This is FYI if you are interested in Arospeed/similar coilovers, just a small write-up for information purposes:
I have the front coils installed now, the rears will be going on tomorrow. I'm using the stock struts (though they are pretty much shot after ~100K miles).
I cut the perches off as per what seems to be the perscribed method (three slices across the perch from the outter edge across the shortest path to each gap between the three weld points and then bend-fatigued the perch material to crack off at the welds - the first one was cut entirely with reinforced cut-off wheels on a dremel, but this took an excruciating amount of work and on the next round, hack sawing through to the last 1/4 inch and grinding the remainder cut the time & work down to about a third.)
The real pain on this install has been the funny round steel thingamabob (for lack of a technically accurate term) at the top of the pressurized cylinder.. whatever the hell it is, it's 2 shades too big to slide the coilover sleeves over, so has to be milled down by ~ 3/64" around its entire perimiter. Given that it's about 1/8th" thick, it takes a while with a steel cutting bit on the dremel. A word of advice - if you think you've shaved it close, but still can't quite easily slip the sleeve over it, don't try forcing it - you'll likely just end up causing it to bite into the aluminum half way up and bind itself into place - rather take the extra minute to shave a bit more until it slips on without any trouble.
With this done, the sleeve in place, a couple set screws installed on the sleeve (set screws on the UPPER edge, not the lower as the adjusting rings won't be able to drop down over the set screws), then, for the front, the adjusting rings set approximately centered on the sleeve and locked into place - this was sufficient to reduce my wheel gap to about 1".
The Arospeed kit came with about two dozen set screws and rubber O-rings of various thicknesses. The smaller set screws are useful for fixing the position of the adjuster sleeve to the strut cylinder (pretty much for assembly purposes only.. it's not structurally significant) - the other dozen, larger set screws appear to have no function, and neither do the 24 O-rings.. no idea what they're for and they're not mentioned in the directions My guess is that some extra bits & pieces made it into the kit that weren't intended to be in there.
I cut the bump stop.. about 1/2" off the top (thick) part and about 3/8" off the bottom. The dust boot that was installed over it from the factory will not fit within the coilover spring, so that goes away.. as does the OE upper spring mount.
The spring goes on, the bumpstop, then the top hat over the spring, and finally the strut mount assembly.
When lowering the car down onto the coilovers, just make certain that the spring seats into the upper spring 'top hat" or whatever as it will fall out each time the car is lifted. This might be somewhat self-guiding by nature, but I haven't done it enough times to know for sure.
So I'm down to a 1" wheel gap (not bad for a 97 that used to have a 4.5" wheel gap!) and have another 1.5" of adjuster sleeve to drop if I choose, but the lower it goes, the less my strut is going to do for me - a thought I am not fond of.
As for drivability, I've noted that the new springs (front only) are defintely "bouncier" and, though I'm not entirely certain yet, it seems to have improved the responsiveness of the steering, probably the result of the tighter, less forgiving, suspension - but I can no longer attack speed bumps like a madman - ah well: the price of beauty.
So far,
I have the front coils installed now, the rears will be going on tomorrow. I'm using the stock struts (though they are pretty much shot after ~100K miles).
I cut the perches off as per what seems to be the perscribed method (three slices across the perch from the outter edge across the shortest path to each gap between the three weld points and then bend-fatigued the perch material to crack off at the welds - the first one was cut entirely with reinforced cut-off wheels on a dremel, but this took an excruciating amount of work and on the next round, hack sawing through to the last 1/4 inch and grinding the remainder cut the time & work down to about a third.)
The real pain on this install has been the funny round steel thingamabob (for lack of a technically accurate term) at the top of the pressurized cylinder.. whatever the hell it is, it's 2 shades too big to slide the coilover sleeves over, so has to be milled down by ~ 3/64" around its entire perimiter. Given that it's about 1/8th" thick, it takes a while with a steel cutting bit on the dremel. A word of advice - if you think you've shaved it close, but still can't quite easily slip the sleeve over it, don't try forcing it - you'll likely just end up causing it to bite into the aluminum half way up and bind itself into place - rather take the extra minute to shave a bit more until it slips on without any trouble.
With this done, the sleeve in place, a couple set screws installed on the sleeve (set screws on the UPPER edge, not the lower as the adjusting rings won't be able to drop down over the set screws), then, for the front, the adjusting rings set approximately centered on the sleeve and locked into place - this was sufficient to reduce my wheel gap to about 1".
The Arospeed kit came with about two dozen set screws and rubber O-rings of various thicknesses. The smaller set screws are useful for fixing the position of the adjuster sleeve to the strut cylinder (pretty much for assembly purposes only.. it's not structurally significant) - the other dozen, larger set screws appear to have no function, and neither do the 24 O-rings.. no idea what they're for and they're not mentioned in the directions My guess is that some extra bits & pieces made it into the kit that weren't intended to be in there.
I cut the bump stop.. about 1/2" off the top (thick) part and about 3/8" off the bottom. The dust boot that was installed over it from the factory will not fit within the coilover spring, so that goes away.. as does the OE upper spring mount.
The spring goes on, the bumpstop, then the top hat over the spring, and finally the strut mount assembly.
When lowering the car down onto the coilovers, just make certain that the spring seats into the upper spring 'top hat" or whatever as it will fall out each time the car is lifted. This might be somewhat self-guiding by nature, but I haven't done it enough times to know for sure.
So I'm down to a 1" wheel gap (not bad for a 97 that used to have a 4.5" wheel gap!) and have another 1.5" of adjuster sleeve to drop if I choose, but the lower it goes, the less my strut is going to do for me - a thought I am not fond of.
As for drivability, I've noted that the new springs (front only) are defintely "bouncier" and, though I'm not entirely certain yet, it seems to have improved the responsiveness of the steering, probably the result of the tighter, less forgiving, suspension - but I can no longer attack speed bumps like a madman - ah well: the price of beauty.
So far,
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