vettethret

I spent the day with wayne forum name- Mo_Bandy and took a look at his coilover set up he put together from summit racing. This is exactley what I've been looking for the last 2 months. He was even nice enough to give me a print out with the part numbers and everything I would need. Just to be safe I am going with a little shorter set up than he has. The adjustments on these shocks are outstanding. Its so easy to do. My application is extremley low and thanks to his research I wont have to deal with Rippie telling me it cant be done. I am going with 475lb springs up front and 425 rear. The tires will be pretty much tucked all around, and as wayne made different clicks it was amazing to see what the shock did. Best of all the complete set up is $1000, versus rippies $1400. I just want to say thank you very much to wayne, who is a class guy. He even broke out the lap top as my check engine light came on and gave me the codes. Thank god for the forum, wayne just saved me countless hours of aggrevation and money. I will post picks in a couple of weeks. Thanks again wayne for being such a great guy.

Mike
:cheers: :D :party: :party:

4DRSS

HAL coil overs is the setup to have IMO :thumbs: Good luck with the install :cheers:

bogus

:party:

how does it ride? or is this a track car?

BrianCunningham

:cool:
Did they make a retrofit kit for us with the non-coilover HALs?

RonRed89

Can you post the parts list and give us an update once yours are installed. I'm thinking of doing coil-overs next year and your experience with this setup will be nice to hear.

Good luck.

Ron

Mo_Bandy

Hi Folks,

Vettethret, my pleasure :) had a great time! I'm humbled by the wonderful kudos... BTW the 7 inch springs are 400 450 550 650 and 850...

Bogus, in my opinion you have the versitility to have it ride any way you would like it from cushy soft to track "lumberwagon stiff " :)

Brian, they have sleeve kits for the 50 and 60 series shocks, you would probably need to call QA1 to see if the Corvette shocks are included in that, I'm thinking probably not...


RonRed89 and others ...

If you are not planning on "slamming" the car the 4855 shock will meet your needs for about a 2 inch drop. Vettethret is going really low around 3 inchesso he is going with the 3855's a short shock body to keep the shock body from bottoming out with the lower ride height.

Below is a parts list from Summit who I ordered things from... the springs I'm actually using are 350's in the front and 300's in the rear... I have the car setting at about 26 1/4 inches to the fenderwell lip in the front and about 26 3/4 in the rear which varies about a half inch from a full to empty tank of gas the higher the spring rate the less obviously this is an issue. I seriously need to be about another 1/2 inch higher. I was able to go as low as about 25 1/4 in the front and 25 3/4 in the rear ( literally sitting on the bumpstop) I have speed bumps where I live and setting this low was not an option. Originally I had 200 pounders in the rear. I found them too soft and they required me to virtually compress the spring almost to 7 inches and could not get the car to set higher than 26 inches. With the 300's I'm up about 8 - 8 1/2 inches installed spring height and I have plenty of range of height adjustment. You could go to 450 fronts and 400 rears with no problem, and set the shocks to compensate for the ride without it being too harsh in my opinion. In retrospect my 350's in the front could be 450's, hey for 40 dollars a spring ... it is not really an issue, maybe i'll change them out next time around.

This setup I performed myself and took realistically about 10 hours getting the sway bar and the top rear mounts cut and welded and remounted and checking the shocks for rubbing and binding .. being slow and methodical. There is a bit of modifications to the chassis... i.e. the front sway bar needed moved forward about 7/8" the rear top shock mounts needed moved forward about 3/4 of an inch to clear the half shafts when the car rebounds. There is about 4 inches of suspension travel. in the rear I elected to keep the bump stop but I find I rarely hit it so I an actually limiting my self about an inch of rebound travel, but it you feel you are bottoming out too much you can try as I did and use a floor jack remove the wheel and see how much travel you have and check that you are not bottoming out the shock. There are pictures on my website http://www.ndneyes.com/mo/ of the install and how they look.

