DIY coil over conversion

[chris mc bride]

Wonderinf anyone here has done a coil over conversion and built all yourself. Looks pretty simple. Making roon thru spring mount with bracket on top bolted to mount and frame. mounting shock and then a bolt brakcket on lower a-arm. May need to strengthen a-arm some in that area.

If anyone has done would love input and if had pics that be great. If reason terrible idea feel free there too.

[theastronaut]

The two main benefits of coilovers are easily adjusted ride height and easily changed spring length/rate. Other than they work no different than using a separate spring/shock... at the end of the day it still just a spring and a shock. One huge drawback of sticking a coilover where a coilover was never meant to be is that you often become limited on coilover length very quickly, which means you sacrifice travel, and then you're forced to run really high spring rate and damping rates to keep it from bottoming out. If it's that stiff it won't be compliant enough to handle well, especially in the real world on roads with bumps.


You can get threaded spring cups made for circle track cars and weld them into your existing spring pocket to gain easy height adjustment and easy spring rate/length changes.


Then just relocate your shock mounts for better geometry/travel (if necessary) and use a high quality adjustable shock.


No Limit Engineering has relatively "long travel" coilover setups that work correctly; look at what they're doing and see if you're able to package that length of coilover via modifying the original front crossmember/control arms... you'll likely be better off to keep the spring and shock separate to keep enough shock travel to be comfortable and handle well.

[chris mc bride]

You sound lkie pretty fart smella on suspension. If knew me would know how rare this. So if you where building a truck adv, weight 4000 with a 235 wheek base and just wanted very good handling what would be your approach? Keeping in ind small budget,love the work if payoff when done. Above average fabricator. As I have said I am drag racer but also can be aggressive on back roads when need streets release.

Panel specs.
127" wheel base.
454 bbc hoping to endup around 600 ho
4L89e because putting my 6spd in it with very high top end speed be stupidmbut fun
going with 18x 10 rear performance tires
18 x 8 front
Already doing 3/4 movement of from a-arms. and figure to buy drop springs since seems they are better than cut factory or so told.

going 4 to 5 downm front and smae or little more in rear.
Have moved about 100 lbs to rear and will be rmoving most of another 100 off front.

Like myou have said not build race truck just damn good handling big as brick.
Thanks for previous info and covered most but like to hear ideas .No reason to repeat that part just extra or different thoughts

[theastronaut]

I've done the math using a spring rate calculator for wire diameter, number of coils... 1 coil cut off stock 63-70 springs end up at basically the same rate as after market drop 2-3" springs. That'll give you a good base rate to start with. Ultimately you primarily want shock damping to be what controls body roll/suspension movement, not spring rate.


A trick I learned from autocrossing is to use tall tapered bump stops, they'll act as progressive rate springs. The ones I use are soft enough to still compress and absorb bumps and allow for body roll/compliance but they work to stiffen the suspension as it starts to roll. You get very good ride quality and compliance then after the first inch of free travel they engage and start increasing the spring rate. I use rear bump stops from a '99 New Beetle on the shock shaft and trim them for 1" of clearance at ride height, but they'll be too soft for a heavier truck.

I'd run square tires and wheels all around for better balance and the ability to rotate them, especially with a big block up front.