FLYNAVY30

Ive been trying to adjust these things for weeks now and finally had the ride height close:

Front left: 26 8/16
Front right: 26 4/16
Rear left: 27 5/16
Rear right: 27 8/16


So I lowered the front left about 3 turns and lowered the right rear about 3 turns. Took the car for a 15 min drive, came back and remeasured:

Front left: 26 9/16
Front right: 26 2/16
Rear left: 27 3/16
Rear right: 27 8/16

WTF?? Yes Im positive I adjusted in the right direction, so what the hell is going on with my car? Is there some magic vodoo I dont understand when it comes to setting up coil overs? Adjusting the opposite corner in the opposite direction perhaps?? Im at a loss and completely frustrated. Any help is much appreciated.

Thanks,
Greg

bumble-z

Try getting drivers side (F&R) where you want your ride height to be.

Then bring the pass side (F&R) to the specks of the drivers side.
You should be very close at the corners then.
Make your minor adjustments from there.

I've been following you & others with your installs of the LG's.
I have had my Phadt's on for several years now & adjust the ride height
every so often.
I have written on the instructions for my reference. (turn perch clockwise to lower) F & R

Good luck.

FLYNAVY30

Thanks, Ill give it a shot....so far over the course of a few weeks, Ive made 9 sets of adjustments. Another question, did you drill a hole in the rear and run the adjustment cable into the trunk of the car? Im considering doing this because having that cable bent at 90 degrees doesnt exactly provide for precise adjusments

bumble-z

With the phadt's you have to drill a hole on the drivers & passenger
sides in the trunk area. This allows the use of a 3 mm allen wrench to adjust the shock damping.
If you were to go to the Phadt website there is a pictured instructional, as to where to drill the holes for the Phadt set up.
I would think they would be in the area that you would need to "feed" the LG cables through.

I drilled the two holes, just a tad larger in diameter than the
3mm.wrench
The instructions call for a 1/2" hole. I saw no reason to drill that large of a hole.
I pulled the carpet back. Laid out & drilled the 2 holes.
I then reinstalled the carpet & use a pointed scratch awl to pucture through the carpet into each hole.
You cant even see the holes in the carpet. But I know where they are.

FLYNAVY30

so how did you know where to drill, or did you just guess? Ive got my carpet out now, but want to make sure I get it right on the first pass since the big ole **** on the LGs is gonna require a pretty sizeable hole

bumble-z

The column to the left on this page has all the different vendor's web-
sites. Click onto Phadts & once there on their site click on to their instructions on their c/overs.
You will see a detailed picture of where to drill the 2 holes.

WKMCD

Are you releasing an end-link on the sway bar when you adjust them? Do you have adjustable end links?

FLYNAVY30

nope, not releasing and endlink and no I dont have adjustable endlinks....should I be releasing one when making adjustments??

MTPZ06

You could always take your car to a good alignment guy and have him corner balance the car and set the ride height at the same time.

FLYNAVY30

Unfortunately I live in Pensacola FL, a "good alignment guy" is about as common as a "good looking female" down here

bumble-z

You will get the ride height set where you want it to be.
Just continue on & take your time.

I like to take a small piece of blue painters tape & put it on the spring perch before I tighten or loosen it. That way you have a reference point to know how far you have turned it.

John Shiels

measure the frame on the fenders.

mAydAy121

Get someone with scales to corner weight it. Even if you get the ride heights where you want it would not be surprising at all to have the corner weights all jacked up. Often when someone comes in with a street car on coilovers that hasn't been weighed out they've either got a bunch of crossweight in it or a single corner somewhere is preloaded a ton or unloaded.

MTPZ06

Perfect excuse for a road trip...find yourself a good alignment guy, and a good looking female on said road trip.

Edit: Another reason for a road trip; go get this guy's headliner for your car...and the alignment/corner balance and the good looking female. I'd call that the trifecta.

http://forums.corvetteforum.com/c5-z...rt-number.html

AU N EGL

and remember to put your body weight in the drivers seat when you measure and adjust.

if there is not wt in the drivers seat, as soon as you get everything equal THEN YOU get in the car, all the settings are off.

and measure to the frame, never the fenders.

WKMCD

The sway bar will be working against you when you're trying to adjust the height. Adjustable end links allow you to set the height or weight on each corner independently. Once the height or weight is set, adjust the end links for zero load.

