Front coil over conversion

[WisconsinHick1]

Negative. There still isn’t anything that will work reliably for a street vehicle and bolt in a stock truck. A drag truck, yes.

A 1100-1300 off the shelf coil spring will not work without coil bind. Coils are flat out too thick due to coil size constraints on a qa1/Viking shock to work correctly.

I’ve been down this road and back in design for coilover setups as a bolt in deal on stock trucks. The spring is my only hold up and I’ve gone round and round to get something for my needs with no help. Even willing to pay tooling and buy quite a few springs.

If you ditch the stock frame mount, you open up a whole new world for options. I have a thread that explains finding spring rate and many other pieces of the puzzle here. It’s not hard to search and find it.

The stock lca mount will hold the truck just fine. The stock frame mount will as well but if you bottom out a time or two, it will start to distort and need reinforcement

James is your man when it comes to coilovers. He helped me with figuring out what I needed. I may not have followed his suggestion fully but the man knows his shit! And yes my setup was in my drag truck but it was 2wd. I never messed with compression and rebound for the street as I had the strip setup pretty good and didn't want to mess with it.

 

[Chevy1925]

James is your man when it comes to coilovers. He helped me with figuring out what I needed. I may not have followed his suggestion fully but the man knows his shit! And yes my setup was in my drag truck but it was 2wd. I never messed with compression and rebound for the street as I had the strip setup pretty good and didn't want to mess with it.

many ways to skin a cat buddy :hug:. im just stoked to see your new project going like it is!

 

[TheBac]

Thanks for the ass-kicking, James. Eh, you're still alright even so. :rofl:

 

[Novak]

*flawless victory*
:hug


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[OregonDMAX]

So what's the most viable option for a new upper, I think that would solve many issues, the upper is weak, requires an adaptor to convert the stud hole to rod end which I don't like. Either cutting out the upper and bolting or welding in a new beefier unit would be ideal to fix multiple issues and if it were taller a larger coil spring and shock could fit in there.
I'm all for fabricating all my own parts but I don't even have time time to sleep anymore these days let alone fab something which is why I like the atomic fab piece, just needs to be beefier

 

[Chevy1925]

So what's the most viable option for a new upper, I think that would solve many issues, the upper is weak, requires an adaptor to convert the stud hole to rod end which I don't like. Either cutting out the upper and bolting or welding in a new beefier unit would be ideal to fix multiple issues and if it were taller a larger coil spring and shock could fit in there.
I'm all for fabricating all my own parts but I don't even have time time to sleep anymore these days let alone fab something which is why I like the atomic fab piece, just needs to be beefier

the upper isnt all that weak in stock form (no gussets). i and a couple other trucks i did testing up proved that without a doubt. if you really want to hammer on it without a bump stop in place, then its a problem but that goes for ANY vehicle without a bump stop. to cut it out and weld in a new one is alot more work than welding on two pre-cut tabs and bolting in an eye adapter.

that said, putting a new frame mount can solve alot of issues. ideally, we need a 2.5 shock min to run the spring rate we need without getting in retarded rates. bigger the shock/spring, easier it is to get a spring rate that will work. trying to shove a 3.0 ID spring in a stock truck wont happen though as the UCA is too small to clear the spring and basically all the bump stop bracketry has to go away including the UCA bump stop.

this is one of those things that "well if we are hacking the top shock mount off, lets build arms to go with.... well now the shock isnt at optimum angle so lets build lower arms... thats better but now we dont have bump stops in place, lets build something for those and add in location for limit straps.... hmmm well since thats there, might as well extend the arms and get more travel out of it.... damn now we need CV axles.... Shit, now the upper shock tower is flexing cause of the added leverage" and on and on we go. the coil over drag racing market is not large enough to make a weld in upper shock tower kit and sell to make any kind of money back on it. it would have to be something that could be brought over into the off road world as well and even then the market is small. everyone wants a simple bolt in setup, this is far from it....

 

[WisconsinHick1]

James could you potentially do a stud style coilover body? I know one hang up would be figuring out how to keep the coil in place and not moving around in the upper mount. You could get a slightly taller shock and coil in there.

 

[Chevy1925]

James could you potentially do a stud style coilover body? I know one hang up would be figuring out how to keep the coil in place and not moving around in the upper mount. You could get a slightly taller shock and coil in there.

it certainly can be done. shaft would be on top while body is on bottom though. doesnt really matter position on a gas charged shock though. BUT that wont solve our issue. the 1/2" id gain just isnt enough. we need something in the 2" realm to make the possibility feasible

 

[WisconsinHick1]

it certainly can be done. shaft would be on top while body is on bottom though. doesnt really matter position on a gas charged shock though. BUT that wont solve our issue. the 1/2" id gain just isnt enough. we need something in the 2" realm to make the possibility feasible

Not being a smart ass but wouldn't you gain more? So if I measured correctly from the top of the coil to the bottom of the stock shock mount was around 3" I want to say.

 

[Chevy1925]

Oh you are assuming no coil plate retainer is used on the shock so the spring is flush to the bottom of the frame mount. That would definitely net you a longer spring. Might get some spring creak in there as it moves under compression but a rubber isolator would take most of that.

 

[WisconsinHick1]

Oh you are assuming no coil plate retainer is used on the shock so the spring is flush to the bottom of the frame mount. That would definitely net you a longer spring. Might get some spring creak in there as it moves under compression but a rubber isolator would take most of that.

Yes sir that's that I was thinking. I didn't explain fully the first time. :thumb: