1986 na sport, stock. I finally put my PBM coilovers on but am having some issues. first set of coils ever so sorry for stupid questions.

1. I can hear the spring rotating when I am turning? anyway to stop that, its annoying. I got these used with 0 miles and was told that they are preloaded correctly but I am going to preload the springs myself correctly. will this help?

2. I set the **** on top to full soft but they seem overly bouncy. once again, maybe improper preload. I'm not sure. I set them to full stiff and in the middle too and it seems like I bounce around quite a bit even on smooth roads with little dips or the breaks in pavement slabs. the **** with the allen key you put in top I thought was the only damper adjustment but there is another peice that turns and clicks underneath it, is that also an adjustment for dampening? I haven't really messed with that one yet pending what it actually adjusts.

3. after setting the ride height, I took it for a drive. first thing I noticed is that I have to take off at a snails pace from a stop to not spin a wheel or wheels (I beleive I have an open na diff but don't know if just one is spinning or both). I am on stock wheels and block tread summer tires 205/65/15(free) but it did not do this prior with my old suspension and same tires. I may have to take out some camber but it doesn't even really look noticable. I'm not slammed and it definitely looks like the tires have a good contact patch still. sometimes if I am even driving semi hard into a corner, it seems like my diff acts like a welded. one tire starts spinning a little and chirping. could that be my corner weights being off now that its settled?

I have all the collars tightly secured (independent ride height and spring preload). maybe these are all normal things, its my first experience and I know pbm's are notoriously stiff ride but figured I'd check into these things. any help appreciated. flaming will be tollerated and ignored for the most part as I feel stupid for even have to ask these things but I'm not sure about this stuff.lol

 

anyone?

1. I did find an answer to the spring binding that I overlooked. according to pbm's website (kind of hidden article), they have stiffer pillowballs then other companies so it takes some time for them to "break in". apparently its normal and will go away on its own.

2. someone told me that the **** under my damper *** might be for rebound? anyone know for sure?

 

hmm, I thought I would get some more timely responses. maybe my questions are too stupid?

 

ive got these too, just put them on saturday and have been driving them hard. The bouncing is just how stiff they are. your car shouldnt really be bouncing, it just feels like that. The spring noise is normal will go away soon. Also the pbm dudes say dont preload the coils. and the double click thing, i need to go look at mine because i didnt notice anything like that.
As for your spinning tires, the only thing i can figure is you are driving harder on shitty tires, or your sloppy old suspension was absorbing energy that is now propelling you forward and your tires cant hold that gnarly na power.

 

The springs should be settled.

 

Harder suspension = less traction. Simple as that. PBM is NOT for grip. Drifting is a grip application. If you want to gain some grip back set the coils to full soft and lower the tire pressure. Also get some real rear tires. 205 is a joke.

Also you're rear is most likely too low, and you don't have individual camber adjusters, so I would assume your rear camber is / --\ only using the inside of your sad little 205s. Now you basically have 155s. How's your toe? Go get it aligned.

You're also overthinking the coilovers, talking about your diff feeling welded. You would know if your diff was welded. Your coils are just extremely stiff, for no reason. Advertising win. Have fun.

 

I know they are stiff coils. I have them set full soft and tire pressure at 30 even. the camber may not be equal but I'd say its not more then -0.8 probably on the farthest out side eyeballing it. I have an adjustable sublink and only dropped the car maybe an inch at most for now. I know my tires suck but I am talking about regular town driving here, I guess I just have to deal with it until wheels and tires are in the budget. lol.

I also know I have an na open diff, was just explaining that one wheel was spinning in corners. not racing into corners, but just giving it a little gas on an on ramp. seemed excessive to me. nature of the beast I guess. I got these for drifting but haven't even had a chance yet because half my exhaust is falling off. It's my first set of coils tweak, I'm a total noob to this so wanted to be sure I was doing things right and they were acting right. thanks guys.

 

Go back and make damn sure the left and right coils are as exactly equal in length as possible. When I installed my coils on my 240SX, I assumed the factory would set them at equal lengths, and boy was I wrong. Sounds like your corner weights are WAYYYYY off, just like mine were.

