Darrie wrote:Ok Soulja-on, my mate pulled in with his Hilux and I had a chance to look at it since I last looked under it when I bought the bilsteins for him. Yep, one bumpstop for upward travel that hits the lower arm, and the coilover/strut assembly limits extension (along with control arm rubbers and ball joint assemblies). So based on the fact that the bilstein strut assembly you bought is for your model hilux, lets presume all fine for shock travel specs. I did glance at the Kings springs specs on that coil you mentioned - it is for a hilux so in theory you should have no issues, however they appear to be listed as Heavy Duty ? The dab of grease on the bumpstop and a bit of firm offroad action will tell you if the coil is too hard for your application. My concern would be that these may have too heavy a rating if you are not running additional weight up front like a steel bullbar & winch. If over rated you will find the suspension harsh, and it will rarely touch the bumpstops – really you are just then robbing yourself of valuable suspension travel. Ideally if you are not heavily accessory laden up front look for a kings coil replacement to just above standard – generally they will be about 10% firmer than stock and better steel so less sag over time.
One thing I have to mention is to get your head around how the OEM CA's work and that the rubber bushing in them has been set right when the coilover was installed or height setting was changed. It’s real important that whoever fitted the strut or made changes to the height setting had a good knowledge of the control arm bushes that you have. Unlike poly bushings where the centre pin turns in the bush, the OEM rubber bushings are bonded into the control arm, as is the centre pin bonded into the bush also. As the CA moves the rubber flexes as the centre pin twists the rubber, and the rubber bush acts like suspension and allows a limited range of flex up and down. Its absolutely vital that when you install a longer shock or change height settings if you have OEM bushes you must let the vehicle sit on the suspension and loosen off all the CA bolts that go through these centre bushes top and bottom, then rock the front up and down slightly to allow the metal bush pins to resettle in a neutral position so the rubber bushes are then not under any load with the weight of the vehicle sitting on them in normal stance. Then retightened in the standing position, this ensures the rubber bushes have the flex ability both up and down. You really should check these first, even if you loosen off one, rock and retighten all one at a time this will make sure you are not limiting travel in the first place and that the bushes will last.
Then real simple to check your ratio - start with vehicle in normal stance and measure distance between bumpstop and the seat where it normally touches the CA under full impact (call this say "C" for compression distance). Then jack from the chassis lifting the wheel and now remeasure same points. Call this new measurement "E" – that’s full extension distance. To get your Droop distance "E-C" - call this D for droop distance. So ratio is simply Droop Distance "D" to Compression distance - it will be something like 20mm to 40mm or 1:2 (one part down, 2 parts up). These measurements are just for ratio analysis - they are not true suspension compression, extension measurements that are normally taken from the shock mount points but it will tell you what ratio you are running and give you a heads up on whether the suspension is likely to top out or bottom out if the coil is the right weight for the static load of the vehicle. If your ratio ends up being say 10:40 ideally you either should lower the clip and sacrifice a little height to improve the ratio, so that the suspension is working in an acceptable range.
Sorry but hope all this ramble helps – at least it will give you a heads up on how your suspension is set up if you do end up taking it somewhere to get it looked at.
Cheers, Darrie
nickoslux wrote:I put bilsteins all round, kings 101s at front and 0-200kg leaves on back, I have been whining about it so much I think my wife will divorce me soon. It totally ruined the ride, the worst suspension combo you could imagine, if you are driving on smooth hotmix city roads they are brilliant but where I live the roads are awful. Mind you I think it is finally starting to soften up after about 5000 kms, as I said in another post the bilsteins are a sports shock, (developed on the Nurburgring) if you are after a comfort ride dont buy them, they just seem to overwhelm the spring. My setup was sold to me as a "Smart comfort suspension" system
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