I asked about this in the Civic forums; I'd like to get some opinions from people who race. I installed two sets of ground control coilovers on 98-style civics now. I'm going to put a set on my prelude in another 2 weeks, or whenever UPS decides to clear my stuff over the border.

That said, on all the installations I've done, when adjusted so the car sits about 1" lower than stock, the springs have signifigant play in them when the car is jacked up. The effect is mitigated on the road a little bit by the sway bars, obviously. There isn't a shocking amount of play, but it's certainly there.

I called Ground Control, and they indicated to me it was no big deal and they had not heard of problems running the setup like that for autoX / solo I purposes. They also pointed out the stiff shocks will prevent a rapid unloading of the suspension. I had not considered that.

Just wondering what you guys thought, if for piece of mind if nothing else. I'm not even sure I could get the helper springs on there without binding given the drop is very mild.

Thanks!

 

I dont use them but have seen guys that do use them. Best solution is to use longer springs.

My rear springs go ratttle and bang up off the perches when i go over bumps. *shrug*

 

Thanks for the input. How much play do you have in the springs? e.g. distance from top of spring to urethane seat. Bangs and rattles don't bother me, but possible catastrophic failure might.

This might make a good addition to the coilover article mentioned in the FAQ. I know I was WTF is going on here until I called GC. Never heard of this mentioned before, but in retrospect, it should have been obvious.

 

With the car on jacks and the suspension fully unloaded its probably 1-2".

With the car on the ground i think the slack is taken up. I'm installing springs 1" longer in the rear tomorrow though.

No catastrophic failures here....

 

rj, a longer spring won't reduce the gap at all. if you make the spring 1 inch longer, to get the same ride height you would have to move the perch down 1 inch. a droop limiter inside the shock, a shorter shock body and shaft, or something like tein that has seperate ride height and spring preload adjustments are the only way you'll eliminate the gap without using a helper spring.

nate

 

Yes, that seems similar to what I estimated with the springs down on the lowest ring on the Konis. On my brother's civic, we set them in the middle clip with the sleeve all the way up. The 4x4 look. I was planning on moving them to the lowest rung with about an inch on the sleeve.

Did you change the rate or when you went to the longer spring? We're running the GC recommended setup for a heavy autoX car, 400/450. I regret not inquiring more about longer springs, everything would be perfect with 1" longer springs on the lowest perches.

Any signs of damage to the upper tower mount or the GC sleeve? (sorry for all these questions)

 

I only say that because i needed a longer spring anyways.....

 

I don't have any problems. My fronts are preloaded so even jacked up they are under tension. (neuspeed konis with the shortened rod lenght) The rears are actually uneven. The driver side is down about 1/8th of an inch from the top perch and the passenger is about 1/2 -3/4 of an inch. Does anyone else have that uneven spring perch in the rear on an integra? Someone said its just weight distribution and that side is light. Anyway, no helper springs.

One benifit to longer springs is the ability to interchange the fronts and rears. It makes playing with rates a little easier. Plus I found other cars use 8" springs if you buy them used.

 

I run a helper/keeper/zero rate spring on my coil-over system that I do open lapping instruction with. Actually put them on the car last night as we are renting Putnam PArk this weekend. The zero rate springs can help keep things lined up when jacking the car but but I went without them for years on the racecar as they were illegal (until recently) on IT cars.

Not a big deal but it is a little nicer not to have to worry about them really dropping far from position, although you need to have a spacer or centering piece to make sure everything lines itself up properly when loaded. I made mine from a $1 pvc plumbing adapter from Lowes and it works great. I agree with Ground Control that most decent shocks won't extend fast enough under use for you to really worry too much about it unless you are running monster spring rates that the car barely compresses at all so it basically just sits on top of.

 

I had a similar problem setting up my BMW. I wouldn't have worried about 1" for many of the reasons mentioned, but I am using GC camber plates which have a pretty delicate roller bearing which may not have seated properly when lowering the car from being jacked up. So I ordered helper springs from Jay. My rear springs still have 1/2"+ free play when raised, and it hasn't bothered the car. But the rears will always snap back into place with no adverse wear or alignment problems.

 

What does this do? can you post some pics?

 

So, the conensus is that a small drop isn't going to cause us any problems at the track, unless there is a decenting voice? We're running what GCed recommended for a competitive autoX, but street driven car on the civic, 400/450 IIRC. That should compress a decent amount under a static load, at least in the front. (1070kg car)

Any more detailed descriptions? This was the other part of my concern, just general maintenance. Everything should line up ok when the car is on a lift or jacked up for an oil change, for example, but if I'm not preloading the springs with helpers, a guide would be handy. Right now they're on there as is. Are their any commercial bits to do this? Again, GC seemed to think I was crazy and it should be fine as is. So I probably am.

Did anyone who is running these on the street as well as the track see any evidence of damage to the tower mount cup or the collar of the sleeve?

