the poi
Has been
- Joined
- Jan 5, 2003
- Location
- Pasadena, CA
Step one: Buy two QA1 Proma Stars. One DR5855B, and one DR5855BP. They're 5" stroke, single adjustable. It may be possible to fit a longer shock--I can't get a perfect measurement, but compressed height is somewhere around 12", so I went shorter to be on the safe side. Get some CO springs. The narrower the better, the only sketchy thing about all this is the spring clearance.
Step two: Buy 0.006 thick (or whatever) brass shim stock. Buy two 80mm M12x1.75 bolts (8.8 at least, obviously). Buy two nice thick fender washers that either come with a ~11.8mm hole in the middle, or one small enough you can drill out to that size. And that's it!
You're buying one poly version and one bearing version because you're gonna have to do some swapping. Swap around the bushings until you have bearings at the top, and bushings on the bottom. At this point, it should like kinda like this:
At this point, you may be wondering why the top looks so hot hot hot. Well I'll tell you.
Your poly-bushing shock came with some steel bushings. Cut the 1/2" hole ones in half. Sand/grind/use magic, to shorten them as needed.
Shim stock time. Cut a strip about 54.8mm wide, and "long enough". About 3" is what you need if you're using 0.006 shim stock. Roll it up around a 1/4" extension. Then, slide it into the upper bearing mount. If you haven't figured it out by now, we're killing two birds with one stone: bushing 1/2" hole out to the M12 mounting bolt, as well as making a continuous cylinder that we can fit our spacers on.
So now, slide your spacers onto the shim stock. Grind/sand/conjure demons until the total length of your fancy looking upper mount is "big enough". 54.8m worked for me pretty well. Now, it'll look like this:
Yay!
This is pretty much all you would have to do, if you had 2"OD springs. But since we're rolling on 3.5" springs, pull out some vice grips, and angle grinder, and The Convincer brand BFH.
Drop the subframe (it's 4 bolts, quit whining). Remove the front subframe perch things. They look like this, before going nuts with the angle grinder:
You want it to look like this:
And work on the inner lip of the spring perch to get more clearance. You could probably lop the entire spring perch off, but it makes it a little stronger connecting to those two rear bolts. And anyway, it's now completely out of the way. The other problem is the car.
Which I forgot to take pictures of. Oops! Anyway, flare the unibody pinch out a bit in the area of the shock well (this will make sense when looking at it). Then, hammer the living **** out of the "lip" in the shock well thats closest to the outside of the car. Again, this makes sense looking at it. We're making spring clearance on the outside side.
Now, go nuts. Oo, forgot a step. At some point, remove the swaybar. Impossible to load the shocks otherwise. So ya, shove em up there, bolt in the top. Put a jack under the control arm, and jack it up until you can slide the shock onto the lower mount. Slide in the 80mm bolt you got with the fender washer, and crank it down. The cranking makes the 3/4" hole a snug fit on the 18mm stub. I have no idea if this is either wise or safe. Looks like this though:
When you're done, it all looks like this:
Badical!
On 80lb 12in springs, "snugged" at free length (about an inch above the the end of the threads), ride height is:
Bout an inch and a half clearance from bump stops lol. So I'll crank it up an inch and let you guys know if any of this worked.
Step two: Buy 0.006 thick (or whatever) brass shim stock. Buy two 80mm M12x1.75 bolts (8.8 at least, obviously). Buy two nice thick fender washers that either come with a ~11.8mm hole in the middle, or one small enough you can drill out to that size. And that's it!
You're buying one poly version and one bearing version because you're gonna have to do some swapping. Swap around the bushings until you have bearings at the top, and bushings on the bottom. At this point, it should like kinda like this:
At this point, you may be wondering why the top looks so hot hot hot. Well I'll tell you.
Your poly-bushing shock came with some steel bushings. Cut the 1/2" hole ones in half. Sand/grind/use magic, to shorten them as needed.
Shim stock time. Cut a strip about 54.8mm wide, and "long enough". About 3" is what you need if you're using 0.006 shim stock. Roll it up around a 1/4" extension. Then, slide it into the upper bearing mount. If you haven't figured it out by now, we're killing two birds with one stone: bushing 1/2" hole out to the M12 mounting bolt, as well as making a continuous cylinder that we can fit our spacers on.
So now, slide your spacers onto the shim stock. Grind/sand/conjure demons until the total length of your fancy looking upper mount is "big enough". 54.8m worked for me pretty well. Now, it'll look like this:
Yay!
This is pretty much all you would have to do, if you had 2"OD springs. But since we're rolling on 3.5" springs, pull out some vice grips, and angle grinder, and The Convincer brand BFH.
Drop the subframe (it's 4 bolts, quit whining). Remove the front subframe perch things. They look like this, before going nuts with the angle grinder:
You want it to look like this:
And work on the inner lip of the spring perch to get more clearance. You could probably lop the entire spring perch off, but it makes it a little stronger connecting to those two rear bolts. And anyway, it's now completely out of the way. The other problem is the car.
Which I forgot to take pictures of. Oops! Anyway, flare the unibody pinch out a bit in the area of the shock well (this will make sense when looking at it). Then, hammer the living **** out of the "lip" in the shock well thats closest to the outside of the car. Again, this makes sense looking at it. We're making spring clearance on the outside side.
Now, go nuts. Oo, forgot a step. At some point, remove the swaybar. Impossible to load the shocks otherwise. So ya, shove em up there, bolt in the top. Put a jack under the control arm, and jack it up until you can slide the shock onto the lower mount. Slide in the 80mm bolt you got with the fender washer, and crank it down. The cranking makes the 3/4" hole a snug fit on the 18mm stub. I have no idea if this is either wise or safe. Looks like this though:
When you're done, it all looks like this:
Badical!
On 80lb 12in springs, "snugged" at free length (about an inch above the the end of the threads), ride height is:
Bout an inch and a half clearance from bump stops lol. So I'll crank it up an inch and let you guys know if any of this worked.
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