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Issues with rear coilovers


Jim881

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Afternoon all,

I'm gaving a slight issue with my miesters on my Gen 7.

I had the rear wheels off at the weekend as part of bleeding brakes, clean up etc and while I was there I decided to lose all the preload on the rear springs. After making sure there was no weight on them I wound the springs off, cleaned it all up and set the spring to just being able to spin the spring by hand. So pre load zero!!!. I wanted to raise the rear a little so I span the damper up. All tightened up and thought I was good to go. Did the same on the other side and measured the distance between the 2 nut down (locking the spring) and the bottom lock. Think it was about 15mm. Now looking at some pictures this should give me a reasonable clearance to the wheel arch but is hasn't!!! I'm getting more rubbing now I have taken the preload completely off. I have 27mm spacers on the rear and obviously this is causing the rubbing but I don't want to remove them and I didn't have this issue before. To give you an idea how high I have wound them up. You can see the thread in the small hole in the bottom suspension arm. I'll try and take a picture of my setup in a bit but here's how compressed my spring is. Do you thing my dampers have failed? Also I was running the rears on 26 and now have turned them up to 32 so hopefully it might ease the rubbing until I get this sorted.

I don't know how much more I can wind these things up!!!!

a122f28e00c7cf907d8f2ab9985aa1d4.jpg

Cheers Jim

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72a7165b55911e9e05c7ab3725bd2c13.jpg

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Could do with seeing the whole coilover to fair but I thought the pre-load (top two nuts) should have stayed where they were and then loosen the bottom locknut for height adjustment.

...then raise the car by turning the whole unit in the body .

Mine where set like this from the box

Top nut is about 20mm down from the top of the thread on all four...then just adjusted height once on car (gen 6 by they way)

8d12f215d32af56c28c5d864ab4c555a.jpg

How far did you wind the top locknut back up? Sounds like it maybe needs to go higher?

If there's not enough pre-load tension (nut not wound high enough up) I would have thought the car would a bit bouncy, and lower...As there will be more travel on the spring.

I know it's more than likely going to be different for the gen7 but here's a pic of the rear on mine from weekend

15432795f6cd76326a9c145c6c8c9ddc.jpg

Best bet is give Meister a pm/call just to check the settings

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if im reading this correctly i believe you need to add pre-load to raise the rear, more spring tension means the car will sit higher.

No you can adjust the whole strut by loosening the bottom nut and spinning either way for height adjustment. More preload means less travel for the spring so less bounce.

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Could do with seeing the whole coilover to fair but I thought the pre-load (top two nuts) should have stayed where they were and then loosen the bottom locknut for height adjustment.

...then raise the car by turning the whole unit in the body .

Mine where set like this from the box

Top nut is about 20mm down from the top of the thread on all four...then just adjusted height once on car (gen 6 by they way)

8d12f215d32af56c28c5d864ab4c555a.jpg

How far did you wind the top locknut back up? Sounds like it maybe needs to go higher?

If there's not enough pre-load tension (nut not wound high enough up) I would have thought the car would a bit bouncy, and lower...As there will be more travel on the spring.

I know it's more than likely going to be different for the gen7 but here's a pic of the rear on mine from weekend

15432795f6cd76326a9c145c6c8c9ddc.jpg

Best bet is give Meister a pm/call just to check the settings

Yeah that's what I did. Loosened the bottom nut and spun the strut. Because it was quite stiff I used the c spanner to spin the strut by turning the 2 nut. It won't adjust the preload as it's force is pushing against the top top. Likewise the other way round do the top nut will spin the strut and won't adjust the preload as it's forcing down the the lower nut. Hope that males sense

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Yeah mate makes sense.

Just that you said you loosened the top locknut so there was "zero preload" and the Spring was loose...you then said you span the damper to raise, did you add the pre-load back to the spring/wind the top nut back up? Just trying to get full picture...Spring looks pretty compressed in your pic compared to mine too, but then I don't know what they were like from the outset.

You no pics from when you took delivery to compare?

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if im reading this correctly i believe you need to add pre-load to raise the rear, more spring tension means the car will sit higher.

