When removing my old springs from my GTV2000, not only did I notice that they both were broken, the old ones were longer than the ones I purchased from Kings Springs who describe their rear springs for 105s as a sport spring.
Will these new springs make much difference to the ride height as I origionally just wanted to keep the height as standard as possible? Will i need to shorten my new axle straps because of this?
Thanks
Tim
I was surprised that they were not the same length as origional, King Springs only sell rear springs for 105s and they list them as standard length??
I hope my car will not look too bum heavy as the front is still stock standard!
Tim
Hi Tim,
I brought the same sports king springs for my car, it did lower it a bit but they are a higher pound rate spring so that means even though they are shorter they will not compress as much as the origanal springs, but yes you still have to shorten the strap, if it lowers it too much you can make or buy spacers for the rears to bring it up a little, cheers
Ang
Hi Ang, I will also be fitting new Koni yellows and have them set at 1/2 turn clockwise from full soft (which I think is fully anticlockwise) for the rear and one full turn clockwise on the fronts. Have you any experience with setting Koni yellows?
Tim
Hi Tim,
i have only set the yellow konis on a racing 105, and for that one i made the rear soft as possible and the front if i remember right as it was a while ago was about 2 turns clockwise as i think it was around 5-6 turns in total so it was just under half way, so what you have set them at already should be just about spot on for the road, if you leave them at where you have them now and drive it for a bit you can always make the adjustment again but i would leave them like that, also with my king springs after about a month or so it dropped down just a little more at the rear with the spring sag from new which is fairly normal so keep that in mind also, cheers
Ang
Tim, i went though all the details on springs for my 74 1600 Junior earlier in the year. Koni only make the rear springs as you say, if you need front spings then you you will need to have them made. This might be required since you are replacing the rears and the car might not be level afterwards.
I would recommend getting new fronts if you are replacing te rears. If you are in sydney All Springs in moorebank are cheap and happy to reset the springs if the height isn't right first time (also a high possibility).
shock wise koni yellows are the go in my opinion.
Adrian
Thanks Adrian, I am not sure if you are talking about resetting spring height for the fronts or rears.
I can see why the rears tend to rust out, it is probably caused by the plastic sleeve fitted to them when new, good for keeping them nice and moist!
Tim
i suppose it could be either needing to be reset. However if you replace the rear set you may find the fronts dont match up either with height or general ride feel since the new rear springs will most likely ride a bit stiffer. AK
Vin Sharp at Pace Engineering has the correct front and rear springs for 105's He has them in normal, fast road and racing.
Thanks for that Gary, once the car is re-assembled I will see if the front springs need replacing and if so, I now know where to get them.
My progress has holted due to problems trying to get a suitable double flare brake pipe tool to make up new pipes so that I can fit my new adjustable pressure regulating valve!
Regards
Tim
Tim,
Have a look at Eastwood Co. in the USA for a double flaring tool. I bought one of their tools. A bit XXy but the results are far superior than anything else I have tried, other than professionals.
Jim
Check out EBAY, there is plenty on there for not bad prices,
Ang
Thanks guys, I have managed to purchase a Double Flare tool from my local brake shop for $99 that looks like it will do the job on steel brake lines. The advantage of this tool is that it is a once piece job that reduces the chance of misalignment when trying to line up the flaring tool tip and the brake pipe. I will have a go at fitting new double flares this weekend and hopefully have my rear brake system back together soon.
I have one side of my rear suspension reassembled with new springs and Konis, the rear trailing arms and sway bar look great now that they are painted with POR15!
Tim
At long last she is finally on her wheels and she does have a slight bum heavy look due to the new rear springs, which means at some later stage I will probably have to get new shorter springs for the front.
I was also delighted to be able to take it for its first drive since buying her 14 months ago. Happy that the brakes seem to be OK allbeit they could do with another bleed, I am not sure how much brake pedal travel is normal when braking and also not sure how well the servos are meant to ease the brake pressure?
