Coilover adjusting collars

[deevergote]

I explained why it is dangerous in my very first post. People don't care to be educated. They just want people as ignorant as themselves to tell them how to make their cars even more unsafe just so they can look "cool".

And yes, people are "preached at" for having improper suspensions. Every damn one I can find gets it. I don't care to see any of my members hurt because they were improperly informed, or just too stupid to understand the modifications they do to their cars (and how said modifications make their car dangerous.)

If your shocks are blown, your tires will bounce. Bouncing tires are not in contact with the road. This will compromise handling and braking.
If your springs lower your car further than the shock is valved to go, then it will blow the shocks. Before they are blown, they will not react as they were designed, and they will barely be any safer than fully blown shocks. A spring with too high a rate for a set of shocks will produce a similar reaction.

But hey, this forum is ridiculous, right? Perhaps we should encourage all the ricer morons out there to make their cars unsafe. Perhaps they'll get lucky and not crash. Perhaps they'll get a little less lucky and simply total their car (and walk away.) Perhaps their luck won't be so great, and they'll die. Worse yet, maybe they'll mow down a 6 year old child chasing a ball into the street, because their ricer suspension wouldn't allow their car to turn or brake in time. That would be lots of fun to live with for the rest of their lives.
Yeah. Ridiculous.


I've already seen the passing of two good members of this site that I'm aware of. I don't care to see any more suffer the same fate.

[bassrock234]

woah this blew up in a bad way. Ok let me explain a little. First off saying this forum is ridiculous is going a little far. There is lots a good info here and lot's of people willing to help. But like other forums, there is also lots of mis-information. Before I go on I know a lot of members here are complete newbies to cars and modifying them, but I am not. I've been working on cars for about 7 years now and have a degree in automotive technology. I also worked at a toyota dealership for about 1.5 years before I got tired of "stealership" practices.

He's set in his ways, he's not going to add the collars back in. Stubborn people have a hard head untill something goes wrong.

You're right, I am hard headed and stubborn but only when I know what I'm talking about. The only reason I posted this question is sometimes it's nice to get other opinions that will maybe make me see something that I missed before.

He still has 2 locking collars, the only thing he has done is removed a collar allowing him to move the shock tube down literally a quarter of an inch.

You're probably going to bottom out the shock tube in the body anyway soon.

This isn't going to cause your car to catch on fire or for it to magically explode or turn your car into Christine and try and kill everyone.

This is exactly correct. The WHOLE ENTIRE SHOCK AND SPRING has moved down. NOT the spring on the shock body. The strut will have the same exact travel it did before. The factory spring is still there, in the factory location where function and form intended it to be, with the factory pre-load where function and form set it. The strut will not bottom out, it is still valved correctly and still has the correct spring rate. They shouldn't be any more dangerous or likely to fail than they were before. Now removing the pre-load adjusting collars I could see causing weakness in the spring seat, but not the height adjusting collar. I'll say again THE SHOCK BODY AND LOWER MOUNT ARE COMPLETELY SEPERATE raising the lower mount on the body will lower the car while keeping the same strut and spring travel. That is why most coilovers are made with independent ride height and spring pre-load (unless you buy cheap coilovers or coilover sleeves with aftermarket struts. All you with coilover sleeves on stock or even aftermarket struts, did you know when you drop them you lose strut travel AND spring pre-load? Your struts will definitely blow faster than normal. However as explained before, this is not the case with coilovers that have independent ride height and spring pre-load.

I think you guy's are misunderstanding how these coilovers work. Get a set for yourself, take them apart and see how they work. Hands on is the best way to learn anything.

Man's mind once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimension.

Innovation and doing something different is how new idea's and products are made. If everyone did the same mods the same way every time, nothing would ever change or advance, and everyones vehicles would look the same. You think some time ago people didn't think lowering a car at all was dangerous and un-safe? Now it's one of the most popular things to do and most everyone knows it's safe assuming you do it the right way. I can already hear the "but you didn't do it the right way you took a collar out that's supposed to be there". It's plenty safe trust me. Like I said, get one of these coilovers in your hands and study it, take it apart, put it back together. THEN you may understand how no travel is lost when removing this collar.

[deevergote]

Perhaps pictures of what changes you've made would be more effective in communicating what you're talking about, rather than crudely drawn sketches.

