Building your own coilovers ?? Gaz and rally design
Moderator: martauto
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danthee30man
- E30 Zone Newbie
- Posts: 217
- Joined: Mon Apr 30, 2012 11:00 pm
I'm looking to make my own coilover conversion kit using Gaz shocks and rally design springs and coilover sleeves. They can sell any lbs spring and height, it works out to do a full kit £350 then rear springs. I'm doing more for the fact I want to try making them myself rather than ring Gaz and have them supply the full kit for £670. I am enquiring to find out what people think I will need in lbs and height for my v8 setup.. So is there any help on this side of things ?? Will be much appreciated. Thanks
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BATTS91
- E30 Zone Squatter
- Posts: 1764
- Joined: Sat May 01, 2010 11:00 pm
- Location: clacton on sea essex
Well you can get springs ect from gaz themselves , just need to go to them !
I dont know if you know but you wont get any lower than what cheap coils go if thats part of your aim too .
The lengh of the shocks wont do it ,gaz gha/gold operate a conple different shock ect
I dont know if you know but you wont get any lower than what cheap coils go if thats part of your aim too .
The lengh of the shocks wont do it ,gaz gha/gold operate a conple different shock ect
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maggspower
- Turbo Farmer Tractor Driver
- Posts: 2376
- Joined: Wed Oct 12, 2005 11:00 pm
- Location: Nowhere near South Wales, ok butt
You need to do some serious research on what you are doing. Here are some I built:
The problem that you have is the top mount. With OEM springs it sits down within the springs, but as you can see it sits on top of the coilover. This means before you start winding down the collar and lowering you have added to the ride hight. This means that by the time you have a meaningful drop you start running out of suspension travel.
Theres a few ways to combat this, shorter top mounts etc the way I did it was to shorten the strut and get shorter shocks to fit in them. Gaz will do this for you so best to order them the size you need in the first place, not what I did.
Your welding needs to be 101% No pigeon sh1t.
Additional to that you will probably need helper springs to keep the main spring under compression when there is no load on the suspension.
Are the £600+ ones starting to make more sense yet
It is a lot of hastle, but you can do it. You will need a friendly/short sighted MOT man too.
HTH
The problem that you have is the top mount. With OEM springs it sits down within the springs, but as you can see it sits on top of the coilover. This means before you start winding down the collar and lowering you have added to the ride hight. This means that by the time you have a meaningful drop you start running out of suspension travel.
Theres a few ways to combat this, shorter top mounts etc the way I did it was to shorten the strut and get shorter shocks to fit in them. Gaz will do this for you so best to order them the size you need in the first place, not what I did.
Your welding needs to be 101% No pigeon sh1t.
Additional to that you will probably need helper springs to keep the main spring under compression when there is no load on the suspension.
Are the £600+ ones starting to make more sense yet
It is a lot of hastle, but you can do it. You will need a friendly/short sighted MOT man too.HTH