might have been masking other issues.

 

I agree with the others that the coilovers aren't causing your steering wheel vibration problems, but that car is very low for 350/250.

Questions:

- when you installed the coilovers, you were instructed to give 1/2" or so of preload (8-10 turns of the collar) before mounting. Did you do this, and how much did you raise or lower the car after the fact?

- how much did you trim the bumpstops?

- can you peek through the wheel and see how much travel you have before you hit the bumpstops?

- are there signs of wheel/fender contact or UCA/body contact?

Edit: here is my car fully slammed at the bottom of the allowable travel (I was on the bumpstops so it could have been a tiny bit lower had I trimmed them more)

 

Preloading the coilover will go a long way. I need to pull mine off and do that, mine are kind of bumpy. I'm thinking it's a result of not preloading the assembly.

 

Oh yeah. Ride quality should improve if you preload the springs as recommended.

 

How are you setting pre load on the cs 2? I have the ones pictured at this link.
http://progressauto.com/view.just.im..._%28web%29.jpg It only has one collar.

 

The pre-load isn't adjustable. You just install the spring, fasten the top hat, and then move the collar up until the spring is compressed about 1/4 - 1/2 inch, pre-loading it. That way there's always some load on the spring when the shock is all the way extended. To change ride height you also change the degree of pre-load. I raised my car about an inch after installing the coilovers. So I've got about 1 1/2" of preload.

But if you tried to lower the car even more once you installed it you would lose the pre load and the spring could become free when the shock was fully extended.

I'm worried that's what the OP did, because he looks lower than my car was when I was on minimum pre-load and therefore minimum ride height.

 

I will check the bushings, tie rods, etc once I take the car in to get my axle fixed.

As for the bump stops, they were trimmed how the instructions said they were. I took the car to a shop to get the coils installed, as I have zero experience installing any form of suspension, however I managed to watch the entire process and went along with the instructions just making sure it was going on properly lol.

When the coilovers were installed, the rear end was lowered just marginally. I didnt want my car too low as it was, and the ride height was fine until the next day when the suspension settled.

and yes, the wheel tends to rub on the fender, which was why I want to raise it. I just don't have a jack on hand, so I need to get to my friends house when he's free.

Lastly, how do I go abouts to preloading the suspension?

 

I have the CS2 in 350/350 rates. I can hear the rear spring rattling around sometimes when driving 15mph hitting bumps and stuff in the road. I still wanna drop my rear end down a bit because I have like a 1" wheel gap and prefer 1/2"

 

You shouldn't hear any rattling.

 

Here is how preload works:

The Progress CS2 coils are height adjustable coilovers that lack preload adjustment. So

- when you lower the car you are removing preload
- when you raise the car you are adding preload.

When you assemble the coils, you do it at negative preload. In other words, you lower the perch until the spring can fit between the perch and the tophat in a completely unloaded (fully extended state).



According to the Progress instructions, you install the coils at 1/8" gap (or -1/8" preload). You then raise the perch 8-10 turns, which equals 1/2" to 5/8".

This puts a + 3/8" to 1/2" preload on the spring. It means that when the shock is fully extended the spring is about 1/2" compressed. This is the LOWEST SAFE drop on the coilovers, because it means that when the shock is fully extended the spring is BARELY still under load.

When you mount the coils on the car the coils will compress under the weight of the car. If you raise the car, you will increase the preload. But if you lower it you will decrease it. So if you lower more than 1/2" everything will seem fine. With the weight of the car on the spring it will be compressed and the shock will also be slightly compressed. However if the shock is allowed to fully extend, it will extend so far that the spring will no longer be under any load. Then the spring will be able to move around when the wheel is rebounding off of bumps and ride quality will suffer.

From looking at the OP's car I'm guessing he has unknowingly put it at negative preload.

@sc34dc4:

Since Progress uses equal length springs, ironically the stiffer your rates the higher the car will have to be. At zero preload a car with 350 # springs will sit higher than a car with 250# springs. So to fix your problem you either need to raise ride height, get shorter springs, or get 250 springs and find the sweet spot between having a spring stiff enough to keep you from rubbing but soft enough that it will still be preloaded at your desired ride height.

This is why I think the Progress CS2 is best thought of as tuneable lowering springs rather than as a true height adjustable setup. With the shortened shock there's just not enough room to set up very much preload and have enough ride height that you won't rub.

 

Did you just draw that up?

 

Yeah I work with powerpoint a lot. I can make something like that in 10 min. or so lol

 

Same here. Graphic designer.

 

great info thanks for that. So in essence, I should raise the car in efforts to bring the coils into the positive preload?

its too low for my taste anyways. Also, what should I look for in regards to bad bushings and bad tie rods?

 

I'll just jack the car up and turn the collar till it touches the bottom of the spring and give it another few turns. Then adjust the front to match the rear gap. Honestly to anyone interested in these I wouldn't buy them. Not for $570 anyways. I'd just pick up F&F type 1's for that. I had to cut my pinch weld and hammer it flat to get it to stop cutting into my tire. That was with a 1" gap up front. 12' from center wheel line.

 

Try it and see if it solves your problems.

 

for tie rod, check for play. raise up the car and move the tie rod around to check for play. for bushing check to see if they are worn, beat up, cracks, rips. ball joints, if you see any broken booth, leaking grease then those should be replaced.

this thread is very useful, thanks for the tip on preloading the suspension. I was searching it up last night and this is the best example I found.

 

Running Progress? And what giant wheels or crazy offset are you running with that? The only time I had an issue was when I had the 18s from the Prelude on it. Once I got a normal sized wheel and combo I never had another issue. Truth be told I barely had any scraping with he 18s either so you must have done something totally out of the recommend usage for these. Which you probably are since you hear rattling in the back.

Function & Form is bullshit.

 

I love all of your assumptions. I'm running a 16x7 +40 offset with a 205/45/16 tire. I've owned and worked on Honda's for 13yrs now. Pretty sure I can install coilovers correctly. Their "progress" shock body is 1" shorter then stock so even maxed out you would drop your car 1" Plenty of people have had this issue. it's an easy fix but I don't think I should have to cut a structural seam to stop it from happening. I hear rattling in the back because there's hardly any weight back there and I have a 350 rate instead of 250. Plus I'm not turning the collar up to the spring because it makes the car sit too high for my liking. I'm not even into slammed cars either. .50 -.75 gap all around is perfect. The old F&F yes I'll agree but the redesigned type 1 and 2 coilovers are very good products now.