This car is a totally different handling car, as I mentioned in a few seconds can be set from a "cadillac" to a track car. I'm running my settings at 4 in the front and 5 in the rear of the 12 possible dampening settings.

I have driven the car cross country over 6000 miles round trip ( California to Ohio)and no issues whatsoever with mounting points. Some roads across the country had pot holes large enough to hide a "rice burner in them".

Here is the parts list

002 HAL-10-300 rear springs
004 HAL-SS110SDM upper shock mounts
004 HAL-DR4855P Shocks
002 HAL-UPR350 T-Bar lowers shock mounts for the front
002 HAL-10-350 front springs
001 HAL-T114W spanner wrench

Make sure when you assemble the shocks and springs that you are sure the jam nuts are loctited and that they are tightened as tight as possible, It is tough to get a wrench on the jam nut. Also use a trhead lubricant to the threads and the upper spring mount to allow you to adjust the springs with minimum binding...

Hopefully this helps :)

mo



[Modified by Mo_Bandy, 3:03 AM 9/21/2003]

Darkness

Mo......here's to you :cheers:

Jeff M

I'm curious as to how 350 and 300lbs springs compare to the stock springs. Does anyone know what the stock C4 rates were? FE1, ZR1, FX3, and Z07? Here is a link to a chart however it's all in Newton Meters. :banghead: I can't find the conversion factor, maybe a non-math challenged member can figure this out?
http://www.idavette.net/susp_chart.htm

Mo_Bandy

Jeff the conversion is...:

Newton X .2248089 = pounds per mm

then take Pounds per MM X 25.40 = pounds per inch

Mine was the standard FE1 which equated out too ~shuffles through notes~

About 343 pounds per inch in the front and 148 for the rear

So looking at the chart a Z51 front spring would be right at about 416 pounds per inch. The rear about 187, As above mentioned I'm running the 350's on front and 300's in the rear... the problem I ran into was that in "my opinion" I felt I had to run the spring virtually all th way up to get the ride height I was looking for. The 350 / 300 combo what is nice about is comapred to the shocks for street is that you can set the shock to 12 and that baby will be solid as a rock! As I also mentioned, I coule easily go to the 450 in the front and feel confident that the ride will not be too harsh. I'm running the shocks at 4/5 and as Vettethet can attest, the car is "comfortable".. and i'm less than half way through the range. I will also add that with a slight realignment on the rear shocks you will have to go up a slight amount in the spring rate as the shock will be angled slightly forward of the stock location as you go off axis there is a percentage that you would have to add to the spring rate ( I will have to dig into my notes on that... I might also add that some people also take the weight of the car subtract the unsprung weight and then divide by 2 . I personally just went with what stock was and figured at 40 dollars I could always up the spring rate.

Hope this helps :)

Mo

vettethret

Thanks wayne. I could of swore yesterday they went in increments of 25lb. I just double checked HALS site again and your right. I'll go 450lb fornt and 400 rear. Have a safe trip next week.

Mike :cheers: :chevy

Raysur

Wayne is a great guy, except for telling me to use duct tape on my car.:jester


I really need to get a ride in his car. It sounds like it is so much nicer than transverse springs. :cheers:

Jeff M

Thanks Moe that helps out quite a bit. Although I believe I'm going to go with the same spring you went with. I punched in the numbers for the FE1 in my 92 and I came up with about 418lbs/in for the front. I always thought even the base in mine was harsh. One last question looking at the springs do you think they will fit around the Bilstein FX3 shocks? Yes I know I said I have the FE1. I'm in the process of installing the FX3 option in my car. I know I know, lets not start another thread where we end up on Springer. :nopity: I have the coil overs already installed with the shocks set to their softest setting and the ride is way to harsh. The fronts are either 425 or 450 with the rear at 400. I just want to go with a softer spring. Looks like these may do the trick. thanks again for your help,

Mo_Bandy

Raysur,

Your such a great friend I couldn't miss the opportunity to tell you that duct tape with stiffen up your frame :D Cause I know you believe EVERY word I say :crazy: I've been trying to get out to the show but something always seems to come up...

