Excelerate

iTrader: (1)

Alright I've had the TEIN SS on my '01 CL-S for about a month or so. Since the beginning the right rear side has sagged more than the rest of the sides. No matter how much I turn the seat locks up or higher towards the top of the strut that right rear side will not raise. If I lower it towards the bottom of the strut the car does lower though. I have about a 2-finger gap all the way around but that right rear is like a 1.5 finger gap. I cannot figure out why.

Also I have the most annoying noise ever. In the right rear of the car I hear this sound like there is something bouncing when I go over a decent size bump. It's almost like there is a bouncy ball in my car and the thing bounces when I go over bumps against metal.

BTW my settings are 8 in the front and 8 in the rear.

Thanks.

Josh
Excelerate LLC

niz181

when you lower the car make sure the spring is properly aligned in the socket I noticed that mine spring would move around when I jacked the car up too high. Try spraying alot of wd-40 on them, mine were hard to move sometimes b/c dirt got in the grooves

Excelerate

iTrader: (1)

Yea, I've checked all this already. All the springs are aligned properly. The strut is not blown because when I pushed on the tire it required the same amount of pressure as all the other struts. This noise is driving me nuts.

Louie11

Do you have aftermarket sways? I had a simular noise. It sounded as if there was a piece of metal on a string dangling in my wheel well. My noise was on the driver side though. I didn't even need to go over a bad bump to hear it. I checked every suspension part in the back for looseness. Couldn't find it so I gave in and took it to acura. It turn's out that it was my sway bar I had comptechs put on two months prier and it came loose after a night of spirited driving in the twisties. It was loose ever so slightly. While jacked up the tech had to put all his weight into it just to move it. That was the problem though because in the back the bar comes sooo close to the spindle that it doesn't take much for a 3500lb car to make it move under load. As for the height problem, I don't know? Mine never did this. I hope maybe this helps out with the noise because if it's the same noise it drove me INSANE.

Excelerate

iTrader: (1)

Already checked that too. I have re-tightened the sways already.

Allout

Be careful on raising and lowering. You ultimately want even pressure and contact on all tires. Have you ever sat at a 4 legged table and one of the legs was too short and the table wabbled? You can have the same effect on your car if you have one of your coil overs dialed up too much or too little.

To do the coil overs correctly and get the most out of them, you have to minimize this effect. If you don't, your car won't shift weight properly, contact patch will be uneven and your handling won't be maximized.

EricL

I wonder if your shock is binding at a particular point in its stroke. It's a guess, but your getting a noise in the right rear. And, you checked the sways. And, the car will lower on that side, but will not raise. If the shock's piston rod was "hung-up" or binds at a point on the stroke, it could help "hold down" the car -- or conversly hold it up.

It would also make a noise.

As with all "remote diagnostics," this is just a best guess and Allout has some good points about chassis dynamics. However, I do believe you should be able to raise up that end of the car. The only thing I can think about that would prevent that would be something that is "binding" and/or simply increasing the loading on the coil's springs as you raise the "seat locks."


To be dead clear, if I had a stuck – or “sticky” shock piston, and it wouldn't “fully” extend or had a high resistance point, it would, in effect, just add additional loading to the spring and negate any adjustment that would increase the spring’s upward pressure.

What happens if you try and help by putting a jack under the car at that point?

Can you bounce the car at that end of the car (you'd want to try and get a good "re-bound" if possible) and get a friend to listen with a piece of tubing to locate the sound (Home made stethoscope can work wonders and you only need a few feed of 1/4 inch (ID) Tygon tubing (or name your flexible tubing here).

To finish off the thoughts: you said you can push down -- and this would tend to show that the shocks compression valving is working -- or at least the shock "seems" to compress properly. If the rebound valving was messed up or the shock simply was "hung-up" during rebound (while expanding), you wouldn't notice a difference when you pushed down on the car. Did that make sense? BTW, the racket would drive you nuts. It's happened to me, and another member had front-end noise problem that was related to a messed-up shock.


YMMV

asloudasitgets

couldnt you just set the height at the hightest point on all 4 corners. Then mark the spring where they are at that point. Then spin coil and count how many times it comes around, then do that to the rest of the 3 corners? then shouldnt it be all the same height>?

i mean how eles are you suppose to know other than visual (not exact of course since its a visual thing) are you suppose to know all 4 corners are truely even?