I followed the manuals recommendations in loading the car up with weight before torque setting the rear suspension bolts. I dont know how others do it but I found the lack of room under the car make it almost impossible to torque the bolts up. I had my wife and daughter sitting the the front seats while I wrestled with the torque wrench, complaining about the heat until they saw my face full of sweat!
I hope to get her reregistered in time for our Feb Italian car day.
Tim
I always seem to pick it, this time I picked a day off from work to get my wheels aligned and then an DOT inspection for re-registration.....it just so happened to a 43deg day!!!!
Not having driven the car more than up and down our street I had images of my car blowing steam out from the radiator parked somewhere out in the middle of no where, on the way to the one of the few pre-book in time DOT inspection places.
So I took the chance, carried heaps of water and some emergency tools, hoses and headed off. In the end the car passed her inspection and made it back home (40min trip) with out any fuss....it was only me that was melting!! So pleased the temp gauge sat around 85 deg and never went higher, I did not even have to put the heater on to help.
I am now on track to get her to the Italian Car day. One thing that I would like to do is to lower the front suspension about 25mm as the new sport rear springs have given it a bum heavy look. I have heard that putting a 10mm washer under the front spring pan bolts will lower the front by about 25mm...has anyone done this or is it better to wait and get new sport front springs even if the origional ones look and feel fine??
Tim
Hi Tim
All depends if your going for looks, performance or ride quality. Putting spacers in will lower the ride height (there are also 3 different height spring pans available for 105) without effecting the spring rate. If you've already installed 'Sports' springs (and by 'sports' I'm assuming higher spring rate) then by not increasing the front spring rate, you will have increased the vehicles tendency to over-steer, in a car that has snap over-steer characteristics to begin with (pretty scary in the wet particularly). If I where you I would defiantly go down the higher front spring rate option.
Thanks for that Colin, the King Springs I put in the rear I believe are a higher spring rate than origional (they were certainly shorter), so I will take your suggestion on fitting similar Sport new front springs so that it will be safer as a good road car.
I hope to enjoy driving the car this year before Phase 2 which will be a new paint job to replace the current spray can patch up job!
Cheers
Tim
Bum down attitude is good because rear roll centre is too high already. Mine car rides 610mm front, 580mm rear at the highest point of the wheel arches unloaded. While you're down there, discard the rear ARB as not needed.
Heed Colin's advice about stiffer front springs, or go back to standard springs all round.
Shortening a spring will increase spring rate. The following are only rough calculations as they do not take into account the actual material your springs are made from and any loss on springability? The standard rears from my 1750 GTV (7 active coils, 4.59" outside diameter coil, .434" wire = 101Lb/in. Cutting off 1 coil will increase rate by 18% to 118Lb/in. Cutting off 2 coils = 42% increase over stock, 142Lb/In.
Standard fronts are (4 active coils, 5.35" outside diameter coil, .662" wire = 669Lb/in. Cutting off 1 coil will increase rate to 893Lb/in - which is about right with Koni yellows.
BTW. My Koni yellows had about 2.5 turns of adjustment. With 800Lb/in front springs, 2.25 turns of rebound damping was too much although turn-in was sharp. Over consecutive bumps like a rail crossing, the car would almost bottom out because it was too much rebound for the spring rate. The shocks weren't fully rebounding before the next bump, so would compact down. At least a quarter turn too stiff. Your mileage may vary.
The King Springs you have, KARS-04 are 150Lb/in - .492" wire. Should match up well to 1 coil shortened standard fronts. Adjust height using standard spacers to get the ride height you want. Bum down! See pic of mine attached. Mine's running Alfaholics stuff.
I've not tried it, but as a guess I'd say 2 coils off the back, and 1 off the front would probably result in about an inch or so lower ride height.
Cheers
George
Thanks for the very informative spring rate info George. I do now want to increase the front spring rate as well as lower the front down about an inch, I am happy with the rear ride height.
