b_ron

I did mine yesterday, the spring didn't turn with the rings but I spun the rings correctly to adjust my height without changing the preload.

edumak

So your spring didn't turn, but both of your top rings and the threaded sleeve did? You measured the spring length before and after you adjusted the height and it didn't change?

b_ron

Correct, the spring preload stayed the same (~7 3/4") before and after the adjustment. I got the thread length to what I needed for the height (~91mm).

P-Dub

So I've been following this thread and have a question. I got my preload adjusted and basically lowering the car by reducing the shock length, right? Is it common to have a difference in shock body length to have an equal gap on both sides? Right now there is about an 8mm difference...+8mm on the rear driver's side w/ full tank of gas.

SakeBomb Garage

By gap are you referring to the fender to wheel gap? Assuming preload and damper free length were set precisely before installing, and you are confident that nothing is bent, you shouldn't adjust the damper to try to make for even fender gap measurements. 8mm isn't really very much side to side. Fender gap is very inconsistent measurement method and you are more likely introducing a lot of cross weight into your corner weights which is very bad. Cross weight (jacking force for NASCAR people) is when more than 50% of the cars weight is supported by a diagonal pair of wheels. Ideally the front left & rear right wheels will support 50% and the front right and rear left should also have 50%. Even a few percent away from 50% will be noticeable by the car having oversteer going one direction and understeer in the other direction. This makes for a very difficult car to drive.

P-Dub

I made the mistake of lowering the car by changing the preload (not shock body). Then I set the peload back too the original specs by the spacing between the adjustable collars (w/out removing the coil overs). I then proceeded to lower the car by shortening the shock bodies. Maybe my measurements were wrong and I'll have to remove all the coil overs from the car and set everything back to original specs.

b_ron

I believe the short answer is yes. All cars wont be 100% perfect on all corners (which is why there is corner balancing?). How big the difference on each corner will be different for everybody.

B serious

Yes. As mentioned, bushing bind will cause the preload to "change".

Reset the preload with the shocks FULLY extended. The car's factory bushings and other suspension movement restrictions will prevent this from happening.

The best way to ensure that the shocks are fully extended is by removing them from the car.

Make sure the tophat nut has not come loose. Tighten it to spec. Then set the preload.

Then renstall and set the car's ride height via the shock body length.

While you are doing this, the bushing bind will cause the spring length (preload) to appear to change. As long as the perches and top nut remain locked down...it is only appearing to change. It is not actually changing.

Car Analogy

So the preload appears to change when you adjust shock length, and bushing bind prevents shock length from increasing. Its just that when you reclock the bushings as the very last step, the preload will return to normal.

So if you loosen the CA bolts first, so bushing bind no longer exists, then adjust shock length, then complete the reclock by tightening the CA bolts, this phantom 'change' in preload won't occur during ride height adjustment.