rear aftermarket springs too compressed and clunking.
 

I have Espelir Springs Koni shocks and RB sway bars. I've been noticing since I installed the Konis that the rear of the car sat noticeably lower but didn't think too much of it. After my last two track days I've been getting a clunking sound like something is shifting under the car. I checked and torqued all the suspension bolts and swaybar endlinks.

I looked under the rear of the car today and saw that both my rear springs are compressed so much the top 4 coils touch! The bottom 1/3 of the coil is the only part that has any travel left!:Eyecrazy:

I'm not sure what's causing this. They did not sit this way when the oem shocks were installed with the same springs.

Any thoughts? I definitely don't think this is right.

Here are pictures.

http://i164.photobucket.com/albums/u34/shaunv74/_99.jpg

http://i164.photobucket.com/albums/u...nv74/_99_2.jpg

http://i164.photobucket.com/albums/u...nv74/_99_1.jpg

What's your rear damper set at?

25% from full soft.

doesn't matter, the gas pressure will have some impact on ride height, but not the valving adjustment settings that come on those shocks

springs are messed up or you have a weird bind.. i am going with springs are fcked up..


beers :beer:

you can defintely see the marks where they're coilbinding and rubbing between the coils, sometimes it pays to pay more up front for a quality product

Koni shocks FTW

cheap springs = fail

Yeah I suppose. I would agree except these springs didn't have this problem until I swapped out the OEM shock and swaybars for Konis and RB sways. Wierd huh?

They were fine and had a taller ride height when they were on with the OEM shocks. I am questioning my installation first. Any thoughts on what I could have messed up when putting them on? I'd be fine going out and getting a new set of springs and swapping them out but I don't want to go through the trouble and make the same mistake and have the same problem again.:(

Any other thoughts on how I can test to see if my springs are shot vs. an install goof on my part? I figure this weekend I'll jack up the back end and see if the springs fully relax. That should tell me if the springs are plastically deformed or if something is artifically pre-loading them too much. The only thing I can think of is if the swaybar rotation is artifically restricted or if I somehow cranked down the shock tower nut or put them back together in the wrong order and it's putting too much pre-load on the springs. I don't remember that being the case when we installed them though.

Could it be the low gas pressure konis vs. the high gas pressure OEMs that is the difference?

I'll crawl under my car tomorrow night and have a look. The springs are obviously not bidning on the shock body, which would be the first concern with the noise manifesting shortly after making that swap. I did notice, in the first picture, it sort of looks like the spring may be binding on the suspension link in the foreground of the photo. Have a look at that. Also, the espilir's are progressive, right? I'm wondering if the softer initial spring rate may be part of the issue. As low as your car is riding in back, I wonder if your catching the bump stops and that's where the clunk originates.

Good point. I'll take a peek and see if there are any shiny spots on them or potential for contact.

The OE shocks are high pressure gas. The Konis are low pressure gas. This causes a drop in ride height, but it's usually not much. The springs were probably too short to begin with, and way too many coils from what I see.

the spring coils are hitting each other, if you look closely you can see the paint markings where they are banging into each other, which is a classic coil bind situation. Very poor design IMO.

Okay. Thanks for your insight Team. I guess I'm in the market for new coils.

I'm debating RB v. H&R v. Eibach. I kinda lik the look of the extra drop from the H&R and Eibach but if all I'm buying is extra drop and not extra track day performance I'd assume go with RB.

Thoughts on those three? I want to have some solid track day performance but still be able to take my wife on long trips. It's not a daily driver but I still want it to be comfortable on the highway. I'm not worried about comfort in town.

i am very happy with my Eibachs.

beers :beer:

There is a guy selling some on the forum right now. I'm going to bring my car down to my local shop to confirm my work hasn't messed anything else up and then plunk down on the new springs.

Man I am really suprised to see such a major defect like this in something a straightforward as springs.:(

you never know. but they have failed... lots of counterfeit stuff out there.. it is not like you could have overtightened something and caused that mess...

beers :beer:

I had the RB spring.

I liked them, but then wanted it much stiffer so I went with coil overs.
The Koni shocks were designed around the RB spring.

RS*R Springs. They're pretty good and very popular with the FD and S2000 people... I'm like the only person who's running it with my 8 on the forum though.

A few of us are tracking with success on H-Tech + Koni combos.

You already know how the RB's ride. Remember the the extra tightness without any real change in ride quality you got when we did your sways? Basically the same effect with mine.

Yeah I think unless I find a deal on the Eibachs I'll go with the RBs.

That way I can be a RB fanboi!!:)

There are worse things to be. Like a Honda fanboi. And almost all my RB stuff I got used, making the price really attractive.

get Swift's I have them, and they :rock:

oem vs swift
http://i223.photobucket.com/albums/d...g?t=1205771693

True. I like there stuff so I'm okay with being a fanboi. I have a line on some used RB springs so hopefully I'll see them in a few weeks and then I can take install them all over again. I'm not looking forward to that.

On a side note Endless Rotaries tried to find out from Espelir what may have happened with my springs but I haven't heard anything back. :(

I know they're not under warranty anymore but that's pretty pathetic engineering.

[QUOTE=imput1234;2353217]get Swift's I have them, and they :rock:[\quote]

I've had a couple recommendations on the Swift's. If my line on the RacingBeat springs falls through I'll check them out. Where did you purchase them?

There was a group buy a while back, the guy was selling em for $150shipped. I think it ended tho.

wow thats weak.....got mine in the group buy and so far i dont have this situation....then again im on the oem shocks

Come on.... I know you want to be a RB fan boy!

