Shortening strut housings 2cm, Detrimental?

[lolcantturn]

I'm on GC coils, and camber plates, stock bilstein shocks. I've never once bottomed out, am I ok with shortening the housings 2cm? I have the adjusters all the way down and I want to go a bit lower.

[ak-]

What's the length and rate of your coils?
Is your spring perch chopped off?

Why would you go through the trouble of just going 2cm lower? There is no difference visually.

Another thing is, nobody ever really knows what bottoming out feels like till someone else gets in the car and tells them it's happening(from my experience).
I want to know the rate and length of your front spring before we move on though, to make sure you AREN'T already bottoming out.

[lolcantturn]

What's the length and rate of your coils?
Is your spring perch chopped off?

Why would you go through the trouble of just going 2cm lower? There is no difference visually.

Another thing is, nobody ever really knows what bottoming out feels like till someone else gets in the car and tells them it's happening(from my experience).
I want to know the rate and length of your front spring before we move on though, to make sure you AREN'T already bottoming out.

You're right, I may not even know I'm bottoming out, but I definitely feel decent travel when I go over bumps.

Length are regular GC Conversion Kit which I believe are 5"
500 front 600 rears
Spring perch is cut off.
And the reason is, I'm having the strut housings off this weekend anyway, 2cm is enough for me to get the (wait for it) look I want. (Thought I was going to say stance didn't you). But of course I will always side with function over form.

[ak-]

Sorry man, you're bottoming out no doubt about it if you're down all the way on #500 5" front coils.
The little travel you feel are the bump-stops in your Bilstein Sports compressing.

If you're a little skeptical on what I'm saying, raise your car all the way up(yes, it'll look stupid, but it's for experiment purposes) and go out for a ride. The difference is night and day. You will love the ride. And I'm talking from experience. I did the same long time ago and got over it and sectioned the housings properly with shorter shocks. Like I mentioned, the difference is night and day.

Now if you're really set on actually going lower and are accepting the ride to be worse, you can completely remove/grind off the little perch that is holding your coil sleeve and weld a ring around it 1" lower. Place the sleeve on it, spin coils a little higher, and you'll achieve the drop you want(but will have an even worse ride).

[LJ851]

How do you intend to capture the strut cartridge in the new, shortened strut housing? The gland nut that holds the strut cartridge tight would not be able to do so if you shorten the strut housing, you would need shorter cartridges to do that. Am i missing something in your question??

If you want to go lower with your current setup, cut the threaded sleeves off the strut housings, lower them, and weld them back on.

[ak-]

How do you intend to capture the strut cartridge in the new, shortened strut housing? The gland nut that holds the strut cartridge tight would not be able to do so if you shorten the strut housing, you would need shorter cartridges to do that. Am i missing something in your question??

If you want to go lower with your current setup, cut the threaded sleeves off the strut housings, lower them, and weld them back on.

Yes, your theory is right, but if it's literally going to be 2cm, shortening the housing won't effect the gland nut's thread in getting screwed on.

Think about a 2 liter bottle's cap.
It's just not going to be tightened down SUPER tight all the way. But, welding a sleeve/ring lower is the better suggestion as you and I mentioned.

[lolcantturn]

Hmmmmmm you might be onto something. I'll raise my car before tomorrow's commute and see how that goes. I do have a bit of excessive NVH from the front of my car. Good catch.

[ak-]

Yeah. Report back to the thread after your ride with the car higher.

[E30_fiend]

IDK Du, 2cm is over 3/4". The gland nut has MAYBE 1/4" left on the threads on a stock setup. I really dont think he will be able to cover the loss of housing simply with tightening the gland nut more.

OP, you just need to invest in some short body shocks. Koni's are the expensive route. IX Bilsteins are the cheaper route. Some people use Corrado shocks but I feel likethe iX is a better choice.


Taylor

[E30SPDFRK]

Not to mention shortening the strut housings will do nothing if you're already bottoming out the struts.

[ak-]

Yeah. I didn't realize how much 2cm was till I converted it to inches.
I think you should just raise the car until you have something proper to do.

[nrubenstein]

Uh, what you need to do is trim the internal bump stops. Shortening the housing will not change the length of your Bilstein insert. All that will happen is you won't be able to put the gland nut on afterwards, so you'll need to convert to short Konis or get new housings.

[lolcantturn]

well I raised the front of the car, and I'm not going to lie but I don't think it really changed much..I drove it around the block and took on the same bumps I always do and nothing has really changed. Maybe the shocks are frozen and need to adjust? Only drove it for about 2 minutes. Pretty crazy not scraping though lol