Right, whos fed up with "ebay coilover" threads ? - Everybody !
Are they any good ? - Yes !
Are they easy to fit ? - Yes !
My girlfriend wanted to lower her car, she was really worried about the ride quality being ruined but couldn't justify the money for expensive coilovers so she bought some Jamex coilovers from ebay (£225) they came the next day and Prawn and I banged them on today ! Its really awesome having a girlfriend who wants to do things to her car, she is such a winner !
Standard photos of the car -
Right, a rough fitment guide...
First things first we put it on a two post ramp, makes things SO much easier !
One of the first things to do is to use an air gun (or a 21MM drop spanner and a 7MM allen key) to loosen the top mounts on the shocks, it will be harder when the wheels aren't on the ground.
The rears - (should take an hour...)
Get the car in the air, and don't bother taking the wheels off. Undo the two 16MM bolts which hold the top of the shock absorber (located here, in the upper wheel arch)
Then the lower bolt, again two 16MM nut and bolt. We used a transmission jack under each wheel to take the pressure off the beam then slowly let them both down.
The springs will just pull out once the beam has been lowered, then take the rubber cups from the top and put them in the new springs. I popped them in and they seemed loose, I turned them until they reached the top of the spring and locked in place.
Then clean up the spring seat on the beam, the adjustable seats won't want to sit on there very well otherwise !
Then put the adjustable seats on and tighten down the seat with the nut and washer supplied. (19MM)
Swap the rubber cups from the top of the old shocks, and put them on the new ones. We used a set of vise grips on the shocks strut to stop it turning, good if you don't need to refit them but not good if you want to ! We cut an inch (the first notch) off the bump stops, but not too much otherwise there won't be enough surface area for the bump stop to push down on.
Pop the springs onto the new seats before you put the lower bolts for the shocks in, otherwise you won't be able to get them into the locator at the top.
Bolt the new shocks in at the top, then we pushed the beam up (one side at a time) and popped the lower bolts that hold the shocks in and tightened them up.
We set the rear coilovers at their lowest, then had to adjust it up so the spring seat was an inch and a half up from the bottom of the unit.
The rears were DONE ! Bar dropping it on the floor, going for a drive then leveling and rechecking tightness...
-
The fronts are not quite so easy but not hard at all ! (Should take 2 hours to remove and fit, then allow an hour for driving to settle them and leveling off)
Take all the wires/hoses off the sides of the struts. They will all just pull off, but you might have to unscrew the pad wear sensor on the near side.
The top mounts should be loose, so get it up in the air and both wheels off.
There is an 18MM pinch bolt that clams the hub to the suspension strut, undo that and tap it out, leave the nut screwed onto the bolt when you tap it first time becase you shouldn't damage the threads then. We had to use a hammer and a drift to push it right through and it took a fair bit of force !
We took the drop links off (realllly easy, nut and bolt on the top and a bolt which goes into a thead on the lower arm on the bottom) to gain access, then put a chisel/bolster into the bottom and hammered it up to seperate the hub from the strut.
With me holding the bolster into the bottom, and Prawn bashing the top of the hub down the hub will pull
down from the strut. It will end up like this...
Then undo the top mount fully and pull the strut out !
Then using some spring clamps close down the spring on the struts and take the top mount out, then be reallllly careful and unscrew the spring clamps and refit the top mounts to the new struts.
We used a vise grip to hold the damper still whilst we undid the top nut.
Refit is the complete reversal of removal, the only problems we ran into was getting the hubs onto the new shocks. There is a tab on the shocks with a hole for the hub bolt to go through, that was a right pain to line up ! Other than that it was all plain sailing.
Fitting the new drop links was easy, for setting them up we did them so there was about an inch of thread showing. The ARB rubbed on the drive shaft so we made them shorter, we had them at their shortest and found that to be perfect. Although we did note the standard plastic drop links were shorter than the adjustable ones supplied.
We set the coilovers to their lowest then raised them two inches, with the spring seats two inches from the first thread the car sat with the highest part of the front arches at 24.5". We found that to be perfect height, no rub scrub or hasrhness and perfect clearance for full lock and tires on standard 16" wheels.
The verdict ?
They are really good for the money, very smooth and quiet, ride much nicer than Prawns which is Weitec all round with Eibach ARB's. Which is why he's bought a set too ! Highly reccomended, and I very much doubt a set twice as expensive could be twice as good for road use ! So they haven't had the long life test, and they haven't been used on a track. But at that price who cares, if they last a couple of years then they will be a good buy. And the won't get used on a track either, so if you want to blast around town with a slammed car and don't want to spend a fortune look no further !
Yeah yeah yeah, who cares...What does it look like ?
Thanks Prawn, you are a true dude ! We couldn't have done it without you, and it almost makes up for all the times I've spent hours on your car just for a few mins driving it haha !
A chance for a sticky, to put an end to pointless topics?
