People with Coilovers - 14" Coil Upgrade?

[JWaldz]

I'm bout to rebuild my coilovers and was thinking of making the jump to 14" coils to reduce the preload. I'll likely stick with 650# ones as well. Has anyone upgraded to 14". I know at least a couple of you guys have. Any before and after pictures of preload?

I guess the only thing that sucks is the coils are silver. I liked my red ones :mmph: lol

 

[GSPRunner]

I don't think I have pics, but im running 14" 650lbs and I like them.

 

[TCMach]

14x700s. Probably sitting at Just over 3" of lift<a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/102663750@N03/16175812513" title="IMG_6270 by Tyler Carvell, on Flickr"><img src="https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7623/16175812513_7c0ae47c71_z.jpg" width="640" height="640" alt="IMG_6270"></a>

 

[A.Wilson013]

14x700s. Probably sitting at Just over 3" of lift

Here's is mine with 13" 650lb. Just UNDER 3" of lift.

 

[A.Wilson013]

I'm bout to rebuild my coilovers and was thinking of making the jump to 14" coils to reduce the preload. I'll likely stick with 650# ones as well. Has anyone upgraded to 14". I know at least a couple of you guys have. Any before and after pictures of preload?

I guess the only thing that sucks is the coils are silver. I liked my red ones :mmph: lol

https://f-o-a.com/shop/viper-3-0-inch-id-spring-14-inch-length/

Red springs

 

[snivilous]

I guess the only thing that sucks is the coils are silver. I liked my red ones :mmph: lol

Where are you looking for springs? I think ALL of Eibachs springs have a red or silver option, and FOA has a red and black option. I know some people powdercoat their coils, I don't know how well that actually holds up though.

 

[TCMach]

Here's is mine with 13" 650lb. Just UNDER 3" of lift.

How much thread is showing inch wise? looks pretty damn similar.

 

[A.Wilson013]

How much thread is showing inch wise? looks pretty damn similar.

Mine is at about 2.25" I believe.

When I ran 700lb 14" coils I was at about 1.25" at 3" of lift. [MENTION=44220]BigFishAllDay[/MENTION] runs 14" 700lb with what looks like 1" of preload. I'm jealous of that.

 

[TCMach]

Mine is at about 2.25" I believe.

When I ran 700lb 14" coils I was at about 1.25" at 3" of lift.

that makes more sense now. mine is at like 1.5 on the drivers side and 1.25 on the passenger

 

[JWaldz]

Where are you looking for springs? I think ALL of Eibachs springs have a red or silver option, and FOA has a red and black option. I know some people powdercoat their coils, I don't know how well that actually holds up though.

I was looking at Eibach springs from Poly Performance. It doesn't appear they have an option for the red springs. Never heard of FOA springs. Wonder how they compare to Eibach as far performance, sagging, rusting, etc..

Mine is at about 2.25" I believe.

When I ran 700lb 14" coils I was at about 1.25" at 3" of lift. [MENTION=44220]BigFishAllDay[/MENTION] runs 14" 700lb with what looks like 1" of preload. I'm jealous of that.

I dunno if I want to jump up to 700# springs. I mean, I do have the front plate bumper, skids, and will eventually have a winch. Still don't know if that warrants going for 700# rate.


I'm liking the preload length though with the 14's. My current setup is around 3" of lift, maybe a little more, and they easily have 2" of preload.

 

[TCMach]

700s are pretty nice on my truck. Considering we're pretty similarly built weight wise. Your welcome to drive it around when we have that meetup, you'll have to ignore the fact that my 9 wraps are sagging real hard and the rear end bottoms out over the smallest bump though haha

 

[MandAtaco]

This is a good thread.... I've went back and forth about adding 700# springs. I have an ARB bumper and adding a winch this weekend and I feel like I have a ton of preload on my shocks all ready.

Never even considered getting longer springs of the 650# rating. I like the ride now with the 650's and hate to change that nice ride. I'll be following this to see where it goes.

I have a friend with some 700's, [MENTION=73515]ajonesnv[/MENTION], maybe I'll borrow those and throw them in just to see how they feel.

 

[snivilous]

I was looking at Eibach springs from Poly Performance. It doesn't appear they have an option for the red springs. Never heard of FOA springs. Wonder how they compare to Eibach as far performance, sagging, rusting, etc..

