Anyone ever seen this before? The car has coilovers from a reputable supplier. It appears that the bent tab had a questionable weld from the factory. Not a gripe, nor fault of the supplier. This is more of an FYI, check your welds thread. I have seen several posts about the welds/metal at the lower arms tearing, but I never saw anything about this.

(back story,..the left front corner took a VERY hard impact over an 7 inch chunk of concrete..It did lots of other damage too, but I just found this)

 

Tell me if I am wrong... When you convert to coilovers, don't you put the entire weight of the car on the old shock mounts? The original system has the springs holding the weight on the A arms, the shocks only used for dampening.

 

To my understanding, you are basically right. The original spring sits in a pocket between the lower control arm and the frame "pocket". An impact like this would not have resulted in the same damage with stock components. That's not to say it wouldn't have bent the lower arm or tweaked somewhere else. The instructions for the coil over kit included a plate and instructions on welding a reinforcing plate for the rear shock mount. This is for exactly the reason you and I are agreeing on. The manufacturer has never seen one do what mine did in the front though. I'd bet thousands of C2's and C3's are running the same or similar coilover kits from Van Steel, Ride-tech, and possible others that I don't know of. I'm sure this is an odd one...most C3 drivers don't have to deal with 6-7 inch chunks of concrete very often.

I'm pretty sure I can heat this and move it back in place. It'll get a much better weld than the factory before being reassembled. Preliminary inspection on the other side shows a much better weld, but I'll grind it down and check it to be safe....which is my point. If installing coilover in the front of a c2/C3, do yourself a favor and check the welds while it's apart.

 

I think it depends on the type. The "beehive" shaped coils would have the upper part of the coil still sitting in the frame pocket, with the lower part sitting on the shock collar. This would put the load on the lower arm shock mounting surface instead of the usual lower arm coil surface, but there would be no change to the upper frame pocket load and upper shock mount load.
My guess is that what you hit was such an abrupt upward motion that the shock valving couldn't react fast enough and partially hydro locked the shock, transferring all the force to the upper shock mount.

 

Correct. These are the true coil over style, not the beehive/semi coilover style. I initially thought that it completely compressed the shock or the compressed the spring to the point of going solid. The shock did not bend and appears to be fine. You may be right that the shock was valved/adjusted stiff which would put a lot of resistance to the rapid compression. I have ordered a replacement shock for piece of mind though.

Thanks!!