dspeirn Posted January 31, 2021 Report Share Posted January 31, 2021 (edited) The PO of my car welded disk brake conversion brackets (i believe 200sx but i could be wrong) to my rear trailing arms. While they were at it they moved the mounting point for the coilover forward, and relocated the mointing point in the strut tower about a 1/2 " behind the stock location. Im not sure if they did this to accommodate their caliper mounting location or to attempt to improve the geometry of the suspension. Has anyone every seen coilovers relocated to this mounting point? thoughts on whether it improves the rear geometry or makes it worse? I'm not planning on changing anything anytime soon, but i haven't seen this done and wanted to hear your thoughts. sorry for the potato photos. Edited January 31, 2021 by dspeirn Quote Link to comment
datzenmike Posted January 31, 2021 Report Share Posted January 31, 2021 It's only a shock absorber. Well... combined shock and spring but does not set or affect the geometry. The rear geometry is built into the lower control arm to cross member mounting points but is affected by raising or lowering the ride height. The spring rate can be affected by an increase in lean from vertical or from it's original angle but here it's negligible. A 200 increase in angle degrades the rate by only 6%. The same is true with shock absorbers. They are firmest in the vertical and less firm as the tilt away. Again it appears negligible. Quote Link to comment
dspeirn Posted January 31, 2021 Author Report Share Posted January 31, 2021 Thanks Mike! so if the angle was more extreme (hypothetically) then all it would affect is spring rate, but in this case it doesn't affect it because angle change is so small. They must have moved the mount to accommodate the caliper position. Quote Link to comment
thisismatt Posted January 31, 2021 Report Share Posted January 31, 2021 Compared to the stock shock location where most people change to a coilover, it makes a big difference in leverage where it is in your pictures. The stock shock location also wasn't designed to support the weight of the corner, so maybe they were trying to improve on that. 1 Quote Link to comment
datzenmike Posted January 31, 2021 Report Share Posted January 31, 2021 Probably to mount the rear disc but moving the mount forward meant the top probably rubbed the tower, so it had to be moved to the rear, adding a slight tilt. As Matt says the shock was never intended to carry the car's weight on it's mounts. Many do it and haven't heard of any structural failures. Quote Link to comment
yenpit Posted February 25, 2021 Report Share Posted February 25, 2021 I had a 510 with a similar situation.......PO tried to modify the stock "location" & added some unknown rear calipers. They welded big narly brackets for the calipers, for the rear sway bar & for the coilover rear shocks. To me, it was a gagglefuk of a mess of metal & welding. That car got a stock set of rear control arms & sold the project. I hung on to those welded up control arms for a few years & only recently decided that they were junk & taking up space. We needed a control arm to mock up a set of the FutoFab/Byron adjuster kit, we did NOT need the bulk of a complete control arm, so we cut off the majority of the welded up control arm, only to have the rigid arch from bushing to bushing, to be used as a "tool" to set up the adjuster kit, again, without the hassle of that big cumbersome control arm! Yes, we will keep that chunk to use again as a mock up tool! Yes, I will pull the stub axle flanges out of the "hub", which is now scrap metal! I get fab'ing & building your own stuff, but if it is NOT done well & gets passed on to a new owner, it becomes more of a headache for the new buyer! That is why FutoFab, Ermish, T3 etc etc, offer nice parts/upgrades! 😎 Quote Link to comment
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