How to: Coil Overs for your 240z or 260z

[gav240z]

Hi everyone,

I found this article a while ago and thought it was worth sharing.

 

http://www.geocities.com/bry593/coilover/coilover.htm

 

Not sure how up to date it is, but he certainly makes it look easy.

[XRQTR]

It all looks easy when done by a competent person, I'm not saying you're not but the most important things here are the welds and if you're not a very competent welder then you could quite literally be playing with your life.

 

The easiest way would be to buy all the bits then take it to a suspension place preferably as they will understand more about the geometry and how it all works.

[C.A.R.]

The easiest way would be to buy all the bits then take it to a suspension place preferably as they will understand more about the geometry and how it all works.

 

Geometry has nothing to do with it Steff 

The only thing you'd have to make sure is that you get the threaded tube in the right position

so you can get a reasonable amount of height adjustment.

 

Also, TIG welding on the threaded collar would be the preferred method of attachment

[620Z]

I don't think welding is any kind of brain surgery. If you weren't competent of pressing a button on a welder you could always just get someone to weld the coil overs in the correct position. But doing this yourself would save you over a grand. But like Lurch says just make sure you weld them in the correct position to allow for ride height adjustment.

[XRQTR]

Sorry thats what I meant with regard to geometry, is that if you don't have them all at the correct and same positions then you will soon know about it when you try to re set your ride heights and take it for a spin around a corner.

 

Distribution of weight comes into it all when setting your strut heights, unless you have a set of race scales to evenly distribute the weight over each of the wheels during adjustment you will only be using a measure stick of some description. You will soon know that your right front or left front isn't quite where it should be with regard to footprint on the road, then you will notice more pitch or roll in one direction as opposed to the other as they are at different actual heights even though to the eye they will look the same.

 

All I'm saying is get it done by someone that knows what they're doing, if you're competent then that's fine but if you're not don't cross your fingers and hope for the best, safety is not one of the places you skimp on a build, any build.

[mayhem]

the problem with that is that if you lower the spring  from what would be the normal setting you still take away from the stroke length you might as well just put in lower springs  save your money and time the only thing that gains is stiffness  :-\

[620Z]

Ah most people put coil overs in for two main reasons. 1) is so that you can adjust ride height. Getting that setting right and even all around isn't a big issue and you don't have to worry about cutting springs. There is also a massive selection of different spring rates available. 2) Because the coil overs are a smaller diameter you can put wider wheels on your Zed. Probably at least an inch wider.

Simply cutting springs is not really the best solution.