General overview of suspension components

[contour_r_us]

Not to split hairs or start a shooting war or anything, but any suspension where the spring is coaxial to the strut or shock axis is considered a 'coilover'.

There are plenty of suspensions out there where the spring and strut or shock don't share the same axis, much less location, so if we were to convert one of those to a coaxial spring and strut, we'd be doing a "coilover conversion". I did this to my Fox Mustang chassis: Springs and struts/shocks were widely separated from the factory, now they're coaxial on custom built double adjustable Konis. There are tremendous advantages to doing this on some cars, as it allows one to achieve much higher "wheel rates" with smaller, lighter and surprisingly lower rate springs because the spring is now very near to where the wheel and spring perch motion ratios are 1:1.

The suspension performance aftermarket has, in my opinion, co-opted the term 'coilover' to loosely define a conversion from large diameter factory springs to 2.5" I.D. race springs and adjustable spring perches, Hell, even I use this terminology.

Semantics aside, the advantage to a "race spring conversion" is a far greater assortment of spring rates and free lengths, usually 25 or 50 pound/inch rate increments and 1 or 2" free-length increments. This allows one to tune the suspension and ride height to do what one wants, instead of having to settle for what Ford, Eibach, H&R, or someone else thinks is "right".

AMEN to the above quoted post. Here is what MadDog originally stated, resulting in the "education process". It was a simple statement, inline with the above - I am slowly beginning to understand. If I read correctly, a coilover is a combination strut/spring that allows for an adjustable drop ?

Is there a good exploded parts diagram for the suspension ? I am trying to visualize some of the parts.

thanks,

Mad Dog

Thank you gmorrell for your well written explanation - Bill

 

[gmorrell]

If I read correctly, a coilover is a combination strut/spring that allows for an adjustable drop ?

I was Ninja editing while you were posting, so perhaps you should re-quote my post, but...

A coilover is any suspension where the spring and strut or shock axis is coaxial, there's nothing about adjust-ability of anything here, "coilover-strut", "coilover-shock", "coilover-cement-block" are just a basic suspension configurations.

Any icing on the cake, such as adjustable spring preload, ride height, or damping just makes it an adjustable suspension, and you can have all these adjustments irrespective of the suspension configuration.

 

[rexxdoggy]

I have no beef with anyone's words, and as we can all see, there's obvious misunderstanding in the literal and most common use of the word "coilover". To clarify what I was trying to explain, yes, you are right in the sense that they are coilovers in the literal sense. And as I was saying that GCs are considered to be "coilover sleeves".

Bill = literal
Mikey = most common reference of the term


So carry on, everyone.

 

[contour_r_us]

I have no beef with anyone's words, and as we can all see, there's obvious misunderstanding in the literal and most common use of the word "coilover". To clarify what I was trying to explain, yes, you are right in the sense that they are coilovers in the literal sense. And as I was saying that GCs are considered to be "coilover sleeves".

Bill = literal
Mikey = most common reference of the term
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Bill = quotes, simply a quote
Mikey = missing intent of Bill's response to original posters simple statement/question

So carry on, everyone.

Mikey, please go the PM route as I requested.

 

[gmorrell]

How about we call the Ground Control kit a "race spring conversion"?

I need to go move about 20 cubic yards of wood chip mulch, so I'll be back tomorrow after some beers and a Motrin overdose.

 

[MadDog]

Let me take a moment and thank everyone. I am not intending to ignite an argument. It is quite possible that it is my mis-use of terminology that is causing the confusion. Going into this thread, I used the term "coilover" to indicate a 1-piece unit unit with adjustable spring compression. To my uninformed self, this was different from the more typical strut +spring (2 distinct pieces). I am not going to race this car. I dont need track suspension. I am building for durability and a slight lowering.

gmorrell: thats some nice fab work, but at this time, far beyond my capabilities. While rust is not a typical problem here, I have also heard a few opinions that indicate the models such as D2 tend to wear out faster.

I have yet to see anyone unhappy with either BAT or Koni struts so this appears to be the strongest contender.

thanks,

Mad Dog

 

[Rick]

This is beautiful and well thought out. Is this specific for Contour SVT? Pricing?