Coilover Sleeve Kits?

[STexan]

Has anyone had any experience with Coilover Sleeve Kits? I have never heard about this till this morning.

Link to Youtube video explaining what I am talking about to avoid confusion.

If so would you recommend this over a pre-assembled coilover set up or recommend the pre-assembled one?

 

[blue2turbo]

So the problem you will run into here is sourcing parts that will work specifically for our cars. A generic coilover sleeve base may not sit properly on the front spring perches of our stock suspension. I doubt you want to get into modifying the strut housing and threading it for coilover lock rings (this is a process that can be done for MR2's for custom Koni coilovers) Also, there has to be a way to adapt it to the upper mounts since our stock system uses a bearing and an upper mount. I don't know of a company that sells generic pillowball mounts or anything like that to work. Coilover sleeves may work in the rear if you can acquire the appropriate perches, but it seems like an awful lot of trouble and I sure wouldn't want cheapo generic coilover springs on my car.

I ran a set of cheap "sleeves" on a Honda CRX waaaaaaaay back in the day with some Tokico shocks and it was damn near dangerous.

In my opinion, your best bet is a pre-assembled setup. This way you know the product was designed with an appropriate spring rate, it is valved to be used with the springs it comes with, and it is directly compatible with the car.

 

[M-Sport fan]

IF Ground control ever releases a kit for out cars, I will go with that on either Koni Sport (yellows), or the Bistein B8s.

I had this setup, with DOUBLE adjustable Koni Sports (rebound AND compression INDEPENDENTLY adjustable, unlike most of the "coils", as some of the sport compact/import crews call them, available for these cars) on my 4th gen Z28 and I LOVED IT.

I have to call GC soon to see IF this is ever going to happen, as they promised over a year ago.

 

[blue2turbo]

Agreed, I have run Koni and Ground control combo before and it was great.

 

[Sprayed150]

IF Ground control ever releases a kit for out cars, I will go with that on either Koni Sport (yellows), or the Bistein B8s.

I had this setup, with DOUBLE adjustable Koni Sports (rebound AND compression INDEPENDENTLY adjustable, unlike most of the "coils", as some of the sport compact/import crews call them, available for these cars) on my 4th gen Z28 and I LOVED IT.

I have to call GC soon to see IF this is ever going to happen, as they promised over a year ago.

spoke to GC a few weeks ago, they claimed they were still planning a fiesta set that would work with the yellows

 

[BRGT350]

I use a similar setup on my Mustang using HD Bilstein struts. A proper designed sleeve that transmits loads between the sleeve and strut coupled with a spring with the correct rate and travel can be very effective. My brother used a set of Ground Controls on his Escort, but he had issues sizing the spring correctly to avoid over compression of the spring. The Ground Control kit was pretty cheap in comparison to the Maximum Motorsports kit that I have on my Mustang.

The advantage of the system is cost and flexibility because you can fit them to multiple dampers and springs to find the right combination. The disadvantage is that unless you know what you are doing, you can easily get it wrong and damage the car. Spring rate, damping high and low rates, and spring travel are critical to get it right. For my Mustang, I worked closely with Maximum Motorsports to select the best spring and damper given a lot of factors on the car and what I was doing with it. Those guys are the experts at Mustang suspensions and their products win races. Even as a suspension engineer, I defaulted to them to help me get it right.

 

[M-Sport fan]

^^^But sadly for us, they (MM) do not bother with our cars at all. (As well as Griggs, UPR, etc. etc.)

IF GC keeps jerking us around and delaying their FiST kit year to year (waiting on them was ONE of the reasons I did not do anything suspension-wise, yet), I will eventually just go for the Swift Spec R springs on a set of Koni Sports/Bilstein B8s.

 

[BRGT350]

Yep, Griggs and MM are Mustang only. Griggs makes really good stuff, but their products tend to be more lightweight and require more replacement. The MM stuff is built solid and will last, but is heavier.