I messed up my spring install
 

So, like everything i do with my car, taking the front shocks out of the car took 5 hours, went to bed, woke up and started taking the springs off the shocks and re assembling the shocks together with my sprint springs.

First problem encountered was that the spring wasnt resting where the oem spring was resting, i tried pulling and tugging and pushing and it was NOT HAVING ANY OF IT! It wasnt going to go into position.

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-h...2/IMAG0838.jpg

so i thought about it, and hoped that when i released the spring using the compressor tool that its own generated force would push it self into where it was supposed to be. Well that didnt happen, although it did move itself about 1/4 of an inch down.

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-I...0/IMAG0839.jpg

So i hoped that the weight of the car would push it down into position.. NOPE.. Preloaded and got this scary result.

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-L...2/IMAG0840.jpg

So i hoped for the third and final time that i just needed to drive around the block, go over some potholes to get it to get it in there.

Kinda worked for the right side, but not really, (sorry no pictures)

Im almost positive that the spring went in the right direction, I looked underneath of the oem spring and it had similar wear patterns to the sprint spring so thats why its going in at the right direction... but i could be wrong thinking about it now.

just some information:
1. the set came with 2 different springs, tall springs and shorter ones, i used the taller springs for the front.
2. i didnt cut any of the bumpstops.
3. using oem 2008 40th anny bilstein shocks



My questions are....
Is this okay to keep this way?
Will it ever go into position?
has this happened to anyone else before?
Did this happen because i am using the 40th anniversary bilstein shock?(previous spring owner had them on d-specs.)


Im going to my mechanic to do my rears and see what he says about the fronts, if they are wrong then oh well, all i wasted was my time and ill have him do both fronts and rears.

ON A POSITIVE NOTE... i have moar low, and i just baaaarely scrape coming out of my driveway on an angle.

Looks deformed to me. I didn't compress it as low on the coil as you did in the first two pics, I used the center of the spring. How many miles on those shocks? Even with my tanabe springs I hardly need to compress them cant imagine needing it for the sprint ones.

Btw you need/should to cut the bump stops. Leave like an inch is what koni suggest.

Changed the title of the Post.

RX8Club Rules of Conduct:

It seems like the spring is wound too tight on the last coil to work. I'm not sure about the non bilstein struts whether the perch is aluminum or not. If so, they may be designed to work on those struts only.

if i remember correctly from my various readings, the longer springs go in the rear....

Bilsteins have 33k miles on them, springs have around 20k.

Can anyone confirm if the longer ones go in the rear? Please?

My mechanic said he could heat up the coil to make it seat properly if needed.

Spring install is happening in about an hour, any and all help appreciated! I dont want to pay him to have to re do it and pay him again.

Thanks :)

https://www.rx8club.com/series-i-do-yourself-forum-73/diy-lowering-springs-install-23403/

post 3 step 14 says the longer ones go in the rear...

Oh my... Do not let him do that.

you have the springs on backwards. Almost all aftermarket springs are marked with an f and an r in the part number. Way to go.


It took 5 hours to get the front shocks off? Really? You must be doing something else wrong too.

+1 on backwards springs, that pic shows FAR too much binding for a front spring

When in doubt, go through the install in your head and look for assumptions. That's where you f*** up 99% of the time.

it took forever :( i work very slowly and didnt have any air tools so i was just using ratchets.

everything takes me forever, 5 hours to pull the radio, 5 hours to swap an exhaust, 9 hours to lower the power seat mod.

1.5minutes to do the airbox mod :) that one was easy as pie.

thanks everyone for letting me know that they are on backwards :) i r dumb dumb

:lol: you must take a beer break after every half turn of a bolt.

oh god, id be dead :)

no, when it comes to automotive crap i usually try EVERYTHING that doesnt work first and look at it confused, say to myself, okay last try, i know this is impossible because it shouldnt work like this and presto it works.

makes no sense. Once i do it once though i can fly through it.

I honestly have no idea how you guys work so fast, either you know what you are doing or my internal logic is really messed up. I mean, i never tried to fit a square block into a triangular hole as a child:hahano:

Is counting the number of coils an accurate way to tell if springs are backwards ??

For example, in this pic the rear springs should have 9 coils ?? Do all springs have the same number of coils ??

or we follow a DIY if we have no idea what to do :doh:

i average about 3 hours for a spring install with hand tools. There really isn't much to it, but i spent most of my youth in a garage working on cars with my old man. The DIY for the spring install is pretty comprehensive though. Should make it pretty quick and easy.

