Bulli Kid has an amazing video on how to properly set up the MaXpeedingRods coilovers for preinstalling. Coilover setup is immensely important as it will dictate the performance from thereon. The 24-way adjustable coilovers still offer adjustability later on but the performance will be hampered by the lack of install preparation.
This is why MaXpeedingRods asks customers to set the preload before installation. On many applications, it can be changed after the install but doing so prior makes it much easier for the end-user.
Bulli starts off with a basic rundown of the MaXpeedingRods 24 way adjustable coilovers and moves into how to set up preload on the coilovers. The first thing to do is to raise the spring perch until there is no ‘slop’ between the spring and the top and bottom spring perches. There should be no gaps between the bottom spring perch, the spring, and the top spring perch. There should also be no added load on the spring; at this point, everything should be hand-tight.
Next, bring the locking ring up to the lower spring perch to set a starting point as the following step will be to use the spring perch to compress the spring 7mm to 10mm. The spanner wrench is roughly 5mm in width so it can be used as a gauge to determine the length. Aim for a 1.5 to 2 spanner wrench gap (7mm to 10mm) between the locking ring that was set earlier and the newly compressed lower spring perch.
There are a few things to keep in mind when deviating from the recommended preload of the spring. Too little spring preload will cause the coils to be loud and noisy as they will not have enough compression force to keep them from sliding around in the housing.
On the other hand, by increasing the preload, one will be sacrificing the effective travel length of the spring; the coil will be closer to coil bind and have less extension. For many, this will not be an issue but it is something to consider when doing so.
The next issue that arises when adding more preload is that it does increase the spring rate of the coilover. Spring rate is determined by the rigidity of the material multiplied by the diameter of the coil used. This is then divided by the spring index and the number of coils used.
To simplify, it is the load of the spring divided by the travel of the spring. With the math class part over, what this means is that the more preload that is added, the stiffer the spring rate will be. This can be felt when driving but it can also be advantageous for someone looking for more spring stiffness for a specific application.
All in all, setting the preload is easy and when following the recommended specifications from MaXpeedingRods, one cannot go wrong.
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