Yea I see what you mean... I'm sure if you called Eibach they could get you red powdercoated springs. I've run a few sets of FOA springs and they seem decent, the one product FOA sells that's decent... I'm not sure how they compare in terms of spring rate accuracy or fatigue after a long time but I've never had any issues with them rusting and holding up to abuse.

 

[D Farms]

im not sure what the point of having a longer spring is, are you having spring binding? you will have to compress the spring by the same ammount anyways regardless of free length. i guess it will look cooler with a longer spring going all the way up the shock.

 

[ajonesnv]

700s are pretty nice on my truck. Considering we're pretty similarly built weight wise. Your welcome to drive it around when we have that meetup, you'll have to ignore the fact that my 9 wraps are sagging real hard and the rear end bottoms out over the smallest bump though haha

Do you have a winch on your 700#'s?

Ive got a similar front end setup, minus the bud built skids, and when I bought my CO's used I took the 700's off to run 13" 650's...I can't say i don't like them, but I always fell like they don't ride as well as they should.

Maybe Ill give the 700's a go. Of course if [MENTION=96608]MandAtaco[/MENTION] doesn't take them from me sooner, lol!

 

[A.Wilson013]

im not sure what the point of having a longer spring is, are you having spring binding? you will have to compress the spring by the same ammount anyways regardless of free length. i guess it will look cooler with a longer spring going all the way up the shock.

As you compress the spring in order to achieve lift aren't you doing it at the cost of down travel? So by running a 1" longer spring, compressing it 1" less, wouldn't you gain a bit of the lost down travel?

I really don't know. I've never seen someone question running a longer spring...

 

[snivilous]

As you compress the spring in order to achieve lift aren't you doing it at the cost of down travel? So by running a 1" longer spring, compressing it 1" less, wouldn't you gain a bit of the lost down travel?

I really don't know. I've never seen someone question running a longer spring...

Think about what you're saying... Why would your down travel change at all if your lift and geometry isn't changing? All you're adjusting is the point you have to preload down to, that doesn't actually change how much of the shock is compressed. D Farms is correct.

 

[A.Wilson013]

Think about what you're saying... Why would your down travel change at all if your lift and geometry isn't changing? All you're adjusting is the point you have to preload down to, that doesn't actually change how much of the shock is compressed. D Farms is correct.

Which is why I was asking (note those question marks and inquisitive terms)- I wasn't sure at all.

So I guess the real question here is... Why do people run the longer springs? All for looks? That seems rather dumb considering that they're quite expensive...

In my head I was thinking that perhaps as you compressed the spring, it would also extend the shock. Guess not.

 

[D Farms]

so if you compress your spring say 1" before you assemble your coilover, at full droop with a 650lb spring you will have 650lb of force that needs to be overcome before the suspension will move. imagine you are driving at high speed going over bumps and dips. you go over a dip, the suspension droops all the way, then is compressed when you come out of the dip. because there is a lot of preload at full droop on our rigs the preload must be overcome before the suspension will start moving again. if you wanted to have less preload on the springs at full droop, running a higher spring rate would solve this issue. this is probably one of the reasons a higher rate spring will feel better. im no expert but I would think that having as close to zero preload at full droop would be ideal because the suspension would smoothly start compressing from full droop. the other way to solve this problem is by simply preloading the spring less, in turn running less lift. Or by increasing the shock length and down travel length, aka long travel. one problem with increasing the spring rate though is that your suspension will not articulate and compress well during low speed manuevering. This is why I went back to running a lower lift with the stock springs on my tundra 5100s, Id rather not get stuck on obstacles and have more flex.

 

[TCMach]

Do you have a winch on your 700#'s?

Ive got a similar front end setup, minus the bud built skids, and when I bought my CO's used I took the 700's off to run 13" 650's...I can't say i don't like them, but I always fell like they don't ride as well as they should.

Maybe Ill give the 700's a go. Of course if [MENTION=96608]MandAtaco[/MENTION] doesn't take them from me sooner, lol!

Not yet, I cant imagine how nice they will be with a winch on. The one thing I really like about the 700s is that I dont run a sway bar and they keep the body roll down on the streets but still articulate like hell offroad