G'Day guys,
Did a bit of a search and found plenty of people talking about shortened struts to go along with springs & shocks...but for those who are suspensionally-impaired (i.e., me) would anyone be kind enough to give a quick overview of such struts. Heard mention of adjustable struts as well.
....and if anyone is uber-keen, I wouldn't mind reading a bit of an explanation on the role etc. of all suspension components if anyone could be bothered?
Otherwise, suggestions of an article somewhere that I could have a read of?
Cheers guys,
Steve.
as I said, I'm slightly suspensionally-impaired.....so pretty much everything about struts - don't know much about them at all.
ie: what they are/do, what effect shortening has, neccessity of shortening etc.
Cheers, steve.
Ok hang on, I may have this figured - is the strut the water-catcher shaped thingy with the base on the axel, and the spring/shock attached to the top of it?
...and then shortening it would bring the springs/shocks down lower to the ground/closer to the wheel & axel.
Is this right? ...and what kind of handling pros/cons does something like this offer vs. standard length struts.
Steve.
Yeah u have it. The strut is the whole arm/bar/tower that keeps the wheel hub ( axle ) the correct distance from the body. The spring and shock absorber are the adjustable parts of the strut that allows the distance to change when going over bumps.
Shorter strut towers and short-throw shocks with a heavy duty lowered spring will improve the handeling of the car as the spring is stiffer, and the shorter strut towers and shocks have overall less travel.
Basically the car will be lower to the ground, handle better ( especailly if u use heavy duty springs and shocks ) but will need a wheel alignment after fitting it all.
Another thing u can do to make your car handle better is putting thoes poly-eurothane bushers in too ( the red harder ones ). They stop movement between all the joints eg) swaybar, ect...
Hope that helps. Maybe look under the Technical articals for a more detailed thread, maybe one is there, I don't know.
The reason to have have shorter front struts is to make less droop (max extention) so that short/heavy springs still capture (don't come loose) if you lower your car alot. Also allows for more bump (max compression) before the strut bottoms out. I've put short koni front struts and race springs in my vl. The springs are so heavy that they only compress ~50mm with the weight of my car and my car is lowered ~50mm from standard. If i was to raise my car to factory height the struts would be a max extention, not good...
But lowered is good!
yes, i have a question on struts as well. i have standard struts in my lowered vl, but have been told that i should have lowered struts to match the rest of the suspension. Also, what is the expected time that springs and suspension will last, just with normal driving ie. not hammering it.
