Lowered car and upgraded shocks uneven

I just purchased bilstein struts and tein s tech springs and installed them on my vehicle. Here are some things I noticed

 

Left rear, lowest out of the four. The tire tucks under the fender a little

Right rear, second lowest. Tire sits right below fender

Front left, really close to the same as the right rear

Front right, sitting at a little closer to stock front.

 

Is there any fix to this? Could I do anything to make them at least even from left to right side?

 

Will upload pics later.

It's front right is half an inch higher than front left.. Rear right is 1/4 inch higher than rear left

Are you sure the springs are seated all the way inside the perches and the top hats are on correctly?

 

Have you driven the car yet?

I bought them put together.. I believe they are seated I will raise car and check.. I've only driven it about 5 miles total. I don't have my license at the moment

The springs are seated correctly

Perform a shakedown. (Go out and drive the crap out of it. )

 

Aim for potholes, hit speedbumps. Drive like mad.

 

If problem still persists, take strut assemblies apart, and repeat springs on the rubber cushions. Sometimes the cushions get offset.

 

Sometimes just taking things apart and rebuilding renders different results even though you haven't changed anything!

 

Cars are a pain. Who knows why this happens......

....I don't have my license at the moment ��

 

Fixing this should probably be your first step. THEN go and drive around to see if things settle correctly.

i have had my girlfriend drive my car a couple times and it did settle. The rear is now sitting almost even but the front left is still lower than the front right.

 

The front left has a knock over bumps though the bilstiens have very low miles on them. Maybe its just the sound of bumps through the car because it is stiffer..? I am going to pull the front right and reseat the springs and see if it'll drop down to level.

 

Could the knocking sound be just the bumps?

Knocking sound is because you're on the S-Tech which are lower than the H-Techs. The sound you're hearing is probably the shocks bottoming out, do to it being so low. One option is to cut the bump stops in half, so you'll have an extra inch of travel for the shocks.

I'm hoping the bilsteins have the Spec-B tophats on them. The regular Legacy tophats are not compatible with bilsteins. If using USDM Spec-B take off Bilsteins the Tein Springs should be compatible I believe, however the teins are designed to work with a traditional non inverted strut design and hence the front will never sit even with the rear due to the added height of he Spec-B tophats. The left / right unevenness is more concerning. Either one spring has a different rate than the other, or has settled, or is defective, or is installed incorrectly. It's common for the upper spring perch to not fully seat on to the shaft not allowing the top hat to be fully tighten. Might be the source of the noise. Did you have the sway bars off?

It sounds like something was reassembled differently between the two sides. It's not too much of a hassle to break them down again and double-check your work, especially if you are hearing a noticeable clunk from one side.

 

Also, cutting the bump stop in half is not a good idea. The bump stops compress a LOT more than you would think when you hit them, and they are specifically designed to work with the OEM suspension geometry. Now that you have lowered the car to some degree I would say keeping the bump stop in tact is MORE important since you are more likely to make use of it. Cutting it in half means you now run a higher risk of compressing it fully and the strut will then become your new bump stop beyond that point, leading quickly to damaged suspension components.

Man, this kinda shit drives me crazy. I won't be buying Tien springs for my car if they aren't perfectly even. Color me OCD on this.

discojon: the front is bilstein HDs with spec b tophats. i will break down the assembly on the right (higher) side and see if i can rotate the spring to seat it a little lower. i did not take off my sway bar during installation or ever in the past to be honest.

 

Ras06LGT: thanks for explaining about the bump stops before i went and cut them.. i have seen it before and was thinking about it but i won't now. and i will try a breakdown over the weekend and see if it holds any success.

i have taken the struts off and took them apart and put them together... it now sits a quarter inch higher on the right than the left.. i can live with that.. and the knocking is gone now. the top bolt was really loose on the front left strut.

I didn't think the strut had any bearing on ride height.

i guess where the end of the spring sits makes a difference on the top because the top is angled

The front springs are only flat on one end, so the uneven end needs to seat correctly on the strut bottom.

 

The cushion also needs to seat properly on the tophat. If using dropped springs, sometimes they aren't under pressure when assembled because of the altered height. His means they can jiggle around when you're installing them and become unseated. (Or if you catch air while driving)

 

The top nut usually needs to be impacted tight until you can see the strut shaft spin. Any play will rattle like crazy and transmit thru the suspension.

 

The springs and cushions will settle as you drive. They do move around a bit.

 

Honestly, a quarter of an inch difference is pretty much not an issue.

 

Tire pressure, and passengers account for more travel than this.

 

If it doesn't settle, you can always cut a bit off the bottom of a coil of the front spring.

 

I cut an entire coil off my front springs to level the front with the back height on my Baja.

 

Hope this helps.

 

Sent from my SM-N900V using Tapatalk

s-techs are garbage. i would never expect the car to sit even with them.

 

at the cutting a coil comment. that is some bad advice.

I guess I get posts deleted now?

 

Wtf?

 

Like I said before, guys have been cutting coils, removing leafs, and altering ride height for 70 years.

 

Just because it doesn't bolt on, and come with a "hyper type R" packaging, doesn't mean you can't modify parts.

 

--

 

As I said before, up front, the coils end in a pocket, not a tapered flat end, so cutting a coil is pretty simple, just make sure the spring is seated correctly once under sprung weight.

 

However, in the rear the springs have a tapered flat design on both sides, so cutting isn't an option because they wouldn't seat properly.

 

I've cut about 1.5 coils from the front springs on my 03 baja, king springs.

 

No real noticeable difference in ride, only height and stance.

 

Most modern springs are progressive rate, with the stiffer portion toward the bottom. Any removed comes from the stiffer side, not the softer side.