jsampsell

iTrader: (3)

Not sure how fast any of you guys can help as quickly as I'd need but I have to try.

I bought a set of Fortune Auto 500 coilovers for my 2011 X sedan. The fronts are good. But the rear is giving us hell. We are confused.

This might be obvious to some of you so I hope this gets a quick answer.

The rear are a shock/spring combo, not a true coilover. Both he shock and the spring can be adjusted. We cannot figure out the combination of adjustments to get the ride height right. And the instructions are useless. They actually don't mention the rear at all.

So do any of you have any advice?

I'd be indebted to anyone that could help.

Jeremy

Dj1ofDet

iTrader: (5)

On the X Sedan, the spring determines ride height and the shock supports the car. See if this link helps you.

Click here

RexHavoc

iTrader: (7)

We had to adjust mine to a quarter to an eighth of an inch about the bottom of the shock. I used swifts, don't recall any adjustments possible.

jsampsell

iTrader: (3)

That link we'll definitely help. Thanks. Here's a picture of what we are dealing with. They are the swift upgrades.

blnewt

iTrader: (13)

Yep, you need to adjust the height of the spring, then compress spring perch about 1/4 to 3/8", this sets the preload. Once the preload is set you then fully extend the shock tube, then you adjust the height on the shock up or down to keep it fully extended but able to mount to the fender.

If you have to readjust the height, you have to keep the preload teh same on the spring as teh preload must remian constant regardless of how high or low you adjust.
Hope that makes sense. & G/L

jsampsell

iTrader: (3)

Thanks blnewt. We are aware of the how. My apologies if I wasn't specific about that. What was strange was that no matter what we did for adjustment combinations, the height when lowered to the ground was always too low. It barely changed. In the end, we determined that the springs were just too short. We ended up having to cut the cone off of the cone shaped upper spring bumper to get the additional height we needed. The max height this specific setup let us go was still too low. Which has been contrary to everything I've read here on the forum of other X sedan owners on coilovers. I have a company truck to use for the weekend so it's parked until I can call Fortune Auto on Monday. The way the FA top spring mount is designed is to fit snug up inside the hole where the upper spring bumper fit so having to use the cut OE spring bumper means that the top of the spring mount, under the right conditions, could shift and eventually pop out. That would NOT be good. I'm going to call FA first and see if they have any input but I'm also going to have the alignment tech look at that spring setup and give me his professional opinion. My buddy who helped me and I have worked on cars for years doing just about everything you can think of. Even coilovers and springs. So we aren't complete noobs at this stuff. That just makes it that much more frustrating. Oh well. I'm going to bed. Sometimes a good break makes a big difference in how you view things after you've been working on something as long as we have today. Maybe we'll figure it out tomorrow and I don't have to call FA. Who knows.

Thanks again to everyone who had replied so far. It is really great to be a part of this community.

Jeremy

jsampsell

iTrader: (3)

By the way, here are two pictures for reference. The first shows the rear way too low. For what I was going for anyway. The second shows how it sits currently. The rear is now too high but at least we have room for travel/adjustment now.

blnewt

iTrader: (13)

Ok, I thought you just weren't able to get the adjustments properly set up. That top pic looks pretty good, but if it's not going to work for your daily drives then you'll have to resort to another option, on that pic of your spring, it looks like you have a bit more room to go down but not much, maybe a 1/4" and still be safe.
How much higher from pic one do you really need it to be?

jsampsell

iTrader: (3)

The stock height from ground to top of fender was 28.5 inches all around. Well, technically the driver's side was about an eighth lower but we decided to use 28.5 all the way around since we were putting in all new equipment. I wanted to go down a total of 1.5 inches. With settle factored in, we thought we'd shoot for 1.25 for our first round and then adjust as needed from there. Our first try on the front yielded a 1.5 inch drop instead of 1.25 but they are easier to adjust than the rears so we were going to go back and fix those after we got the rears dialed in. We didn't get around to fixing the fronts because of all the trouble with the rears, so the pictures don't even show the right height for the front. That's where I hope they end up after settling though. The rears in the top picture, however, are at 26.75. That's with what you said about having .25 inch left of adjustment. There's no way we could have gone up a full inch from there. That's what leads us to believe that the included Swift springs are just shorter than they should be for this application. The second picture, with the modified upper spring bumper used to get the additional height, shows the rears sitting at 28. Because we had the additional length, we now can go back up in adjustment to get the .75 additional drop. However, I'm concerned about the potential for the springs to shift causing them to pop out. The cone shaped upper rubber bumper that we cut was designed to make sure that the stock upper spring mount would not move. It was long enough down into the upper spring mount that no amount of flex/shift would allow it to pop out. Well, we cut the cone part off to make sure the top of the FA upper spring mount would sit flush to it. That means there's nothing but weight and compression keeping it where it is at the moment. Under the right circumstances, it could technically shift enough to pop out. I may be over thinking this but I just don't like rigging things. I prefer to have things installed as designed.

Anyhow, I hope that sheds more light on the matter.

RexHavoc

iTrader: (7)

That's pretty much exactly what I ran into also there's not much room at all for further adjustment on the rear. Not without me losing any feeling of comfort at least. I would have preferred the spring be a little longer. I got it adjusted to where it usually works for me but there isn't much wiggle room.

Upscale Speed

iTrader: (18)

Rex so you are near top ride height on your fortunes in the rear and they sit as low as the OP's car in his first pic? I wonder if there are longer swifts we can use to get that extra ride height that some of us will need. I too want exactly the same ride height as the OP. Literally I';m about to order my entire suspension setup and I'm glad this thread was created beforehand.

jsampsell

iTrader: (3)

Hopefully our combined experience will mean that you won't have as much frustration for your install.

I wonder what FA will say about this. I hope they don't pull a "if they weren't installed by a professional shop then there's nothing we can do". I'll post whatever the results of that call are.

blnewt

iTrader: (13)

The Swift springs come in a good assortment of increments so a spring another inch longer should be available.
Here's the list of springs and they start at 5" for 60 and 65mm ID and 6" for the 70mm, and go up at an inch at a time up to 9" for the 60s, 11" for the 65s and 10" for the 70s.
G/L OP (and Upscale Speed) hope they can get you to the height you need
Swift Springs USA
BTW, how long are the springs that came with them, and what ID?

jsampsell

iTrader: (3)

Thanks for the info on the springs blnewt! This will be very helpful in my discussion with FA tomorrow.

I have yet to actually measure the springs. I was so tired and burnt out last night by the time we came to this conclusion that I just wanted to get something working. I'll have to measure them today so that I know what they are when talking to FA. I'm sure, since they sold them to me, that know what they are, but you never know.

blnewt

iTrader: (13)

The only real concern would be if the Fortune shock can extend enough to accommodate an inch longer spring, sure hope you can get it set up just right.
This is a helpful thread for those that are on the fence.