Are they any good ? - Yes !
Are they easy to fit ? - Yes !
My girlfriend wanted to lower her car, she was really worried about the ride quality being ruined but couldn't justify the money for expensive coilovers so she bought some Jamex coilovers from ebay (£225) they came the next day and Prawn and I banged them on today ! Its really awesome having a girlfriend who wants to do things to her car, she is such a winner !
Standard photos of the car -
Right, a rough fitment guide...
First things first we put it on a two post ramp, makes things SO much easier !
One of the first things to do is to use an air gun (or a 21MM drop spanner and a 7MM allen key) to loosen the top mounts on the shocks, it will be harder when the wheels aren't on the ground.
The rears - (should take an hour...)
Get the car in the air, and don't bother taking the wheels off. Undo the two 16MM bolts which hold the top of the shock absorber (located here, in the upper wheel arch)
Then the lower bolt, again two 16MM nut and bolt. We used a transmission jack under each wheel to take the pressure off the beam then slowly let them both down.
The springs will just pull out once the beam has been lowered, then take the rubber cups from the top and put them in the new springs. I popped them in and they seemed loose, I turned them until they reached the top of the spring and locked in place.
Then clean up the spring seat on the beam, the adjustable seats won't want to sit on there very well otherwise !
Then put the adjustable seats on and tighten down the seat with the nut and washer supplied. (19MM)
Swap the rubber cups from the top of the old shocks, and put them on the new ones. We used a set of vise grips on the shocks strut to stop it turning, good if you don't need to refit them but not good if you want to ! We cut an inch (the first notch) off the bump stops, but not too much otherwise there won't be enough surface area for the bump stop to push down on.
Pop the springs onto the new seats before you put the lower bolts for the shocks in, otherwise you won't be able to get them into the locator at the top.
Bolt the new shocks in at the top, then we pushed the beam up (one side at a time) and popped the lower bolts that hold the shocks in and tightened them up.
We set the rear coilovers at their lowest, then had to adjust it up so the spring seat was an inch and a half up from the bottom of the unit.
The rears were DONE ! Bar dropping it on the floor, going for a drive then leveling and rechecking tightness...
-
The fronts are not quite so easy but not hard at all ! (Should take 2 hours to remove and fit, then allow an hour for driving to settle them and leveling off)
Take all the wires/hoses off the sides of the struts. They will all just pull off, but you might have to unscrew the pad wear sensor on the near side.
The top mounts should be loose, so get it up in the air and both wheels off.
There is an 18MM pinch bolt that clams the hub to the suspension strut, undo that and tap it out, leave the nut screwed onto the bolt when you tap it first time becase you shouldn't damage the threads then. We had to use a hammer and a drift to push it right through and it took a fair bit of force !
We took the drop links off (realllly easy, nut and bolt on the top and a bolt which goes into a thead on the lower arm on the bottom) to gain access, then put a chisel/bolster into the bottom and hammered it up to seperate the hub from the strut.
With me holding the bolster into the bottom, and Prawn bashing the top of the hub down the hub will pull
down from the strut. It will end up like this...
Then undo the top mount fully and pull the strut out !
Then using some spring clamps close down the spring on the struts and take the top mount out, then be reallllly careful and unscrew the spring clamps and refit the top mounts to the new struts.
We used a vise grip to hold the damper still whilst we undid the top nut.
Refit is the complete reversal of removal, the only problems we ran into was getting the hubs onto the new shocks. There is a tab on the shocks with a hole for the hub bolt to go through, that was a right pain to line up ! Other than that it was all plain sailing.
Fitting the new drop links was easy, for setting them up we did them so there was about an inch of thread showing. The ARB rubbed on the drive shaft so we made them shorter, we had them at their shortest and found that to be perfect. Although we did note the standard plastic drop links were shorter than the adjustable ones supplied.
We set the coilovers to their lowest then raised them two inches, with the spring seats two inches from the first thread the car sat with the highest part of the front arches at 24.5". We found that to be perfect height, no rub scrub or hasrhness and perfect clearance for full lock and tires on standard 16" wheels.
The verdict ?
They are really good for the money, very smooth and quiet, ride much nicer than Prawns which is Weitec all round with Eibach ARB's. Which is why he's bought a set too ! Highly reccomended, and I very much doubt a set twice as expensive could be twice as good for road use ! So they haven't had the long life test, and they haven't been used on a track. But at that price who cares, if they last a couple of years then they will be a good buy. And the won't get used on a track either, so if you want to blast around town with a slammed car and don't want to spend a fortune look no further !
Yeah yeah yeah, who cares...What does it look like ?
Thanks Prawn, you are a true dude ! We couldn't have done it without you, and it almost makes up for all the times I've spent hours on your car just for a few mins driving it haha !
A chance for a sticky, to put an end to pointless topics?
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I'll be looking to lower mine at some point this year and this will definitely come in handy!
