7" and 8" gc spring combo, yay or nay?

[wilddog]

I picked up a used koni/gc setup a while back with a 500/550 spring setup. I picked up 8" 350s for the rear and was going to leave the 500s in front. However, I just noticed that the fronts are 7"

The car is a street + track car, mostly track. I have a sneaking suspicion I'll be tire rubbing frequently with 7"s in front. Could I get away with this or would it be much better to replace the fronts?

 

[Dallas J]

It wont matter as long as you have enough travel on the coil perch. Some people use the 8" springs cause they will effectively have more travel before bind and others use 7" cause their lighter.

 

[Scott McIntyre]

I'm using 8" front and 7" rear, but I could see the opposite working as well. As Dallas said, it all depends on your chosen ride height and how much travel you have on the threaded collar.

 

[Dallas J]

I think my fronts are also 8" and with my home-made upper hats/standoffs I only have about 1/2 extra room at the bottom of my sleeve. It doesnt really matter cause Im at the height I want to be, but I dont have much room to go lower and Im running with a 2" fender gap. With the 7" springs up front and stock upper hats I can set the car on the wheels though.

Rear springs are 7" and with stock upper hats Im about 1" from the top of the sleeve. Thinking about my particular set up, if I got new springs I would actually switch it around and run the 8" in the rear and 7" in front.

 

[everbruin]

i've 7" front/rear on gc/koni no probs; plenty of threads for height change. rubbing or not is much more a factor of tire size and rim offset/backspace. For 2g, the best page i found is wheel_tire_fitment_FAQ

 

[wilddog]

Thanks alot for the input guys. I had read someone on this forum saying that the 7" springs were just marginally long enough and not really meant for street use on GCs, which is why I then assumed that the perches didn't have enough travel. I really need to take forum advice with a grain of salt.

 

[everbruin]

maybe it was an issue w/ other shocks. gc's koni kit has much more threading/adjustment than gc's tokiko kit for 2g.

 

[wilddog]

Really? I had always though the perches were for the most part the same. That's good to know.

Now I need to research the RRE camber plates...

 

[Dallas J]

2g's dont use camber plates. If you want more camber in the front youll either need to re-drill the stock upper arms, get the SPC control arm bushings, or find the now out of production Upper Control arms. I dont see how you would want less front camber though.

Rear camber is always too much and easily fixed by spacing out the upper arms with washers and longer grade 10.9 bolts (dont waste your money buying a kit when the info is out there and it costs <$10 at Ace Hardware)

If youre talking about just upper hats, then Id refer you to the upper hat thread on DSMLink forums if you have access.

 

[wilddog]

Whoops, I meant RRE bearing plates. I am no whizz at suspensions but from my understanding the front shocks tend to pivot at the mount. The spring hat just isolates the spring from the plate? I do have access to the dsmlink forums.

 

[Dallas J]

IIRC the RRE plates on fix one problem, the damper shaft bending. They still mount the spring directly to the car causing the spring to bend during turning.

The DG style plate use a springs offset plate to keep the spring face purpendicular to the shaft. The problem with this is now the bearing carries all the unsprung load of the car. If you lived in NY or something I wouldnt use these on the streets, but for my dedicated auto-x car it works great.

Here you can see how the upper hat can pivot while the spring stays true.

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