No and no. But 90% of the aftermarket springs are just like the stocks where the rear bottom coil is a smaller diameter than the front so they'll only fit on one way. Also 90% of them have an f and an r in the part number on the spring so you know which one goes where. Some of them even have a color swatch on the fronts and a different on the backs.

yeah i followed Robin Yangs spring install guide

Front:http://www.hi-impact.org/ryang/modif...ock_front.html
Rear:http://www.hi-impact.org/ryang/modif...hock_rear.html

the thing is, it does a great job of telling you what bolts to remove but when it comes to something like taking out the shock, theres a specific way you need to take it out. IIRC putting the shock in goes something like... put lower end through loose upper control arm behind sway bar, swivel to the right, push down, turn, fit in hole on top, adjust bottom. this is what worked for me.

Im 19 and this is the first ive ever worked on a car so that has something to do with it i guess. Though i have to admit even though it took forever, i had a lot of fun doing it.

Its pretty funny, i read that DIY on the tanabe spring install, but i mixed them up yesterday, i thought the longer ones went on the rear.

I have a feeling my springs were installed backwards cause the fronts are "SLIGHTLY" higher than the rears.

Ive attached pic. I only took pic of front spring (note that this was when the car was still on the lift)


PS Sorry to hijack but i think this may help eric with his problem

I dunno man, where did you get the springs? Either they are on backwards and you have the wrong springs. My vote is that they are on backwards.

https://www.rx8club.com/attachment.p...4&d=1233468121

your thought was correct but you follow thru with the wrong action??

this could be why it takes you forever to do anything :yesnod::yelrotflm

so im pretty enraged right now and need to blow off some steam.

i brought my car to the shop. i told them to take the front springs and put them on the back, and take off the back oem and put the sprint springs on the rear. his rate is $95 an hour but it was alot for a kid so he put it to $75.

He looked it up online and it said it would take 5.2 hours of labor, during the install that started at 2:30pm, he started working on it, then the engine swap that was happening next to my car one of the guys lost some tranny bolts and spent 3 hours looking for them.

after about 15minutes he continues working on my car and tells another guy to keep looking for the bolts.

30 min pass by worth of working and then another guys pulls up and he walks over and starts diagnosing the shitty hondas problem, 45 minutes pass by and he comes back.

basically... it takes him 3 hours from 2:30 to 5:36 NOT including the 45 minutes and 15minutes he spent NOT working on my car. incase you cant do math its $225 for 3 hours.

when i went to pay he said it was $390 and i was like whaaat? you guys started at 2:30 not 12:00.. i watched you first start the car. He then said oh no well its a flat rate, im giving you a discount of $75 instead of $95, and that they were required to charge you a flat rate because if i had all rusted bolts and it took 9 hours to complete then they would still charge the flat rate, i said thats fine but it took you LESS time, 2.2 hours LESS they said it didnt matter.

when i brought my exhaust in to them, it took 45 min and he charged me a fraction of the 95 his usual rate. so i figured he would do the same here. The 5.2 hours was a estimate. NOPE now its a flat rate all of a sudden.

so i said hey how about you charge me for the actual 3 hours and charge me $95 an hour, then he said no its the flat rate of $390.

this is complete bull shit, Rotary-Rx8 was charged $200 for his spring install. it should have costed me $225.

i was taken advantage of because im just a kid. Im not taking my car there anymore. I wish i knew he would charge me a flat rate no matter how long it took, i would have went elsewhere, first time ive seen him with a ramrod up his ass and acting this bitchy.

i bring my car there, my mom brings hers, my brother brings his, my brother referrs his friends there and his girfriend goes to the same shop.

i know it may not seem like much, and unfortunately im going to use the statement all of you guys hate "i am a college student with little to no money" i spend 20hours a week in classes and atleast 20-35 working on projects for class, im majoring in industrial design. I know i shouldnt have gotten this car if i have no money but im making it work and doing all of the required maintenance, i dont eat breakfast or lunch to be able to save money.

whatever, its done. Im looking into other shops in the area, one that wont rip me off. Hopefully he gets a hole through his direzza in his evo, so he wastes that money he ripped off of me. I was talking to one of his workers and i asked if i could rent him out for less than what the shop charges and he said yeah, hes only making $8.00 an hour, so i will be stealing his work.

sorry for the volume of novels i wrote here.

