Ground Control setup help

[Quiksilver]

Anyone who has installed ground control setup, do you have any words of wisdom? Any special help with installation tips? How easy/hard to obtain your ride hieghts, and what heights did you end up with? How long to let them settle before getting an alignment, and did you end up with any special alignment settings based upon your expected use?

There are no instructions with these, and as stright forward as it is, I really like the Tein helper sticky posted earlier. Like to get one for GC setup. Planing on doing this between xmas and new years , so I have plenty of time to ask questions, and maybe get some help lined up.

P.S. (i'm going 440/6" front, 325/7" rear, koni yellows, set up for track use - currently i'm at 12" front 13" rear with lowering springs - 12" seems pretty low, tho....@ -1.8 front camber, -2.1 rear, 1/16 toe front, 0 toe rear).

[thebeerbaron]

TheBeerBaron's rules of suspension setup:

• Don't worry, have a homebrew (or other beer)
• If you come to a difficult question, see above
• If you're asking my advice, you're not likely to notice if things aren't exactly, 100% scientifically correct.

First off, unlike the Tein setup, there is no pre-load setting for Koni + coilover, given your spring length and likely desired ride height. Woohoo, that simplifies things!

I greased the shock body before sliding the coilover sleeve on, that's my only real assembly advice that isn't already covered in my general suspension-swap advice.

As far as setting up ride heights, etc. I assembled a corner, then placed the jack underneath the hub and lifted until the car just started to come off the jackstands. Then I measured my "ride height" as the distance between the center of the hub and the fender lip. Gently release jack, adjust perch, repeat. It didn't take more than 2-3 tries each corner to get it close. Once I had them close, I put the car on the ground, rolled it/shook it a bit and re-measured. For small changes (less than 1/4 inch), I adjusted the perches with the car on its wheels. For larger ones, I jacked it up, popped off the wheel, and adjusted. I was surprisingly close given the initial setup on the jack.

I think my intended ride height was in the 12.25" range. I'm pretty sure it's settled closer to 12". Doing it again, I'd start at 12.5". I had some rationale for this choice, I don't remember it now. All four corners were the same, based on a suggestion by Darrell that this gets you in the general ball-park of properly corner-weighted without much effort.

I chose some random numbers for alignment, basically zero toe front and rear, max caster up front, and 0.5 degree difference (IIRC) between the front and rear camber.

Ask more questions if you've got 'em!

[Quiksilver]

GC mentions something about not using the stock shock boots. Did you use boots?, somebody ele's, none, or does it matter?

[thebeerbaron]

No boots on mine, IIRC. The typical aftermarket vinyl ones are far too wide to fit inside the springs. The OE might, if they're not chewed up, but since they're part of the bump-stop, which you're replacing...

[bill_keksz]

NB OEM bumpstops are separate from the boots.

[mj71]

No boots = No worries.

[Quiksilver]

Anyone have an estimate of how many turns of the adjusting nut equals how many inches of drop?

[prostwest]

Do you have a thread pitch gauge?

[Quiksilver]

Do you have a thread pitch gauge?

?huh?

[prostwest]

Do you have a thread pitch gauge?

?huh?

They're usually cheaper than this.

In any case, you just need to count how many thread grooves per inch. That is the number of turns per inch of drop. Am I telling you something you already know? Or due to spring compression is there not a 1:1 correspondence between seat placement and ride height?

[Quiksilver]

Do you have a thread pitch gauge?

?huh?

They're usually cheaper than this.

In any case, you just need to count how many thread grooves per inch. That is the number of turns per inch of drop. Am I telling you something you already know? Or due to spring compression is there not a 1:1 correspondence between seat placement and ride height?

From FatCat:
One turn on the coil-over sleeve produces about 1/8” change in ride height.

[BadAl]

A ruler will show there are 8 threads per inch on most kits
But since the spring is not out at the wheel that will not mean you get a 1/8 inch ride height 1/8 inch spring height change.

[prostwest]

But since the spring is not out at the wheel that will not mean you get a 1/8 inch ride height 1/8 inch spring height change.

Ahhh, it's a geometry deal!

[phranquelynn]

the only advice i have is to not listen to gc. especially trevor. i called gc to make sure i understood their (barely existing) directions correctly. i was going over (what ended up was the correct) directions when trevor at gc said no, you leave the spring perches on your kyb's. as it turns out the spring perches have to come out to correctly install their coilover system. fyi i have now learned that there are some shocks that keep their perches. but not on the kyb's. good luck with the install. i did mine twice (see above) so if you need any specific advice, feel free to pm or call. 2nd time around was pretty quick (a few hours).