How to Install Coilovers in Your Car

Hey guys Chris, get this fixed and today I'm going to show you how to

install

coilovers

in

your

car or truck. In this case, we will

install

front threaded shock absorbers, which are these here, and rear threaded shock absorbers, which are these here, as well as ours. wheel camber plates so we can adjust our camber and wheel alignment on our car and I'll show you everything you need to know so that after watching this video you can install threaded shock absorbers on

your

own vehicle using hand tools but first What are coil shock absorbers and what is the benefit of installing them?

A coilover shock absorber is exactly what it sounds like. It is a coil spring that sits on a shock absorber. The coil spring is what supports the weight of the vehicle and the shock absorber controls the movement of the spring. and the weight transfer of the car on my car, we're going to remove the spring that's right here and the strut shock that's right here and we're going to replace them both with our coilover shock, now the main benefit. of coil-over shocks in operation is all the adjustability they provide, for example ride height adjustability. Turn these nuts right here and we could change the ride height of our car so we can go from this Monster Truck Mustang to this stylish lowered sports car and not only.

Lowering the car a couple of inches will make it look much better, but lowering the car will also lower the center of gravity so the car will be more stable when cornering. Another benefit of coil-over shocks is that you can customize the spring rate for your application, whether you're drifting in a drag race, doing autocross, or driving down the street and just want something a little sportier and the spring rate spring is the amount of weight or force it takes to compress the spring a certain distance, so If you are using 250 lb springs, that means it takes 250 lb to compress that spring 1 inch and if you want to compress the spring another inch, it takes another 250 lbs and the nice thing about these springs is that they are really easy to change all you have to do is change the springs on your

coilovers

and the final benefit can be found in the higher end coilovers and that It is the ability to adjust the damping, so for our front coilovers we have double adjustable damping and for our rear coilovers we have single adjustable damping, so on the front we will be able to adjust the compression and rebound of our shock.

All we have to do to adjust the compression, if we want to make it stiffer, we just turn the knob to the positive direction and then now. the shock is harder to compress and the rebound is exactly the opposite so we could turn this to make the rebound stiffer so it's harder to recoil so all these adjustments to the threaded shocks are really what which will allow us to do D on this car and get it. the way we want it, we can lower the car, lower the center of gravity, we can use stiffer springs to reduce body roll and we can adjust the suspension damping, so that all sounds amazing, now let me show you how to install coil-over shocks and Before you lift the car and remove the wheels, you should try to find a place in the driveway that is relatively flat and what are we going to do.

We're going to take a ride height measurement at all four corners and you want to measure each corner of the car the same way, so I'm measuring it from the center of the wheel to the bottom of the fender and this is 28. So I went and measured all four corners of the car and we will reference these numbers later when we lower the car. Now let's get the car up in the air, so we're going to lift the front end and place our jack. It goes under the car and supports the frame of the car on the jack stands, as always, whenever you lift the vehicle, it's a good idea to give it a nice, hard shake to make sure it feels solid and doesn't move, and it's always Well.

It's an idea to mark the rear wheels and for added safety I like to put the wheel under the frame of the car and now we have access to our suspension so what we're going to do is remove the brakes and then we're going to loosen the link of the end of the sway bar so we can lower the suspension, which will allow us to remove this coil spring and strut so we can replace it with our coil that we're also going to install. the camber plate which can be found in the engine compartment right at the top of the strut tower but first let's focus on lowering the suspension so we'll start by removing the brakes and to do that we need to get to the caliper. bolt behind the caliper so let's work with the car and turn the steering wheel to get to the two caliper bolts back here so let's remove those bolts they're 15mm yeah right that's not going to happen , we are going to have to use a breaker bar, but that's okay because our breaker bar makes the job easier by releasing the top bolt and the bottom bolt.

Now we can take our ratchet and loosen these bolts, that's the top bolt and the bottom bolt, then grab a bucket or something. you could use it to hold the caliper just like that and then remove the brake rotor and the goal of removing the caliper from the suspension is so that when we lower the suspension we are not pulling on the brake line which will damage it. I want to make sure we remove the top bolt here on the sway bar end link, which also keeps our suspension from dropping. This is a 15mm nut so loosen it up good and remove the bushing as well and with that stabilizer bar in.

Remove the nut, the only thing holding our suspension is this strut here and you have to be very careful because this spring is under a tremendous force that is forcing the control arm down and this strut here is holding it up so if you just We remove these two bolts. from the strut, this control arm could fly down and the spring could fly off and that's a dangerous situation, so what we're going to do is grab our jack, slide it under the control arm and lift the jack up. control arm just a little to support the suspension, so with our jack holding the control arm up putting pressure against the coil spring, we could safely remove the two bolts holding the strut in place, so grab a wrench and a 24mm socket and loosen the top. bolt and this bolt doesn't move, so screw the nut back onto the tip of the bolt so we can hit it with a hammer.

