Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives Forums Modifications Suspension Bilstiens raised my car 1"??

Long story short I hit something Thanksgiving day which ruined the passenger strut, and to fix it i bought Bilsteins for christmas.

Christmas day comes along and they install no problem. Everythings cool and i dig the ride. 1 thing tho, the wheel gap seems a bit extreme for having roush springs. Whatever... They probably just need to settle again.

fast forward to 2 weeks after install and driving daily. Wheel gap is the same as stock height! I compared it to my friend Piete's cougar which is on stock springs. barely any difference between us, and we're both on OE size tires and 16" stock rims. This indicates the position locator that slides into the back of the knuckle is higher up on the shock tube, or the spring perch is higher up, or maybe both.

I didnt run a search but has anyone else had a similar result??

Here is a link to a recent thread on the subject of these struts. The link will take you to a section in that thread were DemonSVT posted some pics of the B's when compared to a stock SVT strut, which physically is the same... minus the strut rod, which is an inch shorter. You might want to read the whole thread, but thought these pics would be of most interest to you.

Weird though.

So you have Roush springs/Bilstein struts and your car doesn't sit lower than your buddies ride with a stock suspension

I thought that they took a while to settle. I switched out the struts with stock springs (hey, it's better for the snow), and it looked like I was driving a 4x4 for the first couple of months.

Unisys, I found that thread too. Its difficult from the pics to determine any differences in design, one of these days I have to get out my tape measure and measure the distance from the coil rest notch in the perch to where the sway bar linkage hooks up and compare it to a stock one I have downstairs.

Phil, I hope yr right! i dont want to spend more money just to make my car look like its not jacked in the front.

Struts aren't going to affect your ride height. Only the springs will.

Roush are the same height as stock.

I tend to agree. No strut or shock I have encounterd posed much resitance compared to a spring. Think about this, if you removed the springs and only had the struts would the struts hold up the weight of the car. Not at all!

Gas charged struts probably put about 30-50 lbs of force in addition to the springs. Not enough to hold up the car, but put a 50 lb bag of dog food on your hood and see if the front doesn't sink somewhat. If his old struts lost their gas charge and now he has an addition 60 lbs upward force (30lbs x 2) he would sit a little higher.

IIRC, Bilstein is a high gas pressure strut, while the OEM are low pressure. The gas pressure is used to reduce oil foaming and loss of damping in the strut. With more aggressive valving, High performance struts tend to have higher gas pressures to keep faoming down. The valving causes higher oil velocities inside the strut which could cause more foaming if the pressure wasn't high.