As you suggested, chopping about an inch from my stock front springs should give me a higher spring rate to better match my King Spring rears, however would this also lower the car by more than an inch?
I would not want to have to put a heap of spacers back under the front springs to raise it up again.
From the picture of your car, which looks fantastic by the way, your road stance does not look bum heavy, it even looks a tad front lower. I am using the crease line that runs the length of the car as a datum to get the car to sit level or just slightly rear lower, what are your measurements from ground to crease line above each wheel?
I had read some articles regarding problems with chopping off springs and there by giving adverse spring rates......will need to learn some more on this before I take action.
Thanks
Tim
There are many things to consider here.
1. Shortening a spring will always make it stiffer. Keep cutting down a spring and it gets exponentially stiffer as it approaches infinite stiffness at zero coils.
2. Because the front springs are mounted half way along the lower wishbone, removing a 7mm spacer (common factory fitted alloy spacer) will lower front by 14mm. Shortening the spring by 1" will not lower the car 2" because the shorter spring is now stiffer so it will compress less.
3. There are more than one spring pans (ebspares list a shallow and a deep pan), and a variety of spacers and seats (both above and below the spring). Which are in your car is anyone's guess.
Back to my ride height. The photo is deceptive because the car is not sitting on level ground. Now, front is 697mm to the crease line, rear is 682mm to crease line, making my rear 15mm lower than the front. The photo is from when I was running the Alfaholics "C" kit with Koni yellows. Since then have changed fronts to Alfaholics 2 1/4" springs with their geometry kit and Bilsteins all round. These 2 changes alone took 4 attempts to get front ride height correct - the Bilsteins were fitted later. 1st set of 2 1/4 spings were either too short or did not suit my spring pans. Second set eventually needed 2 x 5mm spacers to get the ride back to were it was in the attached photo. Ride height went up by 10mm all around just by changing from Koni yellows to Bilsteins.
So if you are going to chop the front springs, it will have to be by trial and error. Start with 1" and go from there. Also, don't forget to drive the car after each change (around the block will do) so that it will settle down on the springs before you measure it.
Cheers
George
Thanks again George, the thought of removing the front springs a number of times to get it right does not appeal to me much as I have a deep respect for springs under tension.
Tim
No need to compress the springs on the front. Just make yourself some of these spring removal tools from allthread and a few nuts. See http://www.alfaholics.com/new_products/document_727_121.php . Simply replace the bolts holding up the spring pans one at a time, and wind the spring pans down.
Easy Peasy, and safe too.
Harder to describe than do.
Thanks for the tip George on using threaded rod to remove the front springs, and yes it was much easier and safer than expected. I purchased all the bits from bunnings, namely three 3/8 threaded rods cut to about 270mm each, 9x 3/8 nuts and washers and I used 12mm nuts as spacers so that they provide clearance to swing the spanner on the lower 3/8 nut......great idea!
Taking the springs out revealed very rusty spring pans, I hope to reuse these, the lower spring rubber and seat are R/S. Also noted the A arm ball joints and bushes look to be worn as well. The bushes on the A arm look tricky to remove, I have attemped to remove the end caps, I stopped before destroying them.....may need to take it to an alfa shop to get these fitted.
When it is ready to put back together I will then probably chop an inch (in height) from my front springs as you suggested....hopefully this will lower the car by about 25-30mm.
Regards
Tim
After much info collecting on the best way to level my ride height, I decided to bit the bullet and purchase a new set of "Fast Road" front springs for my 105 from pace Engineering.
I also purchased new spring pans and rubber supports as the origionals were too far gone. The thought of removing springs in and out to experiment with ride height was not really appealing.
Any way I was delighted to see the car have a fairly level stance with a firmer than standard set up yet still plenty of ground clearance for daily driving which is what I wanted.
Thanks everyone for your suggestions and advice that made the task alot easier. I will have to wait awhile until I strip her down for a new paint job, in the mean time I will finally get around to checking her valve clearances and timing.
Tim