He's right you know did you measure the wheel arch height from the ground before and after cus you probably dropped it 10 or 15mm adjusting the preload will affect the ride height .

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Yeah mate makes sense.

Just that you said you loosened the top locknut so there was "zero preload" and the Spring was loose...you then said you span the damper to raise, did you add the pre-load back to the spring/wind the top nut back up? Just trying to get full picture...Spring looks pretty compressed in your pic compared to mine too, but then I don't know what they were like from the outset.

You no pics from when you took delivery to compare?

No they were second hand mate. So fully stripped and cleaned down. Yeah basically I got the spring loose and then tightened the top nut so I could just move the spring by hand and then locked it off with the second. Yeah, they do look pretty compressed, that's just the weight of the car on them.

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He's right you know did you measure the wheel arch height from the ground before and after cus you probably dropped it 10 or 15mm adjusting the preload will affect the ride height .

No I didn't measure it. I reckon I took about 5mm of preload off. But added about 5mm of height. I always thought you could run these quite well without preload. My front have zero but have loads of thread to be able to raise and lower

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I think you would be OK on 0mm, I just don't on mine.

Just been having a read of this (I know it's Civics)

Principal is the same...BC coilovers have a few vid on YouTube too for setup

http://www.civiclife.net/board/topic/86558-how-tight-should-you-make-the-springs-on-meister-r-coilovers/?do=findComment&comment=1037112

Must be posted by Jerrick @MeisterR (member on here also) Fire a pm mate, best to come from the horses mouth.

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I think you would be OK on 0mm, I just don't on mine.

Just been having a read of this (I know it's Civics)

Principal is the same...BC coilovers have a few vid on YouTube too for setup

http://www.civiclife.net/board/topic/86558-how-tight-should-you-make-the-springs-on-meister-r-coilovers/?do=findComment&comment=1037112

Must be posted by Jerrick @MeisterR (member on here also) Fire a pm mate, best to come from the horses mouth.

Cheers mate. I've pmd Jerrick. Hopefully he will be able to shed some light on the situation.

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There can be up to four adjustments with suspension and its important to know exactly what each one does.

Preload,

Ride Height,

Compression damping,

Rebound damping,

Preload, takes the weight of the vehicle and load this is the adjustment of the spring by either adjusting the collars or by changing the weight of the spring, although this will effect the height of the vehicle off the ground it is more important to set the sage of the spring when you load it up, ie how much the spring will compress when you drop the car on to its wheels.

Ride height is the physical height of the vehicle from the ground regardless of what the preload is set at and is normally set by lengthening or shortening the physical length of the shock its self.

Damping is what controls the speed shock absorber moves, more fancier shocks will have independent adjusters for both compression and rebound but most will have a combined adjuster that does both depending on what ratio the manufacture decides is best for there product. These are normally set by a small screw the clicks as you turn it in and out, the more turns in the more damping you get.

First off measure and adjust your sag with the preload adjusters on the spring, then set your ride height and then set your damping but make sure you make notes what measurements you use so as you can go back if you fine tune your suspension.

The other option would be just get some measurements off someone else who as already set there car up.

Dorris

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There can be up to four adjustments with suspension and its important to know exactly what each one does.

Preload,

Ride Height,

Compression damping,

Rebound damping,

Preload, takes the weight of the vehicle and load this is the adjustment of the spring by either adjusting the collars or by changing the weight of the spring, although this will effect the height of the vehicle off the ground it is more important to set the sage of the spring when you load it up, ie how much the spring will compress when you drop the car on to its wheels.

Ride height is the physical height of the vehicle from the ground regardless of what the preload is set at and is normally set by lengthening or shortening the physical length of the shock its self.

Damping is what controls the speed shock absorber moves, more fancier shocks will have independent adjusters for both compression and rebound but most will have a combined adjuster that does both depending on what ratio the manufacture decides is best for there product. These are normally set by a small screw the clicks as you turn it in and out, the more turns in the more damping you get.

First off measure and adjust your sag with the preload adjusters on the spring, then set your ride height and then set your damping but make sure you make notes what measurements you use so as you can go back if you fine tune your suspension.

