Quote:
Originally Posted by Alain
are you running aftermarket sways and endlinks. i remember mine hitting the lower control arm and i had to put a washer to clear. (whitelines front and rear sways with their endlinks)
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I've got stock sways front and rear, stock end links in the rear, and the end links that came with the coilovers in the front.
I'm not too concerned with the rear at this point. They have started making a bit of noise, but it almost never makes noise while driving around. It's mostly when going up the curb to enter the driveway or going slowly in particularly bumpy parking lots. I'd rather they made no noise at all obviously, so I am going to go over everything in the rear again, but my main concern is definitely the front.
The front end links are something has puzzled me a bit though. I know that they have hit the control arm at least a couple times because there was a mark on the control arm from them. I've since shortened them a bit more to get a little more clearance . The thing that really doesn't make sense to me is this:
At stock height with stock end links, the swaybar is neatly nestled in between the control arm and the tie rod. Obviously nothing hits on anything because the car was designed to work that way.
When you lower the car, the strut/spring length gets shorter (raises up higher in relation to the swaybar mount). So if you also use a shorter end link (which the one that came with these coilovers is, even at its longest setting), it causes the swaybar to raise up and due to the shape of the bar and where it is mounted to the chassis, also move forward, closer to the control arm.
It stands to reason that to keep the swaybar in as close the stock orientation/angle/location between tie rod and control arm, you would need a LONGER end link since the upper mount raises higher and higher the more you shorten the coilover and lower the car. Obviously there's a point when you would have to worry about hitting the tie rod, but it seems like you'd have to drop the car quite a bit before that would be an issue.
Does that make sense? Clearly I'm wrong because everyone either uses the shorter end links provided or cuts and welds their stock ones. I just don't understand why.