So I was reading a post the other day and a guy ask if you install coil overs that you remove the longitudinal leaf spring! Is this true? I have a c5 that has just over 100k on the ticker and it was riding like a tank so I replaced the shocks with some KYB shocks and it still rides like a tank. If what I red was true can I replace my reg shocks with some good quality coil overs and then remove the longitudinal leaf and can expect a better ride? I do have run flats on the rear so I know that’s part of the problem but I am just real curious if what I red was true?

 

Yes if you kept the leaf springs and installed coilovers the car would be an uncomfortable disaster that wouldnt work at all lol. The ride will depend on what brand of coilovers you get, the springs on them and the damping settings or inherent characteristics and your individual preferences. If you think the stock setup is uncomfortable I doubt you'll find happiness with coilovers as they're pretty much universally geared toward performance applications and sacrifice comfort for handling.

 

Yes you remove the leafs when you install coilovers.

Are you lowered at all? What suspension/springs do you currently have?

I liked my firm Z51 suspension (which could be rough at times) until I lowered it past where stock bolts would take it. Finally decided to pull the trigger on coilovers simply to get some ride quality back since I want to lower it more.

In general, comfort is going to depend on which coilover you go with and your expectations. As pointed out above, this is a sports car... it's never going to ride like a Cadillac haha

 

Not physically possible to have the leafs and coils. Not enough room. I had coils and went back to conventional. Better is a relative term. If Better = more comfortable on the road, then stay with why you've got. The $$ would be better spent on performance mods or better lighting. If Better = tighter in corners and feels like you are on rails, then go with the coils.

 

I haven't done it and won't, but are you sure it's not physically possible to have both? Coilovers simply take the place of the existing shocks. I don't see why they wouldn't physically fit, there's just no reason for two different suspensions/springs on the car. I don't think it's fair to generally say coilovers are less comfortable as well. There are too many factors involved to just blindly say that. I fully intended to stay with stock leaf springs, but once I lowered it enough to go outside of the intended range of travel of the stock springs, switching to coilovers is a no brainier to bring back ride comfort.

 

End of the leaf springs hit the coil springs. There isn't a lot of room there and the springs are pretty big.

As to the comfort, your mileage may vary. I worked at it for a year with the manufacturer - piston settings, spring rates, etc. Even they said if comfort was what I was after, then probably should have stuck with stock. Geometry changes and ride changes. Just like lowering the car produces a rougher ride. You change the suspension geometry and potentially reduce shock travel.

Not here to try to convince you. I've been through it, you haven't. Give it a whirl. You will always be able to find a buyer for the coils if you don't like them.

 

What coilovers did you have that you didn't like? Again, they're not all built the same. I have a set of Silver's sitting in my garage waiting to go on as soon as the Quickjack gets here. One of the reasons I chose them is that adjusting the ride height does not alter the spring preload or shock travel like you mentioned yours did. Haven't seen one complaint about them yet and anyone that mentions ride quality specifically says it greatly improved with them. I opted for the stiffer rear springs, so obviously I'm not chasing ultimate ride comfort, but I'm still optimistic they'll ride better than a stock rear leaf with longer bolts installed.

 

Your car will ride ALOT better by ditching the run flat tires.

 

A stock rear leaf with longer bolts puts the car on the bump stops so anything that gets back some suspension travel would ride better.

You have to increase spring rate and shock damping when decreasing travel to keep from constantly bottoming out a lowered car. So, coilovers on a lowered car won't ride as well as stock at a reasonable ride height. They might be better than stock lowered to the point it's into the bump stops all the time, but won't be better than stock no lowered that far. The car will look cool lowered and that's all the counts for some people.

My car was fully lowered on stock bolts when I bought it. I raised it back up some of the way because it rode like crap. The extra height didn't make much difference in how it looks.

Ride is so subjective it's hard to know what's wrong or if anything is wrong. The first thing to do is checking the ride height of the car.

 

I wonder if a lot of guys never get their car realigned after lowering it, mine is fully lowered on stock bolts, drove like crap until I could get it aligned, and now it feels pretty much as it did before, not a horrible ride at all.

 

My stock Z51 suspension was never a great ride, it's known to be a little harsh. A lot of the guys complaining about ride quality getting worse going to coilovers have to be the ones that drive 45 mph on the highway with soft base suspension and are surprised/disappointed when they change to a more performance oriented suspension.

With longer bolts and Bilstein B8s, bottoming out/hitting bumpstops has never been an issue for me. The "compression" stage is totally fine and is still what I'd consider fairly soft. My problem with ride quality comes from lowering the rear with longer bolts, which basically removes all spring tension when the car "rebounds". The rear basically turned into a trampoline. I'm confident that swapping in coilovers with adjustable damping and ride height adjustment that doesn't alter spring preload or travel whatsoever will create a much better ride all around.

 

F1Fan - Alignment didn't matter because mine was certainly hitting the bump stops. Highways were good for the most part, but city driving sucked because the city roads tend to be worse than the highways around here.

heggsc5 - Bilsteins allow more travel than stock because they don't have the stock type big bump progressive bump stop in them. But, when they hit they will hit hard. Otherwise, your description of what happened on the rear makes little sense. The spring would only be fully unloaded if the car was on the bump stops. Otherwise, it's still holding up most of the weight of the car. Maybe you meant the shocks travelled to close to their end limit so they couldn't control rebound correctly? Saying you need to keep a certain spring preload with a coilover isn't really accurate either. In reality, you want to keep the coilover shock in the appropriate static spot even when adjusting ride height. The spring preload is just what it is to obtain not, not the actual thing you're trying to achieve when setting up the coilover. Those coilovers must allow you to move the mounting point on one end? The part to be careful of with that type of setup is that you don't travel bind any of the suspension components by adjusting it too low.

 

I've compressed the suspension pretty dang good on highway imperfections/dips and it hasn't hit the bumpstops once. I've been pretty impressed with them.

My description makes total sense if you actually look at the rear spring haha. With longer rear bolts, the rear spring is 100% decompressed while on jackstands (the bolts are totally loose aka zero weight on them). Now imagine that on the road after hitting a bump. Same thing. I was talking about spring preload, not shock. A lot of coilovers adjust the ride height by compressing the spring more. Some coilovers, including the Silvers I bought, adjust ride height by having an adjustable base. So I can adjust the ride height up and down without affecting shock travel, spring preload, or worry about the possibility of any binding. The entire assembly remains the same while you're able to spin it up or down in the bottom mount/cup.

 

So, your car bumps so hard the suspension goes to full droop and your car basically leaves the ground when you're driving on the highway. Ya, that's a serious rebound problem all right.

It appears you don't understand how vehicle springs work. There isn't one coilover made where you raise the ride height by compressing the spring or lower the car by decompressing the spring. The spring is always compressed the same amount with the same car weight on it regardless of ride height.

A spring has a spring rate in lbs/in, which says how much it compresses when weight is put on it. Say the spring is 400lbs/in. That means with 400lbs on the spring it compresses 1". With 800lbs on the spring it compresses 2". With 1200lbs on the spring it compresses 3". Easy, right. So, when the weight of the car remains the same and the springs are holding up the car then the springs are always compressed the same amount. It doesn't matter if you crank your spring bolts up or down, the spring is still compressed the same amount when the car is sitting on the springs. Lengthening the rear spring bolts certainly does not remove load from the spring or cause the spring to be compressed less.

Coilovers with adjustable spring perches don't change the coilover compression when the car is on the ground. All that does is lead to the possibility of reaching full extension or compression of the shock if you adjust the spring perch too much in either direction.

 

Ok