FLYNAVY30

So can someone give me the cliffs notes run down on corner weight? I realize that ideally, you want each wheel supporting 25% of the cars weight, but how can that be adjusted and how does that tie into ride height?

Additionally, to satisfy my own curiosity, I went out and measured my roommates new Infiniti G37S, as well as the new Z06 sitting out on the local Chevy dealers lot....both cars sat perfectly even side to side when measured from the ground to the top of the fender well. At the expense of asking a dumb question, if the Z06 comes from the factory level side to side with no weight in the car, why would you have to level the ride height with 200lbs in the driver seat to account for my weight?

Thanks

Solofast

First of all you should NEVER measure ride height at the fender lips. The fenders on these cars are bonded on to "fit" and are nowhere near equal from side to side and from front to back. As noted above, if you try to measure from the fender lips, if you put the car on the scales, it would most likely be all screwed up. If you arent' going to corner weight the car at the very least measure from the frame to the ground ( and no a garage floor isn't flat enough to do this right, you need a truly flat surface) and set the front and rear and keep at least a half an inch of rake in it as measured at the jacking points.

You should do a search on the roadracing and autocross page where the subject of cornerweighting has pretty much been beaten to death.

Basically you cannot get the weight equal, you can only get the same percentage of weight on each side of the car. That is, you can get the two tires on each side of the car to have the same front and rear percentages of the weight on that side. To put it in other terms, you can get a 51/49% on the left and a 51/49% on the right, but you will likely have say 1650 pounds on the left side tires and 1550 on the right side tires.

FLYNAVY30

ok, so measure at the jacking points and keep a half in of rake. Probably gonna go reset the coilovers to the settings they came with and start over....awesome

LG Motorsports

Hi Guys,

Here are some basics about corner weighting a car (any car)


Your car is like a table. If you cut one leg of the table, the other two legs carry more weight and if they have springs in them they will compress.

Next you have to consider the Corner weights at the same time as the ride heights.

If I knew your corner weights, as well as your ride heights, I could tell you how to adjust your car.

***Disconnect Sway bars first. They will interfere with your numbers and heights if you leave them connected****
ALSO, No holes needed for adjusters. Front are on the shock shafts easy to reach and rears are on extensions that can be adjusted with NO holes needed.

Ok, so take it to a car with adjustable springs on all 4 corners. If you raise any corner of the car and nothing else, you will also raise the other corner on the same end of the car.
So if you raise the left front, you will also raise the right front. But that happens because you are causing the LF tire to hold more of the car up and that removes weight from the RF which will allow the car to raise up on the RF as well and it will Push down on the RR of the car. Remember it is like a table.

Every move you make when adjusting a corner will affect the other three corners.

GOT TO GET The car on Scales with YOU in the driver's seat.

Then set the front of the car at the cross member to the height that you want. Then put 1/2 to 3/4" rake inn the chassis, measured at the frame rail. Then verify the rear X member height so you know what it measures with the rake in the chassis.

If my RF corner was low on weight, then I would crank a turn or two as needed to the RF but that will also raise the RF so I would also use the LR and raise it to add weight to the RF and it would also help keep the RF near the correct ride height.

Then with the attitude and heights where you want it, read the scale info and from there it is easy.

Again, lets go back to the table as an example. put a match book under one leg and it will carry all the weight on that leg plus the diagonal leg, and lift most of the weight off the other two. Most restaurants have tables like that

On Coil over's do not preload the springs too much, ie do not adjust the shock with the spring tension up against the spring perch. If you want to go really low, then you will have to get Drop Spindles for perfect geometry.

At any rate, please get the car on scales. I can help you adjust your car in 30 minutes if you get me the numbers, and ride heights.

ALSO NOTE: 3 turns on the front shocks does not equal 3 turns on the rear shocks. (Different wheel rates). BUT IF the ratio of wheel travel to shock travel was equal front and rear then the wheel rates would also be equal.
The angle of the shock, and the distance from the inner bushing compared to the center of the tire patch under the outer ball joint. IF you increase the angle of the shocks, you decrease the wheel rate. For each Inch of wheel travel, the shock piston travels less. Also on the rear, the angle of the shock increases as the wheel goes up, so you can see that at some point, the rear shock could be flat (not really but it approaches flatter), which means that for 1" of wheel travel, you might only get a few mm of shock travel.

I will have to re read this to see if I made any mistakes but I wanted to get this out asap for you to digest but it is essentially correct.

Sorry you are having the troubles.

Thanks

Lou G