Cool story bro. Quit modding a car you can't afford

^Lol.

Agreed.

Just do the work yourself. That's what i do, that way you know the job is done right if something does go wrong or you hear a noise you can nearly always figure it out because you know exactly what goes where. Spend the money on getting the right tools. A socket set, a good jack and 4 jack stands, and a few other basic tools and you can do 90% of mods on your car.
Find a good DIY before you start or get the RX8 manual and go from there, I always ask other guys for advice when I am autocrossing and they will give me tips about what trouble I might encounter and how to get around it.

how old are you

^19

i can afford it, i have over 5k in a fund just for my car and i always save up before i do any mod, i dont have a lot of money to play with for movies, food, etc. i dump any money i have into a fund for my car, though that has nothing to do with the 2 hours i got ripped off for, but thanks for the comment. (not you rotary-rx8)

i dont go headifrst into anything without knowing how much $ it will cost me, the average price is 200-300 from what ive seen on these forums. And based from my mechanics previous track record i thought he would treat me like someone who gave him 8 cars worth of business from referrals on multiple occasions and not some kid off the street.

before you say $90 is pennies compared to what i have saved.. would you hand a homeless guy 90 bucks? no? why not? its the same thing. I paid for services un-rendered, therefor gave away money for nothing.

i have the money, i have the car, i have the time, i have the tools except for air tools.
It was worth the 225-260 i thought i was going to be charged.

Lesson is make sure you hammer out price beforehand, he never told me it was a flat rate, just that it was 390 for 5.2 hours of work, stipulating hours as the means of billing.

live and learn.

and yes J i like to write a lot. so you inspired me to write several volumes of my experience.

http://narwhaler.com/img/eb/a/he-sai...te--eBAkqH.jpg

I don't eat so I can mod my car. Idiotic

You have nothing to be wrong about here eric. it wasnt your fault and certain shops do advantage of young people like you. All you can do is move on go to a diffferent shop and bring your family cars else where as well.

I got my rx8 when i was 18 ... I understand how it is. Ive worked my ass off and saved for 4 years putting every penny aside to buy this car. You are very wise to really save up before you mod. One thing ill say though is if youre struggling to keep up with the demands of this car (which youre not yet) make sure you get a better paying job.

Just changed my springs on the 40th AE
 

Yes, taller pair of springs go on rear. I had Eibach Pro Springs put on my stock Blisteins two weekends ago. I did cut 1" off the bump stop to accomodate the drop.
The actual drop on the rear was only .5" versus the advertised 1.25". That may be due to the perch hight difference versus the non-40th AE models.

Don't worry about how long it takes you to do a job. Just get it done right. My first unit change took a while but sped up doing the rest solo.
I should have bought a pizza and some beer to get some car club buddies over to help (face-palm).

The important part of going through the pro-garage experience is 'lesson learned'. Next time get 'local car club + pizza + beer'.

How pricing works at a dealership and a lot of mechanic shops:

Service writer looks up the repair in the service manual for the car which tells them the manufacturer or whoever's estimated time. They set an hourly rate and charge the customer that rate times the number of hours the book suggests. If they get the job done ahead of the estimate you still pay the suggested time worth of labor. This is how they make money, and how the mechanics make money. If it takes them longer, you still pay the suggested time. They make less money, as do the mechanics.

In this scenario, a mechanic may only make $8 an hour, but can do four jobs estimated at 4 hours a piece in an 8 hour day. He is payed based on the estimated time, so he gets 16 hours of pay for his 8 hours of work. This is normal. Finding a shop that charges true hourly rates is not as normal as you would think.

^^^ What he said ^^^
Also don't just think its because you are young that you get ripped off. We all get ripped of for one thing or another. Life is hard sometime but don't worry about it, find a nice girl and take your frustrations out on the headboard.

thanks guys i appreciate it.

i was astounded that his only response was " its a flat rate, lets say your bolts were rusted and the job took 8 hours, we would have to charge you $390" My response.. "but it took not 5.2hours, not 4 hours, but 3 hours." his response "its a flat rate"

I should have put $300 on the table and drove away.

the next shop i go to i will actually make sure i ask them if i will charged by the hour or a flat rate.

thanks futz for the info, i didnt know this shyster business is how most shops are run.

as for not eating, i never eat breakfast and im usually working on projects or in class so i dont really have time to eat and your body eventually gets used to eating 1 and sometimes 2 meals a day, plus i snack alot during the day. Im willing to do anything for my rx8.

