Ok so I recently did a ton of research on suspension and decided to go with the progress cs2 coilovers for my 93 del sol si. I went with the 350/350 set up mainly because I'm a pretty big guy (6'6" 300lb) and I wanted something that could handle me in the car with out compressing to much. My biggest problem with the car now is that I've been driving it completly stock for 2 years and iv crushed the stock suspension to the point that the rear wheels are tucked while I'm in it. I'm not lookin to be low in fact I prefer it to be as close to stock ride hight as possible which is why I chose the cs2 they recommend no more then a 1.5in dropp and I would prefer to be down less than that. I want the car to handle well, ride ok for dd, and possibly do some auto x. Right now the only mods on the car are some 195 50 R15 wheels and tires stock offset and a gsr rear sway bar.

All this brings me to my actual question which is will the cs2 coilovers be able to handle me in the car and maintain close to stock height. Or would I start to lose ride quality do to over preloading the spring. Iv read dozens of forums about not haveing enough preload and people being too low with them but nothing about what the max preload would be. for example what is the highest I can put the spring perch up before effecting ride quality. Well these be able to do what I want. Or should I try to find something else iv got about a month before they ship so I'm open to any thing that is around the same price and will do what I want. Lowering springs are pretty much out as the ones that have higher spring rates are all going to drop the car more than an inch and a half.

Sry for bad spelling or geammer I'm no English major.

Thanks for any help

 

Something you might want to talk to Progress about.

 

Very true. I tried to post directly in their thread but I don't have permission yet. Ill proly just give them a call.

Your posts in other threads is what led me in the direction of progress are you still running the cs2 coilovers? How do you like the ride?

 

Loving it. I can say that if you preload according to instructions you should be fine. I don't think you will need to have to preload them any more than you need to. But I would verify that with Progress. The preload we're talking about is only to get the spring firmly seated against the perch as I understand it. The shocks themselves handle everything else.

 

On the topic of suspension in gemral can you over preload your springs to the point that performance is effected negatively? obviously there is alot more to getting performance out of the suspension then just how the spring is preloaded but Im interested in what kind of effects a heavily preloaded spring would have on the suspension as a whole. For example how would it effect performance, ride, and how the car would react when takeing turns at both high and low speed. There's alot of talk about camber, toe, shocks, and spring rates but not so much about how the spring should be loaded. Sry if this is a stupid topic or one that has be beet to death already. Thanks for any reply

 

Cool its good to here they are working well. I well deffently check in with progress too.

 

If you have excess preload, you risk topping out the shocks. This is as bad for the shock and ride quality as bottoming out is, but it occurs at different times under different conditions.

Also, it is rather difficult to have that much preload.

So, the answer is "yes you can".

 

This is how she sits right now with some room to raise it if I needed to.

 

I didn't realize that topping out a shock could cause problems. Bottoming out a shock is obviously bad but It never even crossed my mind that topping out could be an issue. That's the anwser I was looking for. Thanks a bunch.

 

Your car is setting pretty nice it makes me miss my blue 99 si. I don't think I'll be disappointed if that's how my del sol ends up sitting. thanks for posting the pic. Now I just have to wait for progress to ship my cs2's out. It defiantly looks like it will be worth the wait.

 

I think between a 1" and 1.5" drop you will be fine. Less or more and you might start running into trouble. And as others have mentioned the problem is with shock travel and not preload. The only way to preload the spring too much is to do so much that it will bind during compression, and THAT is not going to happen. It's more a problem when people go too low and accidentally remove the preload.

 

That's about the drop that I'm looking to get Ill probably end up putting the front down about 1.25"-1.5" and the back 1". I'm only really looking for function I could car less about "dumping" like most. My only real concern was that I'm 300lbs and I was worried that I'd have to put in a bunch of preload to get the ride height in a good place while I'm in the car. It doesn't really seem like Ill run in to that problem as you guys have said so all is good in the world. Thank you guys for all your info.