Ridiculously hard ride

[Golfather]

It depends on the coilover type.
On the 4B RS6, the front KW struts have helper springs which would be compressed when raising the car, leaving the preload on the main spring untouched.

[Shoppinit]

In which case it's no longer a linear spring.

Also, those helper springs are purely to stop the main spring from floating around when the car is raised off the ground. When a small amount of load is put on them (probably just a few 10's of kilos), they compress flat (hence the shape of the coils) and they effectively become a solid spacer (coil bound) transferring 100% of the force to the main spring which may or may not be linear. Non-linear judging by those photos.

[Nobby]

Have to be careful here. Preload only increases on the spring if the distance between the spring platform (the adjuster) and the top mount are less than the spring length (unloaded). Otherwise you just raise the car up and down and the preload doesn't increase atall.

[Nobby]

To put this easier to understand...

With the suspension removed off the car - Imagine if you wound the platforms all the way to the bottom of those coilovers in the photo and bolted the top mount on. The springs would be completely loose. No preload whatsoever.

You'd need to wind the adjuster platform atleast halfway up before it touches the spring at which point you might think your car is riding like an allroad. Only when you start winding it up to the top will it increase preload. The same goes for the ones with the helper springs. They would start compressing (without even being on the car) before the preload starts - and then there would be no point in having a helper spring. You'd be better off having a tender spring then.

Chris

[Shoppinit]

Not trying to be being funny, but I didn't understand any of that!

/this explains it quite well:

http://www.sonicsprings.com/catalog/pre ... rticle.php

[Nobby]

And another thing, this applies to 'cheaper' coilovers (ok they aren't that cheap) where height adjustment is via an adjuster platorm and lock ring.

On much more expensive kit (like Ohlins or Penske) they often have a seperate lower lock ring which changes the entire length of the coilover, and the preload can be adjusted seperately. Big money though.

[Nobby]

There's a simple test with preload.

With your car on the ground measure the length of the spring. Now wind the spring platform upwards. The spring length will stay the same, but your car will get higher and higher until it looks silly high like a 4x4 before the spring length starts to get smaller.

You cannot increase preload without topping out the extension on the dampers. Simple.

[Shoppinit]

^^That makes sense.

Anyhoo, the point I'm trying to get across is that on linear springs it doesn't matter what your ride height is set at, the springs will still compress a given amount for a given load. So no change to comfort. Unless you top or bottom out, of course.

[Shoppinit]

Which makes me think of my own ride... It bottoms out too easily. It must mean that I've got too much preload. Proper preload in the sense that my dampers are topped out.

[Golfather]

..too much preload.

Can never have too much

[Shoppinit]

Those disks look a bit like a prick in a bucket.

[Mr Footlong]

Wow, what a prize POS that thing looks like. Looks like an elephant sat on it, totally breaking the working suspension and the wheels look hilarious with the discs.

[mavada]

...thats S works...

[Nobby]

Which makes me think of my own ride... It bottoms out too easily. It must mean that I've got too much preload. Proper preload in the sense that my dampers are topped out.

Depends how they are bottoming out.

Could be
- Either too much preload (and very little compression left in the spring so coils hit each other)
- springs far too soft
- suspension is far too low and bottoming out on bumpstop i.e spring has lots of movement but top mounts is hitting top of damper/damper fully compressed

[Shoppinit]

Most likely the first one. Car is raised up as high as it'll go so maybe I went beyond the max extension of the shocks and have loaded the springs up too much.

Odd thing is, it's a lovely ride as long as you don't ask for too much travel. Feels like its getting coil bound. I keep meaning to drop it a bit, but I don't even have time to drive it, let alone work in it.