Here's a picture:


So, what you're saying is that the shock body is independent of the lower red portion? You're removing the smaller gold collar on the shock body, correct? Leaving just the red collar that serves as the spring seat in place?
That eliminates what, about 1/3 of an inch? If?
I still fail to see the point, and I also feel that elimination of that particular part could compromise the structural integrity of the coilover unit.

[bassrock234]

yeah my paint skills are mediocre at best hahaha. But yes, the shock body which contains the gas charge is completely independent of the lower red portion in your picture (on most mid-range to high end coilovers, however this is not the case with ALL coilovers), and yes all I've removed is the lower gold collar leaving the 2 red ones that make up the spring seat alone. Yes it only made maybe 1/4in difference from before but that makes a difference for me, and going lower that way is much better and safer than cutting the spring or taking out pre-load and losing strut travel and ride quality. I don't think structural integrity has been compromised since the rest of the shock body is firmly in place in the lower mount, and the 2 red rings in your picture sit tightly against the top of the lower red portion in your picture. If the two red rings didn't sit right on the lower red part, I could definitely see it being an issue, as I seriously doubt the threads by themselves on the shock body could hold the weight of your car. You'd strip the threads out and the shock would be pretty much useless.

[belac515]

First let me apologize for saying this forum is ridiculous. I just see so much misinformation and people that don't know what they are talking about it makes me upset. This is actually a really good forum and i didn't mean piss anyone off.

Here is a picture of the coilover disassembled.



The tube on the right contains the shock and it threads into the body on the right. When you remove a collar the WHOLE shock tube threads down.
Travel and everything is the exact same, just alittle lower in the body.

I hope this helps alittle.

[deevergote]

So what exactly is the purpose of the removed collar?

[bassrock234]

belac515's picture is a good exploded version on the function and form coilovers. You can see the lower mount is seperate from the shock body. But again, not all coilovers are made that way.

The original purpose of the gold ring is to lock the strut body in place when it's not dropped all the way down to the spring seat. Normally the the two red rings in your picture wouldnt sit right ontop of the lower red portion. So the gold ring is there to lock the body to the lower mount. That way it's supported up by the ring AND the threads on the shock body, not just the threads.

[belac515]

bassrock not meaning to steal your thread, just wanting to help everyone understand.

Since pictures have been working well here:

This is a standard coilover medium height: A and B lock together to keep the spring in place. C locks against the body and keeps the actual strut tube in position so it cant move.



This is a lowered coilover, basically the lowest the coilover can go with all it's collars. If you remove C for example you can thread the the strut tube into the body about a quarter inch more. A/B/and the strut body will all lock together keeping everything in position nice and tight.

[bassrock234]

^ spot on

[deevergote]

I see. So C is essentially functioning much the same as B, to lock the shock body in place, correct?
The shock body threads into the lower portion? It's not going to pull out if you do something crazy like lifting a wheel off the ground? (if you're doing something while driving that will do that, there are likely far more serious problems to consider! )

[bassrock234]

C locks the shock body in place while B locks the spring in place. When C is removed to go lower, B does the same job as C as well as it's original job of locking the spring. You're correct, the strut threads into the lower mount so even if you lifted a wheel off of the ground, it won't come out of there.

[deevergote]

Ah, ok. In that case, I suppose what you've done isn't bad at all. I still don't see the point of going THAT low... but I see your point about it not changing the shock travel... so at least that will still function properly.
Most coilovers I'm familiar with (never owned a set myself... never cared to) had fixed threads on the shock body. Essentially, just a regular shock with threads for the adjustment collars. Removing any part of a setup like that would be a potential safety hazard for sure.

[TracieS]

I know tons of people who have removed that collar. I have had my gone for a while now and haven't noticed a difference. The reason I needed to go lower was to sit flusher on the tire since I was running a low pro tire with stretch and didn't want any wheel gap.

[wed3k]

the bottom collar can be removed, you can also just bottom out al the lock collars to prevent the body from twsiting. i honestly don't really tighten them either. with spring tension on it, they dont move but i also check them from time to time to make sure they aren't bound up.

when i had tein cd5 coilovers, i had to wind them down as low as i could go because it still wouldn't drop as much as i would like