Modified springs and locating them

[Southern75]

Am currently trying to finialised me little baby for a bit and have discover that the rather short springs that i have for it are a bit of a problem, in that when you jack the car up sometimes the spring hat falls away from the strut crown when the shocks fully extend.

my theories are ... so somehow tether the strut so that the spring does not relocate itself willy nilly.

The other suggestion is to expoxy the spring locator plate to the strut crown and then only the srping will relocate .. not the full shebang.

Any thoughts?

[dehne]

strap them so that the spring only just goes free when jacked, i have pics somewhere of this ill try to find them

[Evan Bottcher]

I haven't found it to be much of a problem at the front - they seem to locate themselves again no problem.

At the rear they can fall sideways when you jack it up by the body and then jam when you let them down - I just check before I let it down.  Like Dehne says I've seen people use straps screwed to the axle and body made out of seat belt webbing - probably a good solution.

I did see Adie Hawkins on alfaowner.com say:
"you dont want preload on the rear springs will did used to limit the travel using little
links with a adjuster on I used to set to 15 mm ie spring just free to turn when car was jacked up"

I think that means they used a sliding link to limit travel?

[Frank Musco]

You can 'stick' the hat to the body with something like sikaflex.

Like Evan, I don't seem to have a problem, the fronts seem to locate themselves 'most' of the time.  Keep in mind that I'm using cut coils which is not the way to do this properly. I also loosen the lower wishbones, jack both sides up (two jacks, one under each ball-joint) with the shorter springs, and re-tighten (very tight) the wishbones in the new position. This tends to shorten the travel of the strut. The rears I have straps which keeps the coils in the right position.

Ideally, get yourself something like koni inserts, which you then send away and have the travel shortened to suit the springs and reset the valving for the new spring rate. Same with the rears. $$$

[Southern75]

Shit i have already spent $1300 on konis getting valves  done etc,

i tried wiring the hat to the coils but that didn't seem to work.
I was going to glue the black part of the hat to the crown ... i though that would illiminate most of the problems.

Strapping would definitely be the issue if doing tarmac rallies ... or dirts ones.
I would love to see how it was done if anoyone has any issues.

Backs i don't really see as an issue for track work as you can just jack under the axle. straping would be easy on the back though.

[Frank Musco]

I hear you regarding the koni struts, but something doesn't seem right. They should have asked about the free unsprung spring length as well as the spring length when fitted to the car so they adjust the insert travel to eliminate the spring 'falling out'. I have seen this done, and driven cars with large spring rates and short travel, strictly track cars, too harsh to take shopping, awesome on the track. Was this taken into consideration?

I have tried attaching the spring to the top and bottom and had no success. Either clamping or u-bolts, but have always encountered problems breaking clamps or pounding the bearing which the lower spring perch uses to swivel around the strut which quickly destroys it in early models or loosing all the ball bearings from the late model 33's. So I just leave the bloody spring loose and found it works best for my situation.

To stop the black part from falling, I remove the inner rubber boot and very carefully mig some very small welds on the inside, then sikaflex the rubber part to this. They were giving me the shits when they fall out. When I first began tracking sprints, I completely left the black part and rubber out because of it. Definitely not the way to go.

Unfortunately I have not seen the front struts strapped, would hope someone else has some photos of this method of limiting the travel.

Did you have a go at repositioning the lower wishbones? Did it help lessen the amount the struts dropped?

I disagree about the rears. When you corner a sprint flat out under power, the inside wheel can significantly droop depending on conditions, dropping the rear spring from where it locates. Then when you look at the car back in the pits, one side of the car is high because the spring is sitting out of its top location. Also tends to upset braking, before you know it your going backwards! My rears are strapped, easily done, can post photos if you want a look.

[Southern75]

Ahh interesting, good to hear.

Yeah i told the people doing the shocks that it was going to have shortened springs and it was valved for 400lbs .. so not normally a road car ... even though that is something i would do .... well it still has more give than the 75 (hence my 147 is standard i suppose)

No i haven't tried repositioning the lower control arms ... reason why is the car is on the other side of syndey to where i live at the moment ...

It might be worth a go ... but i think that maybe the work on the top is all i need.

Btw my Struts are 16v 33 struts with the plastic type bearings ....