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And I do indeed recommend Sam for any UMI parts as well as any other supporting equipment you may need for your car. His 4th Gen is a missile so no one understands them better.
Sloppy is the shocks, not the springs. Even on stock springs a car with adequate damping does not feel sloppy. Bilstein are not the best shock for any lowering spring, and while "ok" to start as time goes on and the shocks soften up they become unable to control the energy they need to.
They are 285-525 front, 100-140 rear your Hotchkis springs. Note that they are NEVER 285 or 100 in actual function but one issue is that they are dynamically more variable than my springs are, or linears. More spring with those shocks would only make matters worse, which is why I tend to recommend more than Bilstein for my springs though it is hard to argue with the "internet".
Thanks for the reply Sam, that's why I asked about the bilsteins I'm fairly sure they are at six years old, I think the guy before me put the springs and shocks on to lower the car to get the look he was looking for without regard to ride quility, the car had about an inch of travel with that setup it sucked. I put spacers under the rear spring perch on the axle tube to raise the car up to help wiyh shock travel, it did let the shock travel more and helped out the ride some. Doesn't lowering the car limit shock travel?
i don't. I am redesigning the rear bar at some point to make it easier to deal with but also give more room to the coil-overs in general. But the adjustable bar might actually fit better a you can lengthen the links to get the bar lower, under the spring perch.
Ramey or Sam, do either of you have photos of these installed with the rear adjustable sway bar? Looks like they might interfere ?
I can't recall the clearance on the adjustable bar but we can work on figuring that out. Our newest option is another great option for clearance and that is the rear weight jack kit. This kit still allows spring rate options and height adjustment while not causing any sway bar clearance. The cost is a little more but overall it would be a great options for instances like this. It fits up to 2002, it is new and application needs fixed.
I have the UMI/Strano shock with the Strano adjustable shocks. I did a little bit of modification to make it all fit, but it did fit. Not sure if the stiffest setting would fit.
Hoosier rubbed a little at the last track day. They are .6" wider than R888s.
I flipped the mount upside down and used QA1 Endura 2000 rod ends and some new socket head cap head bolts.
They fit in all but the tightest position and in the middle the shock looked like it could turn and hit the shredder valve if the suspension also unloaded almost completely. So, I changed them out to make sure that low chance didn't happen and I could adjust to full stiff if I needed.
I can't recall the clearance on the adjustable bar but we can work on figuring that out. Our newest option is another great option for clearance and that is the rear weight jack kit. This kit still allows spring rate options and height adjustment while not causing any sway bar clearance. The cost is a little more but overall it would be a great options for instances like this. It fits up to 2002, it is new and application needs fixed.
With this weight jack kit it has a 200lb/in spring and so does the coil over option. Which one will "act" stiffer?
The 200lb weight jack spring will act stiffer. A 200lb weight jack spring location is close to equal to a 275lb spring in the coilover location. We have been increasing rates in our kits and found a 850 front and 275 rear on the coilovers to be our preferred set up. This kit is coming soon. 600/200 works excellent as well and will be marketed as street/handling.Wheel rates are:200# spring in weight jack location is 224 lbs/in275# spring in coilover location is 221 lbs/in
Anyone running the UMI adjustable upper control arm mounts for coil overs with this kit? Just wondering if tis worth using the front setup that came with the kit or spending the extra money for those.
Other than making installation a little easier you don't *need* to make that change, unless you want the geometry changes you can get from them by moving the arm location. Note that using that requires the rod-ended Adjustable upper arms too.
Said another way, if you are looking at new upper mounts to gain the geometry change option AND you are running the coilovers, then it makes sense to get the ones with the coil-over specific mount. If you get the "normal" type mounts you can still run the coilovers but if you wanted to ever go back to a normal shock mount setup, you can do that too.
My Hellwig rear endlinks (similar to the Strano mount/endlinks) didn't work with the UMI coil overs as shown above. My solution (after breaking a nut off inside the frame) was to switch to UMI's drag racing style rear endlink mount that welds to the frame.
You can make one out of a plate of steel and a Grade8 bolt welded to it acting as a stud. I also sources some threaded rod/nuts/rod-ends from McMaster Carr (under $15) and made MUCH smaller but still effective endlinks.
10-24-2018, 02:41 PM