Perfect, now let's do the same with the lower bolt, unscrew it almost completely and take it out with a hammer, just a small movement and it's out, we can separate the strut and the knuckle well and with the strut and the knuckle separated the only thing that holds it the strut is that bolt right there on the strut tower and this bolt might be a little tricky. Don't just put a wrench in here and turn it because you can see the strut shaft also turns, so what you have to do is get a wrench and then a flathead screwdriver in that slot and turn it and this comes out amazingly. easy but if not you can always use a little bit of penetrating fluid to help loosen it and once the nut is pretty loose you will want to grab the strut because it will just fall off once this nut comes off. removed and with the strut removed we are not done yet we need some of this strut so remove the dust cover there it is we have a stopper which is a good idea to put on our threaded shock this acts as a cushion if the threaded shock is fully compressed, so with our shock ready to go let's install the wheel camber plate, this will allow us to adjust the wheel going fore and aft and the camber that is side to side, since we are going to lower the car. that will affect our alignment and we are going to have to adjust the camber so it is important that you put a camber plate on if you don't have an adjustable strut mount so now we can remove the stock strut mount there are three bolts that hold inside and then two rivets back here that we have to drill out, so first let's remove the three bolts which are one, two and three and that's the bottom of the plate and look, this is interesting, it looks like someone forgot to finish this rivet from the factory, so now we only have one rivet that we need to remove and that is the one that is there and what we are going to do is drill it as you drill, if the rivet just turns and you don't get anywhere, turn the drill a little. then you drill at an angle and break the rivet and voila, the top plate is removed, now pull the rest of the rivet out of the hole and don't forget to clean the area with some soapy water so that the new tilt plate could sit flat on the strut tower surface and don't worry, I will make an engine compartment cleaning video very soon.

Installing the cam wheel plate is pretty simple, I separate it like this and the bottom piece goes under the strut tower and the top piece sits on top of that, the only problem we have is that there are four studs here but only three holes here, so we're going to have to drill another hole right over here, but we can't do it there, we have to find exactly where it's going to be, so what we're going to do is paint the top of the bolt, put a good thick layer of paint there and then flip the plate over and now there are grooves here, so we're going to make our first mark on one side of the groove and then we'll slide it over to the other side and make another mark and that worked great.

We have a mark there and a mark there for this slot. Now I'm going to use the middle one. of those two brands and use a center punch to make a dimple for our drill bit. Next, we are going to drill our hole, so add a little oil to the drill bit to lubricate it. I'm starting with a smaller bit to drill a pilot hole. then you can move on to your full size drill bit and these cobalt bits cut through that hardened steel like a hot knife through butter and every time you drill or cut metal you want to apply a little touch up paint around the edges and inside to which no Now it's not rusty, let's install the bottom plate and see how we did it.

It fits perfectly, so add a washer to each bolt, then add the top plate and hand tighten the four nuts to hold it together and that's how you install the camber wheel plates, it's very simple. To make, we are using the nice four bolt design instead of the original three bolt design. This is much stronger and will give us a lot of alignment adjustability for when we lower the car with our coil-over shocks, so now what we do. What we're going to do is remove the coil spring here, that's the last thing we need to do before we can install the coil and remember this is under a tremendous amount of pressure here so we don't want to just drop the spring.

Jack and then flies away because it could be dangerous. We're going to slowly lower the Jack and depressurize this coil spring and we don't want to stand right in front of the spring or move to the side so that the car is protecting your body and you're not directly in line with the spring in case it goes flying, It shouldn't if we do this slowly, very slowly, lower the control arm and once it's down all the way, you might need it. use a pry bar to help you remove the spring completely and with the spring removed we can install the coil now, this is easy, put the coil on and it will push the top up through the tilt wheel plate. like this and make sure you have the washer and nut ready and once the threaded shock nuts are held in place so you can loosen them, we can now bolt the coil to the knuckle so lift up on the control arm to raise the knuckle. so it's even with the coil on top and then line them up and lower them to fit then put on the top bolt and the bottom bolt and then add the top nut and the bottom nut and with those two bolts now we're going to Take our thread locker from medium strength and right where the nut is going to tighten against the coil, add some thread locker on the top bolt and bottom bolt and we are using medium strength Thread Locker because this is a high vibration area. which is the suspension, so this will prevent vibrations from loosening those bolts, now we want to tighten them.

Torque these bolts to 150 foot-pounds, that's one and that's the other, and with the two coils over the link bolts tightened now we could go and tighten the sway bar end link so we add our bushing and the nut and this nut is supposed to be tightened to about 14 foot-pounds or enough to make it snug and compress the bushing well and with that tight Let's go to the top here and let's adjust and tighten our camber wheel plates Now, as the name suggests, we can adjust our wheel that is in thisdirection and it looks like this, you can see the shock moving back and forth and we can adjust our camber which is in this direction and which leans the wheel, let me show you that with the wheel on, the top of the wheel could move towards in, which is negative camber or out, which is positive camber and for now I'm just going to be observing.

