Lowering my car drastically...

[BboyOxygen]

Thanks for the info about the sprint and st springs.  But I've also found some coilovers made by "aerospeed".. Are these any good?  My next 240 is going to be just for getting to college and back.. so here's what I want to do to it:

Intake
Exhaust
Nice Stereo
Alarm
Tint
and REALLY LOW

So if I got these coilovers, is there a camber kit I can get?  I want to lower my car a lot but I dont want to have to buy tires every week.. Also, should I get some decient struts?  I dont really want to spend 500 on struts, could I get something from like napa autoparts or autozone that would be okay for a lowered car?

[Jeff240sx]

Heh.  I don't know anything about suspension, but I'll try.
Camber kits are online.  There are 2 types, a cam-shaped adjustable bolt to move a little further at the very extremes of your stock camber correction.  It is the cheapest, but offers the least ammount of correction.
Then there are control arms that you can buy that have much larger slots, and allow alot of correction.  I know that Stillen sells them.  On 240sx.org in the installs section, there is a How-To on slotting the bar yourself.
Also... I think that you will blow just about every cheap shock you buy.  So then you'll have to go with the very expensive ones.  But why spend the money on cheap coilovers and shocks, when you can get a full coilover system for just a little more (Tiens are what?  somewhere near $1200?)
Thats just my thoughts.
-Jeff

[BboyOxygen]

Okay I guess I'll have to shop around for some better coilovers or something.. If I cant totally correct the camber it will be fine, I just dont want my tires sticking out sideways and have the tirewear be crazy.. :o

[BboyOxygen]

I found 2 damper kits (tein and apexi).. 1100.00 each.. And I found tokico strut kit for 339.00.. Do these damper kits include struts?

[Yoshi]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (BboyOxygen @ Dec. 03 2002,11:40)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">I found 2 damper kits (tein and apexi).. 1100.00 each.. And I found tokico strut kit for 339.00.. Do these damper kits include struts?</td></tr></table><span id='postcolor'>
those are for full coilovers, they may need pillow mounts... you might also look into JIC and the AGX/Ground Control combo (cheapest).

Oh, and arospeed/OBX/Ractive/etc etc sleeve-type coilovers (ie. they have no dampeners and req. them) all SUCK. They're for looks only (well no, theyr'e for blowing out stock struts too I suppose <img src="http://www.zilvia.net/f/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/tounge.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt=':p'> hehee)

[turbo240sx]

lowering a 240 looks good but the ride sucks, we dont have much strut travel to begin with. it will ride stiff but handle great with coil overs.
i used kyb's and sportlines with suspension techniques sway bars. and added &nbsp;3/4 inch spacers front and back and it handles great. on ramps are real fun at 80 mph. no body roll at all. sway bars were the best thing i put on the cars for handleing

[AceInHole]

large tires (not rims.. the tires are 205/65/R15) and eibach sportlines... my tires are rubbing the plastic fender lining in front under hard braking or cornering. &nbsp;a testiment to how little suspension travel we have to play around with, especially after a 2" drop.

[Nismo241]

Mines dropped 3 inches, right now with 205-65-15's(off my moms stock G20) and I have about a 1/2-3/4 inch gap still, but my tire wear is ridiculous, I absolutly ruined the tires of my 17's, the inside is bald with bands showing and the outside is about 1/2 way worn. &nbsp;Thats only 3 inches. &nbsp;If you want just looks to lower the car, get cylinders or bags, they make a cylinder kit that is *supposed* to ride like a normal car. &nbsp;I just love the look of dumped cars, but thats me.

[ridebmx]

iirc the piece for hydualics that make it ride like regualar shocks is called actuators, and they run about 100 bucks apiece....

[jyt747]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Nismo241 @ Dec. 04 2002,06:34)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Mines dropped 3 inches,</td></tr></table><span id='postcolor'>
out of curiosity, what springs drop 3 inches? and if it really drops 3 inches, what shocks do you have?

[Cool Kat S]

This gay guy i know has a 3.7 inch drop.... he cut his springs. Now he's dead.

[Hubie]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Cool Kat S @ Dec. 06 2002,11:15)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">This gay guy i know has a 3.7 inch drop.... he cut his springs. Now he's dead.</td></tr></table><span id='postcolor'>
Come on now, have some respect...

[240 2NR]

A 1.5" drop actually is still drivable without killing tire and requires minimal correction for camber.

Struts and shocks are types of dampers. &nbsp;The front suspension on the 240 uses struts, the rear is shocks.

[FSPtwo4d]

For a relatively good ride, get ground controls and kyb AGX adjustables. &nbsp;And for the wheels, just make sure to get the right offset. &nbsp;I have 18's with a 38mm offset with 225/35/18 tires and still have the capabilities of getting 10mm wider fronts and 30mm in the back. &nbsp;The ground controls are good for a 4" drop, that is plenty by anyone's standards. &nbsp;If you really want to slam it, just do some extreme negative camber to tuck the wheels in the fenders

Late

[onefast240]

DO NOT GET AEROSPEED COILOVERS!!!!!!!!! I have cutomers come into my shop all the time looking for that crap and I won't sell it out of principal. I f you want low and still want a good ride go with a full coilover setup. A full or true coilover is a shock strut or dampener with a treaded body for height adjustment and higher end shocks will have adjustable bound and rebound as well. The reason these work much better than any setup including springs and strut ie:eibach, h&r, tokico, agx is because they are shorter bodied short stroke shocks and struts. What that means is take a tokiko strut which is the same height as a factory strut example 20inches total height with 10inches of shock travel with a stock spring. now put a 3" lowering spring on it cutting the shock travel down to 7"'s making not function at it's full potential and have strain on it. Now take a coilover which has lets say a 15inch body with 10inches of shock travel. Coilovers shorten the body of the shock which in turn will lower the car then fully engineer the shock trave for the coilover so its always at full potential. All the figures are hypothetical but it can give you a basic idea of how the whole suspension mess works. Some great coilover companies are Tanabe Tein Apex Integration JIC and HKS. As for pillow ball mounts thats where the shock or sturt attaches to the car. Sometimes you can use the factory but if your going to do it, do it right and get adjustable pillow ball mounts which will help with the negative camber.

[Apparition]

Nice explanation. <img src="http://www.zilvia.net/f/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt=':)'> Sure helped me decide whether or not to save for coilovers.