I got a hard lesson in getting ripped off in life today and ill never forget it. Any mods from now on will be supplied in $, food and beer to local guys kind enough to help, i already posted in the NJ thread and some people are willing to help.

Futz is right (as usual), but let me expand on that.

Eric, you are completely right when you say age is a factor. But it's not because they took advantage of you... It's because you are naive to how the service industry works, and this makes you FEEL AS THOUGH they took advantage of you.

In reality, they quoted you a total price for the job, you agreed, and that's precisely what they charged you.

The hourly rate combined with the flat rate time estimate, is how they generate the total price. The fact that it actually took him less time than what the flat-rate estimated, shows you his talent to get the job done. Would you really have been happier if he was less competent and it took him six hours to complete the repair? Had it actually taken him six hours (for whatever reason) would you have gladly shelled out another $70 to cover his time?

This is not unique to the automotive industry. If a contractor comes to your house, and you agree on a price to install new kitchen cabinets, and he finishes the job three hours earlier than estimated, would you expect him to charge you less? Of course not.

In the end, they charged you for a service that you could not competently complete on your own. They were honest on exactly how much it would cost and they delivered (I presume) a quality repair. Most people would absolutely love any technician with those characteristics.

^^^ not at 75\95$ an hour lol.

Interesting how this came out.. Still you are a young one, you will learn. It'll get to the point you will want to do everything on your own. Most of us do.. We all had to learn from one point.

i wanted to, but i was afraid i wasnt going to finish for the grand am race on sunday

If you owned a shop, how much would you charge per hour/job?

Shops charge around 36\50€ - h here so 50\65$.

I haven't the slightest clue as to the differences in our business climates... But at those rates, there's no way you could sustain that here.

/\
This.


Eric, I do not think you got ripped off at all. Mechanical work is always a combination of flat rates and hourly rates. There are some exceptions of course. Nobody will charge you an hourly rate for an oil change, LOL.



Welcome to the US :p:

Not down here dude - especially on the North East. Rates are over $100 around my area.

So let me get this straight...

You started working on your car, so you could change the springs yourself.

While working on it, something didn't seem right with the parts you were installing, but instead of double checking your work with one of the many forum DIY How To threads, you decided to force the parts to fit.

Then after everything was "installed", you then decided to research if you install the springs in the wrong place, which you confirmed.

So then your decision was to take your car to a shop, and have them swap the springs position, and didn't clarify if you were being charged flat rate of by hour, and are bitching about that cost.

But ultimately, you're bitching because you're a college student with no money and even less time, and yet you're replacing perfectly fine stock springs with aftermarket parts because somehow you think its a maintenance item?

No.
No.
No.

I couldn't even tell you which fail listed above is the worst one.
I know which one I would have corrected, and would have prevented all the ones after that point, however.

If money = 0, Mods on car should always = 0.

Life's going to be tough for you, kid.
Be prepared for that fact to prove itself over and over again for the rest of your life.

BC.

I would have to somewhat agree with the guy above me.. It's always best to learn how to drive the car stock than to lower it with springs thinking it'll help cornering/handling. Your stock strut/shocks are designed for the oem springs and it's rates. Dropping with sprint (or any) springs will blow those shocks less than a few months which in turn makes your car worse in the handling department. It's not all your fault there, you can also blame the marketing of lowering springs bring better handling. They only help if and only if the other parts of the suspension are tied and working together.. Live and learn young Jedi.

/\
Good point.

I've learned that the hard way (meaning, expensive) in the past, LOL.

Eric, BTW, make sure to get an alignment if you haven't already. That's more money to add to the mix:cwm27:

How exactly can you tell if a shock is blown ?? Besides it sagging like a mofo ??

I feel bad for you...

Took me 30 minutes to pull my stereo, attach the iPod adapter to the back and put the radio back in.

Never did exhaust..

20 minutes for the power seat mod

3 hours to remove and replace all 4 shocks and springs with a new set of coilovers.

You beat me on the airbox tho.. took me 5 minutes for that....

If its leaking or do a rebound test on it like:

Push down on the corner of the car if it continues to bounce, broken.

or

Pull the shock, remove the spring and compress it and see if it gives you any resistance and if it rebounds back normally...

That.