 

so my car could still sit level but be way off at each corner? that makes sense I guess. I am going to re set my preloads to zero and measure to the spring collars from the top in case they are not all the same measurement. then I will set the ride height to the same measurement for both sides and deduct any differences I found in the preload measurements. I thought it was easier to measure from collar to collar for height, could well be that the spring collar was at different heights but the car sits level so I thought it must be good. I'll let you know if that remedies anything when I get to doing that. thanks.

 

edit-nm

 

let me know what you find. The first thing I noticed is that the car felt more planted during maneuvers, and not nearly as bouncy in general.

 

thats on the back burner for now. I'm working and haven't gotten around to doing anything yet but I have to put my header and pre silencer on so the exhaust shop can bend me a cat back and weld it to my muffler. I told them its the same distance as the stock manifold + cats but they said they want to do it right. I guess its a good attitude for them to have but now I have more to do. I just got a thrush turbo series 2.5 in/out steel braided muffler for 25 buks, running a single 2.5 inch pipe to it since my exhaust is just dragging on the ground now.

 

Make sure the collars are locked together super tightly. Ive had mine come loose until I learned to excessively tighten the collars. The spinning issue is due to your open diff. These coilovers are ridiculously stiff so the stiffness issue is inherent in the coilovers design. Pbms are great coilovers. Ive had mine for a few years now... But the only downfall is that they are too stiff. Thats why they made their pro series which are softer. I run mine without sway bars as I had mad understeer with the front swaybar and snap oversteer with the rear swaybar. This compensated for the stiffness in the coils and allowed for more control

 

ya, I did notice that 2 of my collars came loose for the spring preload. one in the front and the opposite side in the back. I thought I tightened them down good but might be due to the springs settling I guess.idk, I used a screw driver and hammer but didn't want to over tighten. I'll do it again, car is sitting for now until exhaust and I'm working all weekend getting rides from friends and coworkers. this **** sucks but hoping to have the exhaust done monday and and the coils set properly over the weekend.

knight- the coils have lost some of there bounciness as they settled. they aren't too bad on shitty VT roads, stiff but drivable on full soft now other then wheels spinning. someone said that my tires might be causing bounciness too which could be. wheels and tires can't come soon enough. wanting some rota P-45r's 17" +25 all around. I heard about the sway bar thing but haven't beat the car enough to see how I like it. understeer might be a problem. probably not worse then my old 99 impreza 2.5rs for understeer, that thing drove like a wet sock. it was all stock but geez.

 

so, years later, when I drive slow my coils still have that spring skipping sound if I turn the wheel a lot. you know the one, the spring winding up and then skipping sound. I tried lubing up the pillowball mounts a little by dribbling it down near the adjuster up top but that didn't do anything. dan from MAX usa said that it would go away. well that was 15k miles ago. guess I'll have to get some of those roller bearing washer things (forgot the name, looks like 2 washer with some rollers between, very slim) and put that in between the spring and perch. I was a total noob when I posted this. its funny looking back.

 

I am actually glad you bumped it up. I just got my pbm Pros in the mail and installing this weekend. I have the exact setup as you did when you started as well:

87 NA with open diff, stock wheels, and **** tires. Car was given to me for free so meh. ( its not anything great trust me) I do have a full S5 Tii swap sitting around till I get the funds to finish it, so I plan to swap out my open diff/trans/axels with the S5 Tii unit for the summer and slide the hell out of it to learn. Not Going to be another kid who never learns and sits on a broken car for years.

again, glad to see what you experienced with these. I will compare my findings with the new gen Pros to your old gen comps and see if I have similar issues.

non the less, PUMPED to start actually "sliding" and not wheel skipping left turns whilst making tons of noise lmao.

cheers

 

I had that issue initially on my stances. Every so often I take em off and clean the threads and re antiseize everything, so I use that time to put grease on the top and bottom of the front springs. Its kept them quiet so far

 

[QUOTE=archaphil;11450413] Not Going to be another kid who never learns and sits on a broken car for years.

Which is mostly what I do. I have a kid and no money but that will change this year. lol. going to start in a garage and maybe earn more then 16k a year. I do slide a little just nothing meaningful.

"I had that issue initially on my stances. Every so often I take em off and clean the threads and re antiseize everything, so I use that time to put grease on the top and bottom of the front springs. Its kept them quiet so far"

you mean you put the grease where the spring meets the collar? I'm gonna try that. little embarassed I didn't even think of that. and I know I f'd up the quote thing, too lazy to do it right lol.