I have LG coilovers on with they RR spring rates (650#/225#) and Im currently autocrossing with it. I know its not the best rates for this, but Im getting some noises when turning (as in high G load). It seems to be the rear inside (the most unloaded corner). The noise is usually a high pitch squeek and sometimes a lower pitch constant vibration. The design of the coilover is w/ the loose spring (as in it settles on its perch and if you jack the car up, the spring can move freely between the top of the shock and the bottom perch). Could it just be this that allows the noise? The nearly unweighted spring is twisting against the perch?

--Kevin

 

Hey bud,

I have the coil-overs as well.... do you have the old or new style?

I have the grey aluminum bodied ones...

Yes the spring is free to move as the rear is raised.. it's the only way this can work... if you were to put a longer spring the car would not lower. Some race teams use a helper spring... this is a very soft spring that goes in that gap when you raise the car. It wouldn't of been a bad idea for LG's kit I think...

Anyways make sure that you tightened all the bolts/nuts properly.

Personally I wouldn't use this setup for autoxing.. it's meant more for high speed smooth transitions.. not low speed tight transitions.

If I were you I would consider making the front shocks rebound adjustable.. this would help with your transitions...

Steve

 

Sounds like a similar problem to the Global West front coil-over kit that I have, only the consequences are much worse with the GW kit. Essentially you have a relativley stiff spring (does not compress much) and larger degree of suspension travel than that spring can compensate for and still provide the desired ride-height.

As the front factory spring perch on the 93-02 F-bodys uses a rubber tower mount which indexes to the factory type spring, GW provides an indexed aluminum spacer which makes the transition to their flat-ground high-rate spring. Unfortunately, with the suspension near full droop (Global West tubular upper control arms and LG boxed lower control arms - spherical bearings and rod ends), a 3 inch gap appears between the spring and this perch. This causes their index spacer to fall out of index with the factory mount, which severly alters the ride height and side loads the shock absorber shaft (bad). Essentially this would screw up the ride-height and indexing every the time the car is lifted (I don't every get the car totally airborne). After bringing this to GW attention (Doug), the charged me another $83 for a fix to this design problem. This came in the form of the soft helper spring discussed above and another spring alignment spacer. I was told that this is what the sprint-car racers do. Unfortunately, this fix-kit does not work either, due to interferences with the shock, so I am still disputing charges for all of the kits with my credit card issuer. For whatever reason (laziness), GW does not want to fix the problem. So for the time-being, I have Koni DA shocks that I cannot use with a front adjustable height suspension kit (total investment of about $1200). Not happy.

As for the GW rear kit, I had no problem. They use a buttress thread adapter, which sits right on top of the factory axle spring perch locator ring, with a shorter than stock spring. The height is adjustable using the buttress thread nuts. I used silicone sealant to firmly (quitely) bond the perch to the axle spring perch, so it does not rattle. Rear springs are relatively soft, so they don't fall loose through suspension travel. Works great and keeps the spring force at the factory locations. I believe the Ground Control and LG rear systems use a coil-over spring on the factory shock location, which is different than the factory spring load locations.

Good luck. Sounds like it works for you (except for the noise).

Rick R

 

Hey Rick,

Come on... sell that GW junk and come try some real stuff...

I've had GW's infamous 870# coilovers with custom valved bilsteins, because I knew Konis would blow up eventually.

Anyways, you might want to try a different length spring. GW sends an 8" free length spring in their kit. You might want to try a
longer one, like a 10" .. perhaps this fill the gap. This is assuming how low you want to lower car and how much adjustment range you have left.

FWIW.. you can sell your konis, the GW hardware... and use that money to buy the LG coilover kit... and work with Lou/Bilstein to pick rates and valving...

Once you go with his kit,, you can now use the race stuff springs-eibach/hyperco and awesome shock selection: (Bilstein/Koni monotubes/Motons/Penske) which are all adjustable. This is because they all use standard shock eye monoball mountings.. not the off the shelf rubber durometer bushings..

I can help you out too...

Steve

 

I CORNER1 = I CORNER

When I was working on my springs the other day (with threaded height adjusters), it dawned on me what your noise is coming from.

The coil-overs use flat ground springs riding on aluminum spanner nuts. Metal on metal usually results in noise during movement. When I installed my GW rear adjustable height kit (adjusters sitting on top of axle spring perch), I used heat shrink tubing over the first coil touching the adjusters. I used the thick HS tubing with the sealant, which resulted in no noise. I siliconed the adjusters to the axle perch to prevent noise there too. Finally, with the stock height GW springs (they don't like to lower much at all), I had to remove the rubber body donut isolator. I slipped heater hose over the first coil to prevent noise there.

Next time, I am going to try to dip the first coil in a thick coating of plasti-dip for a cleaner, more thorough barrier between metal-metal contact.

Rick R

 

I am surprised to hear of the GW trouble. I thought they had the same design as ground control. Which is what I am using and am having no problems at all.

Someone mentioned that you may need a longer spring. I think this may be the right way to go. I have the 10" springs I think. To raise the car up they were being compressed more and more. I actually need a shorter spring. My shocks were shortened from the top mounting point to the bottom. So it requires about an 1.5" shorter spring.

FYI the Ground Control rear adjuster works exactly like the GW adjuster.
IMO the best rear adjustable seat is one from Allstar Performance. It is made to work with a strait 5" rear spring with no pig tailed end. With my 125lb 5"x11" spring and these adjusters I can go from about 2.5" lowered to 1.25" above stock.

What may be a good option is to see if LG will sell JUST the front kit. The rear is fine to use springs in stock location

 

I CORNER1 = I CORNER

Just returned the GW front adjustable coil-over kit on 11/26/02. GW front springs are super-stiff (GW top secret!). They would not tell me, but appear to be 750-900lb linear springs. With a super-stiff spring, the spring can't be long or the car will ride sky high. With full front suspension droop (probably aggravated by the free range of motion of GW upper control arms and LG lower control arms with del-A-lum bearings and rod ends), the spring becomes very loose and the GW index collar falls out of place and can side-load the shock upon subsequent compression. The GW index collar looks like it would more-evenly load the factory rubber shock tower mount (greater distribution area), but doesn't stay in place. GW charged me another $82 for a light spring preload kit, which would work but the spacer diameter is too narrow to clear my Koni DA shocks. DON'T WORK!!

The rear GW adjustable height spring kit uses special short springs (almost 2 inches shorter than my Eibach Pros), which are also pretty soft (top secret GW ratings again!). The spring perch adjustment collar adds about 3" minimum to the height. From photos in the RK website, the Ground Control rear adjusters look similar, but slightly different.

I had previously lowered my car to 26.5" with the Eibach Pros, but was unable to get below 27.5" with the GW kit with the rubber donut isolator (this was with the short spring!). They advised that I would need to replace the donut with heater hose to go below stock height! It worked, so I am living with it.

Rick R

 

ICORNER,

Not sure why you had so much trouble with GW kit, I used their
kit before with bilsteins. Worked fine, I ran about 1-1.2" lowered
and had about 1/2" of preload in the spring. This was their
high rate 870# spring. I calculated the rate, there is a formula.

I never had droop problems, but i wasn't running LG lower a-arms, just GW uppers and stock lowers.

As for the rear, their special rate isn't that special. It's exactly
100#/inch.

So basically you could of just used a stock 114" spring and gotten the same effect, by removing the upper insulator and instant 1" drop.

Steve