The other option would be just get some measurements off someone else who as already set there car up.

Dorris

:bowdown: Wish I could make it sound so professional yet simply that even a half wit like me can clearly get it.

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That's is a very informative right up. Thankyou. Reference the sag. I presume the best was is to measure the distance between the centre of the wheel and the top of the arch. Lets says 200mm and then jack it up and measure the same datum again. Let's say it's 250mm. So I have 50mm worth of sag when the weight is on the shock. Does this mean I am supposed to put 50mm of preload onto the spring. My new datum would 250mm on the deck? But let's say I want my new height to be 265mm, do I then raise the damper up 15mm?

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If you don't have a sag figure then its going to be a case of trail and error, it all comes down to what sort of ride you are after, the best way is probably set the springs soft to give your self a soft ride and then set your ride height to give you the ground clearance. Damping will be something you initially set then adjust as time goes by to what feels right, if the car feels like its bouncing then the damping needs stiffening up, maybe start off with around 15 clicks in on the front around 13 clicks in on the back and go from there.

Suspension can be a bit of a dark art and confusing if you're not used to it but try not to over think it. Set it go for an initial drive to make sure nothing obvious is wrong then try it for a few days and get a feel for what its doing then maybe readjust if necessary. You might find it feels like its wallowing around or could be too harsh feeling every bump in the road, you could even have an issue of it bottoming out or tyres rubbing on the arches but wont know until you try it.

If you can find some else that is running the same suspension that is working for them then ask them for some setting and go from there. Dorris

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If you don't have a sag figure then its going to be a case of trail and error, it all comes down to what sort of ride you are after, the best way is probably set the springs soft to give your self a soft ride and then set your ride height to give you the ground clearance. Damping will be something you initially set then adjust as time goes by to what feels right, if the car feels like its bouncing then the damping needs stiffening up, maybe start off with around 15 clicks in on the front around 13 clicks in on the back and go from there.

Suspension can be a bit of a dark art and confusing if you're not used to it but try not to over think it. Set it go for an initial drive to make sure nothing obvious is wrong then try it for a few days and get a feel for what its doing then maybe readjust if necessary. You might find it feels like its wallowing around or could be too harsh feeling every bump in the road, you could even have an issue of it bottoming out or tyres rubbing on the arches but wont know until you try it.

If you can find some else that is running the same suspension that is working for them then ask them for some setting and go from there. Dorris

Hi dorris, thanks again for the in depth description. I am still waiting for Jerrick to get in touch for advice. I appreciate what your saying reference the setup and while I am no way an expert I understand the basics ish...... :) my issue is I thought I could run these with zero preload with spacers but maybe not. I need to speak to Jerrick to find out the maximum height the rears and be run on for starters. Thanks against and will post the out come from meister themselves.

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Look forward to hearing your out come and experience, suspension settings is not something we here much about with in the club and now with more trick suspension becoming more affordable its becoming more popular. Maybe a Sticky on suspension set up would be a good idea? Dorris

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Jim

If it's any help, the BC Racing coilovers come with factory spring preload set at 5mm.

I suppose users can go by this for initial set-up, and go by feel and adjust if necessary.

But i understand what you say about the car ride height lowering when you soften off the coil pre-load, this is the same with BC, and i must admit my struts look at around their limit of raise with the springs pre-load set at softer, but the car handles so much better with the springs set softer, and the right amount of damping adjustment.

IME some bounce in the springs is essential to allow road bump absorption and for the suspension to do it's job with keeping tyre contact on the road surface for maximum grip and road handling control.

If the springs are too rigid the wheels will have a tendency to 'hop' over bumps and poor road surfaces which loses tyre grip and control, and not to mention tooth fillings.

Debs

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Hi all,

Firstly can I say thankyou for everybodies input on this.

To put it in a nut shell. I spoke to Edwin from meister and I found out the highest you can set the rear is until the threads from the strut are still visible in the spy hole. So I set both at the highest setting and added about 5mm of preload. It's surprising how much difference it makes to the height. I need to tweak the damper setting but at the moment I have it set to 14 and no rubbing as of yet.

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