I'm not going to make this alignment perfect. I'm taking this car in for a laser alignment. I want to try to match this side to the other side, which by the way is identical, so everything we're doing. On this side, putting the coil on all of those things is going to be the exact same process on the other side, so what I'm going to do here is try to put this Caster right in the middle, which is right. Over there and these bolts need to be torqued to 40t LBS, but I'm just going to tighten them for now because I really don't know if this alignment for the wheel is going to be good or not, so for now just get these. four bolts tight so you can take it to the alignment shop so now that our Caster is tight it won't move back and forth we could adjust our camber and since this is a drift car I'm going to put the camera all the way into the settings negative for now, we'll see how it looks good, now that our wheel and our tilt are set up, now let's tighten the spring bolt for this, we put a wrench on top of it. the nut and a small wrench on the top of the bolt and we just tighten it, since we need to have this little wrench on the top, we can't tighten it, so I'm just going to tighten it so it's nice and tight. so it's always a good idea to get a paint marker and mark the bolt and the stud, so now if this bolt comes loose, you'll see because this straight line here will no longer be aligned, all good with a wheel and a camber plate . nuts tightened as well as the threaded shock absorber nut, we are very close to finishing this front shock absorber, all we have to do now is tighten the brakes and then we can lower the car and see how it looks, so let's finish this.

We're going to put the brake rotor on and then slide the caliper over the rotor. Now we hand tighten the top bolt and the bottom bolt and then we torque both bolts to 95 ft-lbs and before we put the wheel back on and lower the car, let's adjust our damping so we have compression and rebound, there are 18 clicks of adjustment on each knob. They suggested we go up three clicks of compression and up to half or nine clicks of rebound and then you could take the test drive and see if you need it. to adjust this next let's lower the jack and move it out of the way and with the suspension unloaded there's one more thing we need to do and that's adjust our ride height and tighten these lock nuts.

Now I say with the suspension unloaded because you want the tires to not touch the ground when you adjust the ride height so there is no pressure on this spring and you can see here there are two nuts, there is one up here, this is the spring seat nut , if you turn this in one direction, you can Look, we're increasing the height of the vehicle so we can increase the height to the top threads right here and then if we turn this in the other direction, you can see that we're lowering the height of the vehicle. and then let's say you want the ride height adjustment to be there, this bottom nut is the lock nut and what you do is you just tighten it against the spring seat nut that we were adjusting and then that locks it in place.

I want the ride height of this coil to match the ride height of the other coil so the front of it is level and to make it easier what I'm going to do is set this to the lowest ride height setting . on both sides once we get to the lowest setting you want to twist these nuts around each other and these shocks come with wrenches to help you grab these nuts so you can get more leverage and lock them in place now that the ride height is blocked up. and we're done and this is how you install the threaded shock absorbers, it's really not difficult, you can easily do it at home now.

I can't wait to see what this car looks like when we get it down to the ground, but before we put the wheels on it, I want to mention it. something, make sure you buy some quality coilovers, this is a main part of your suspension, it acts as your strut and spring together and as an upper control arm, so quality is not only important for how it handles and handles. feel the car, but also It is also important for safety. Ok, with the front shocks installed, let's put the wheels on, remove the jack stands and lower the jack slowly.

I can't wait to see what this car looks like oh man and there's our first problem so we're already dealing with the problems. that's what you get with lowered cars like our jack, which definitely hits the frame in the front here and it's definitely not going to clear up. I'll never be able to get this out, so we're going to have to pick it up. slightly and put a couple of pieces of wood under the front tires and then lower the car again and that gives us enough room to get the jack out and holy smokes, you guys said you wanted to see the drift stay down, look at that.

It looks amazing, it looks so good, not only does it look good, I can't wait to see how it will perform on the track and on the road, so let's see how much we drop it, so I grabbed a tape measure and we'll measure. exactly the same way we did it before and we're at 25 1/2 inches and the suspension isn't even set before we get to 28 inches so we go down 2 and 1/2 inches and another thing we want to look at is our camber and I'm going to take this car in for alignment, but for now you can see that I have a lot of negative camber, which is perfect for the track, if you drive this on the street, you don't want to put it on too much.

With too much negative camber, you'll eat up the tires, but since the top of our tire is tucked in a little bit like that, it's a good idea to reach back in here and make sure you have clearance between the threaded shock and the wheel. and we have a lot of space here, so that's it. I couldn't have asked for a better fitment on the front shocks which look amazing. I can't wait to test it on the track but we're not done yet, we still have to do the rear shocks and since that's totally different since we have a solid rear axle compared to an independent suspension in the front, I'm going to do another video about which will be full of even more information and I'm going to show you that the car completely fell into the way it will sit.

I'll line it up and we'll take it for a test drive so as always I hope the video was helpful if it was please remember to give it a thumbs up. Stay tuned for the next video, all the products I use in this video, Coil Spring Caster Wheel Plates and Tools are linked in the description, if you are not a subscriber please consider subscribing and the next video will be linked right on the side, just click on the screen on the right or find the link in the description below