Jeff M naaaah I'm too old to go on Springer LOL. The springs that I'm using are 2 1/2 inside diameter and 3 1/2 on the outside diameter and 10 inches tall. I'm not sure of the dimenesions of the Bilsteins but that the QA1 measirements

I would venture to say what ever springs you are using now the spring rates should be same if you know what i mean...

Remember that the shock also plays a large part in the severity that the spring is dampened or rebounds... so it could be more of a shock issue than a spring rate issue... as I mentioned I can make the car softer than stock with the 350 spring rate and the QA1 shocks or stiff as a board using the same spring rate... So if you are using coilovers in conjunction with the FX3's it maybe a matter of programming the control box...

hope this helps!

Mo

HWoods

would that same parts list apply to an 86? I know GM changed the suspension in 88, but just wondered if it would work? Did you remove the stock springs all together?

Mo_Bandy

HWoods,

To my knowledge yes this would apply to your 86 as well. You may need to check to see what the top rear shocks to see whether they are the threaded shaft or the eyebolt type. You would need to just be sure that your shocks are simular to what you would order. On the 96 the top mounts on both the front and rear shocks are the threaded shaft. The bottoms ate the t tpye mount on the front bottom and a bushing on the rear bottom. The QA1 shocks come with the bushing type ends on both ends.

I also imagine that the front tower may need some reworking, I have been told that the tower is narrow on some of the earlier C4's, the diameter of the springs are 3 1/2 inches even on my 96 I had to slightly open up the shock tower a little bit at the top.

i'm rediting this as I didnt answer one of your questions.. SORRY... Yes the stock front and rear springs are gone. so the complete weight of the car is spread across the 4 shocks.

I might add that the weight of the spring and two bilsteins were actually a little more than the two coilovers with springs combined.

Mo


[Modified by Mo_Bandy, 8:22 PM 9/22/2003]

IBEAM700

I thought I read somewhere on the forum that the upper shock towers weren’t designed to support the weight of the car? Is this correct?
How about adding coilovers without removing the mono-leaf spring.
:cheers:

BrianCunningham

I'd advise anyone doing this to install an RD camber brace

I saw those shocks in the SUMMIT catalog, and asked HAL if they would fit.
I wonder why they said NO :confused: :mad :rolleyes:

Mo_Bandy

IBeam,

I have heard both sides of your question as well, I can only speak for "me" based on my experience. I have run them cross country and have had no issues with over 6000 miles...

If you are considering racing and "hard" racing I would suggest perhaps beefing up the shock towers. I periodically check mine and have found no areas of stress.

In regards to running with the stock springs installed. I believe you would be defeating the purpose of the coilovers, and the ride would be pretty harsh I would think...

As Brian mentioned below I would support his suggestion for a camber brace to stiffen up the front end. I personally do not have one on my car, but agree that to stiffen the frame and get the greatest results in your setup that would be the way to go...

Brian,

I imagine the reason behind Summit's "no " answer is that the shocks come with the "wrong" ends off the shelf, in my list above it requires that you get the stud ends and the t adapters to "configure" the shocks to fit our Corvettes.

THe top ends require you remove them from the shaft easy to do wth a wrnch and a vise. Then "simply" screw on the threaded shaft tops and tighten the jam nuts. The T adapters for the bottom of the front shock are "easily" tapped into place with a plastic hammer and install the included cir-clips.

Some of the parts will show B/O when you order them that is because they are available through summit but they do "stock" them per se... the 4885's are about 2 inches shorter than the "stock shock" as well so it could be they are responding in the tone of a "direct replacement " shock... I'm sure they are concerned with the liablities of suggesting something that may come back on them.

Both Raysur and Vettethret have seen my setup. I might add this car is also my daily driver...

Best regards,

Mo


[Modified by Mo_Bandy, 8:28 PM 9/22/2003]