I know I'm probably making a mountain out of a molehill here, there are probably thousands of these setups on out there and I've never heard of anyone having a problem (and I looked). It just strikes me as very wierd it's never talked about. I know that the H&R setup has to have helpers as the TUV in Germany mandate that their must be a pre-load on the spring.

Does the SCCA have any rules regarding this? I don't race under that sactioning body - I am in Canada, we use slightly different but more-or-less the same guidelines. Again, there have to be many of these setups out there, so it can't be that big of a deal.

Thanks for all the replies.



[Modified by xtal, 4:41 AM 3/28/2003]

 

Before I had a rear bar, I had helper springs. The wheel would droop enough
to allow the spring to become unseated in the top hat, and not reseat correctly.

But, now that I have a rear bar, I have no helper springs, and no problem.
All Truechoice/ Koni stuff btw.

 

More good stuff. We're waiting for ground control to ship the suspension techniques front/rear sway bars for the DX, but it's good to know that it's not an issue with the bar.

How much distance between the top of the spring and the hat? 1"?

Thanks




[Modified by xtal, 6:55 AM 3/28/2003]

 

Some one please post a pic. I was thinking about geting helpers/keepers on my car. I'm doing the suspension as soon as I can get off my ***.

EDIT: Oh here is a pic and info http://e30m3performance.com/tech_art...-tech/springs/


[Modified by PhucNguyen57, 8:47 AM 3/28/2003]

 

Here's another pic, not that you need one



That's on my 87 Civic. It's long, but it works. Before I put the helper springs in, the damn thing would bang and clang around all the time (no rear bar). Now it's quiet as a mouse.


[Modified by rpr, 12:47 PM 3/28/2003]

 

Tom,

You can remove that silver spring perch if you want to, it might look a bit tidier ans maybe a bit more secure. That silver perch sits on a circlip in a groove on the shock body. That red threaded sleeve has one end machined with a recess just large enough for the installed circlip to go into. The circlip will be better captured up inside the sleeve than under the silver perch.

Almost as if it was designed that way.

 

Lee: I don't know why I left the lower perch there. I do know that it doesn't need to be there, I think I was worried that the springs I had would be too short, and that extra 1/8 would make a difference. Duh. I'll be pulling them off shortly to rectify that.

On a side note, can you PM me your contact info? I have an issue with my front Koni's (totally my fault) that I'd like to discuss with you.

Thanks
Tom

 

I used to run what I thought was a tein helper spring on my front teins but I believe they have a spring rate as they were causing me some handling problems with my 650 ers. I think the rate turned out to be 100lbs or something like that...anyways I removed them.

I made mine from some scrap 2.50 aluminum pipe




[Modified by 89civicdx, 12:06 PM 3/28/2003]

 

Could someone post some pics of the centering gadgets, and how they're held in place? I -think- I know what you mean, but I'm not sure.

 

you can buy these things from ground control I believe but I didn't want to wait for an order + I would end up paying brokerage and tax blah blah so I made em myself







It kinda sucks as I went through all of that just to remove the springs in the end



[Modified by 89civicdx, 12:25 PM 3/28/2003]

 

do you still have the short tender springs?? i'd be interested in buying them.

nate-who wants to play with a double spring combo if the price is right...

 

Here's mine


Nate, the double spring combo only makes sense if the *helper/tender* spring actually has a real rate. These don't. But, I'd assume you knew that.

xtal, yeah about an inch of droop is all it takes for the spring to become unseated.
It was dependent on cornering forces, and/ or the angle of the car, i.e driveway aprons. It happened sometimes on the street. Always with the race slicks.

 

there i go again, assuming everyone knows who i'm talking too. my question was directed towards 89civicdx. in hindsight, i should've pm'd him. it doesn't matter anyhow, i promised myself not to make any drastic changes to the car this year. back to your regularly scheduled topic.

i've never had my springs come unseated why driving the car. autocross or street. they do however, sometimes get some dirt between the spring and the sleeve, and that makes some noise every now and again.

nate

 

But no problems after you installed the bar, with about an inch of slack? From what I can tell here, nobody is having any real safety issues with the spring being a little loose, so we'll give it a go and see what happens when the bar gets back. So many people have the setup w/o helpers, if there was a problem beyond noise, I'd have heard about it, I guess. I'll keep you posted. The roads here are really bad, so it shouldn't take long for a problem to identify itself.

For awhile I was concerned I bought a product that catered more to the bling bling crowd than those who race, but that doesn't appear to be the issue at all.

I assume you guys are careful when doing maintenance to let the car down slow.

A mildly off topic question, but one you guys can answer maybe: That clip on the konis that the sleeve sits on. Is it safe to expand and lower the clip without replacing it? It doesn't appear to be a standard c-clip, e.g. no holes to re-tension easily.

Many thanks again. You guys are great.