B serious

So....I got my ~1" of free travel.

I preloaded them by 13mm to get an preloaded length of 187mm.

I did this BEFORE installing the suspension. I used my very handy device pictured above. It worked like a charm.

I originally said I'd need 12mm total. I rounded up. 13mm.

Anyway, figuring this out was pretty easy after I already knew that with 2mm of preload, the spring compressed to a final length of 159mm (with the car on the ground). Remember?

So with 2mm of preload, the spring went from 198 to 159mm. A loss of 39mm.

Total available travel was 54mm.

I only wanted to lose 28.6mm. Because 54-28.6 = 25.4.

So...39 - 28 = 10.4mm.

Add that 11 to the 2 I already had, and you get 12.4mm. I rounded up to 13mm

Obviously, even now, with 13mm of preload, the car will still only compress the same spring to 159mm. Because its the same spring and the same car.

Lets do the math backward.

187mm - 159mm = 28mm.

54mm - 28mm = 26mm of free travel.

eyy. eh? Fuggedaboudit.

Mike RT4

And how does it drive / ride - are you pleased ?

B serious

The ride quality is improved quite a bit from what I remember. The car doesn't "buck" over bumps as often as it used to...and it stays more planted.

I drove the car over quite a few different types of roads to test it...and I'm pretty pleased at this point.

I am surprised that adding like 0.4" of shock travel could have this result.

The front and rear shocks now have more travel than stock. So at this point...I do think that the comfort and driving dynamic improved from stock quite a bit.

And I will also fully disclose that I changed to an AP2 subframe while I had the car apart. I doubt this changed much in terms of ride quality...but who knows. I also have not yet aligned the car.

I also used 5mm of preload for the front instead of 2mm.

I haven't track tested it yet...but hopefully will, once this "beautiful" midwest weather eases up.

I am hoping that my added preload doesn't cause wheel lift at the track.

B serious

Almost forgot. I remembered whilst doing this that, at least in the past, a lot of people have had trouble removing the left rear tophat nuts.

I always wondered why. The first time I removed them, back in 2006 or 2007, I remember having absolutely no issue.

I read about people REMOVING THE FUEL FILLER BOOT?!?!?!? And thought, "surely, they jest?"

Helpful hints:

Instead of removing the filler boot...why not remove the strut bar?


I've never needed to remove either. But the strut bar seems easier....and there's no fuel smell involved....

Plenty of room to work with the strut bar removed:


Then put a medium sized extension and a deep socket onto the nut.

Viewed from the trunk side:


Viewed from the seat side (stuck my hand/phone under the plastic tray)


THEN put the ratchet onto the extension. I used a flex head. But a normal ratchet works fine too.


To re-install the tophat nuts...I can pretty easily get my hand back there. But if you're a tyrannosaurus....just tape the nut to the socket using masking tape. Its a flange nut. This is excessively easy.

hope that helps someone!

Or maybe this isn't an issue anymore in the year of our lord, 2017?

DefSport

I also had no problem with the left top hat. Just remove the strut bar, and it's all accessible. Based on how much people complain about it, I thought I might be missing something.

Interesting that the Tein Flex Zs have about the same travel as the Ohlins after some work for them. But I agree that more shock travel would be a welcome addition on most the S2000 applications. But then they can't advertise you can drop it 2" from the already fairly low stock height and not run the tire up into the body with minimal bumpstop help.

Also, in regards to preload. Some preload doesn't take away any useable droop with the stuff sway bars even a stock S2000 has. With no preload, the spring is going to reach an equilibrium with the sway bar well off its zero spring seat load configuration. So using 10-12 mm of preload isn't as bad as it might sound at first on "losing droop travel." You might not be losing ANY practical droop travel at that much preload setting, and gaining it all under compression.

With soft sway bars or no sway bars, a tender spring and little to no preload can utilize a ton of droop which does have benefits by making sure you'll always get the inside rear on the ground.

B serious

^good point about the sway bars.

I re-measured my ride height also. Lol...I was probably closer to 13", centre to fender lip in my prior photos.

That type of measurement is extremely inaccurate. I believe I'm at between 12.75 to 13" now.