shocks and lowering

[whiteice2x]

Is it true if you lower your car more than 2 inchs than most likely your struts will blow. I have KYB struts, is it still possible.

 

[jtmcinder]

In short, yes, but it's rather complicated.

The front suspension on a 2G has twin lower ball-joints (instead of a true A-arm with one ball-joint, like up top), which are offset in all three dimensions. This causes the lower end of the vertical link to twist in all sorts of weird ways as the car bounces and as the wheels are steered. Many of these movements make it such that the shock - when thought of as having a lower mount that rotates in one dimension only - does not point up at the upper mount. So the upper mount must force the lower shock bushing to deflect. This is done using nasty side-forces on the upper end of the shock's shaft. These side-forces can contribute to early shock death.

These nasty side forces are increased by lowering the car, because as the car drops, the compression arm forces the lower end of the vertical link forward. This adds a pre-load to the shock shaft (such that there is a nasty force all the time) and makes the additional nasty side-forces much worse when you hit a bump or turn the steering wheel.

At a minimum, you must obey the advice that you not replace the lower shock bushing with anything stiffer than stock. You should also try to run soft upper bushings (possible trimmed to aim the shock shaft at the lower mount, which takes a lot of measuring, I must say) or - better yet - just switch to a pillow-ball upper shock mount.

- Jtoby

 

[silvereclipse]

Yes, he has good info on DSM suspension, ours is not the best. Too bad we don't have a simple A-arm set up. I have some KYB AGX shocks with pro kit springs, they do an awesome job. I believe KYB will not warranty the shocks with more than a 1.5 inch drop. Those shocks will work with a 2 inch drop for a while but wear out a lot faster. Plus that much of a drop puts a lot of extra stress on our suspension pieces and bushings. I wouldn't advise a 2 inch drop, and whether you want looks or handling also affects what kind of suspension you should get.