Yes mine were fine on the OEM shocks. They dropped when I went to the Koni shocks.

I'm still waiting on the RB springs. Should be here in 2 weeks from the guy I'm getting them from.

Quick question on the clunking, does it clunk only when you turn?

shaun: stop putting so many dead bodies in the trunk. The extra weight FUBAR'd your springs. ;)

Wow that's significantly shorter than I imagined the spring would be.

Its not just the springs. Its the combination.

To the OP get some Tanabe GF210's. They go great with the shocks you have right now!!!

Nope. It happens when I brake hard too. I'm guessing that around 0.7G's or higher it's a large enough force to get the coils to jump over and slide across each other. That's why it doesn't happen when I accelerate hard. The RX8 can only pull about 0.5G's in acceleration.:lol2:

(as measured by my Gtech)

Thanks Dom. I am about two weeks out on the RB deal. If that falls through I'm looking at the Eibachs but I will take a look at the Tanabe's as well.

Good to know someone else has them and they work okay with the Konis.

This is the last time I become an early adopter.:mad:

Shhh...:nono:

Thing is RB stuff is like stock.
Search up my old thread(s) when I had my AT 8 and was looking for Tanabe springs. A few guys had Tanabe GF210's and Konis shocks there rides look sick!
This is my second set of Tanabe GF210's. Nothing but good compliments.
Think I'm going to get the Konis soon :smoker:
Let me know how it works out!

Never had that happen with my set up. And I'm talking WOT! after WOT 1st 2nd 3rd! and you can feel the back end squat down :smoker:

Good Luck!

Thanks! I'll get some after shots when I install them. There is a track day on April 24th. I"m hoping I can put them on and be ready before then to get some impressions.

Should only take about one hour to install the shocks. Its just like installing springs lol

FWIW, the Konis lowered my rear quite noticeably with stock springs and caused them to look compressed more than usual as well:

http://ilp303.com/temp/nov252007rearright.jpg

Of course, there's no coil binding there w/ the stock spring, but you can see it's not its happy "normal ride height" self.

Based on my experience, Konis will definitely lower your ride height, but it's a question of how much. On my car, the answer seems to be about half an inch or so.

Perhaps the Koni (low-pressure gas shock) difference has more effect in the rear than the front because the rear is a softer spring than the front spring.

It also seems that if your car has been lowered for a while, your bushings have probably settled in a slightly lower position than stock, esp if you had it aligned and had, say, the rear camber and toe cams loosened and retightened. So this may contribute to your rear (and my rear) dropping a greater distance when switching to Konis.

When people put in Konis on a previously stock suspension car, they may not loosen and retighten every single bushing in the rear suspension and consequently may not get quite as much of a drop, since most of the bushings will be in that "stock height" location.

See my "rear too low" thread.

Anyways, it seems that all the springs are designed with the high-pressure gas shocks in mind. I'm running a Koni/Tein H-tech combo and I'm as low as a Tein S-tech car on stock shocks and Mazdaspeed shocks. However, my spring rate is not as stiff as the S-tech. So I basically have the S-tech height with the H-tech spring rate increase.

I considered going w/ the RB springs, as they had the attractive combination more stiffness and less drop than other options, but I was concerned that I was going to get a fairly uneven front and rear wheel gap (more front than rear). So I decided to stop chancing it and went with H-techs that were advertised to drop the front more than the rear. In the end, my ride looks fairly even, maybe a touch less gap rear than front, but not much at all. However, you ran springs that had an advertised front & rear even drop, how did your drop look with the Konis? (Maybe the advertised numbers dont' tell the whole story)

(EDIT: I just re-read your post and noticed you say that the rear sat a lot lower after Konis... so let's hope that things will sit even with the RB or Eibach springs you're getting, but my feeling is skeptical on i).

Update:

So my used Racingbeat deal isn't going to happen but I have a line on another set used.

I'm not as worried about too high ride height as I am getting good suspension travel and too low ride height. I think right now my shorter suspension travel is also starting to cause problems with my front control arms. I'm getting some clunking when I turn the wheel while the suspension is compressed. Like hard cornering under braking or going up an incline into a parking lot or my garage. I am speculating that my front upper control arm is bottoming out the ball joint articulation and rubbing on the spindle arm. I am hoping there is no permanent damage going on here. :confused: When I turn the wheel while in the compressed state I can feel in the steering wheel and hear a clunk.

I'm not going to track it again until I get the new springs in.

Keep us posted, curious to see how the ride height and evenness thereof will be with the RBs!

shaun: have you looked into some Tein H-Techs?
DPE had some great experiences with that combo on their track car

DPE is out of business.

yes, but they still were VERY knowledgable about suspension setups

Yeah I've looked at them too and I know they would work well. I'm just set on the Racing Beat springs. I like their stuff and one of my driving buddies has them and it's exactly the ride I'm looking for.

amazing track set up i got a ride in.. rb springs. bilsein hd shocks. front rb sway bar..

wow, just wow.

beers :beer:

Well I had to back out on our monthly drive today because the steering clunk was just getting too bad and I wanted to limit the amount of damage I might cause the suspension.

So I spent the day ripping out the Espelir springs and putting the stock springs back in. I did the front's first and lo and behold the clunking with steering was completely gone! Imagine that. At least I know it was just the springs and not something else. So I'm half done with the rears now. Hopefully have them finished tomorrow night or Tuesday.

I'm actually interested to see how the stock springs with the Konis and RB sways will act. It may be a nice compromise for a while...

At least I'm getting better at changing the springs now. God the rears suck though.