I picked up the ICS N1 coilovers on sale at black friday from @ron@whoosh and decided to make a thread about my install and experience with them. I'm replacing whiteline springs with stock dampers. The car was too bouncy and low for my liking even if it was better than stock.
First here is how my car looked on the whiteline springs:
Next up I unboxed the suspension. The packaging was great, they included covers which I appreciate. The instructions are very generic and mostly useless. I checked ISC's website earlier and they didn't have anything specific for the fiesta. I decided to call them to ask about the rear beam setup install, pressed 2 for support and got a voicemail. So not a great start. At least all the components look well built.
Tonight I tackled the rear of the car and will do the front tomorrow (and update this thread again.
I forgot the the golden rule of working on rear beam setups: first unbolt both shocks or you'll have a bad time. So I muscled my old springs out when it could have been so easy if I had undone both shocks and let the beam hang fully down.
I'm used to seeing the rear spring adjuster at the top but with the ICS design it's very clear that the adjust goes on the bottom only. I used anti seize on any threads that will remain exposed and ran the collars up and down to spread it around, will probably do this yearly. The rear of my car was 23.25" from floor to highest point of rear arch with the whiteline springs. I wanted to go at least 24, ideally 24.5 with my new setup.
Let's take a time out to talk about rear preload and droop. Preload is how much pressure is on the spring while it has the shock connected, but is in the air. ISC calls for 5mm of preload front and rear. On the front combined coilover (aka true coilover) this is really easy. You spin the spring hand tight, snug up the locking spring, the wind the top spring up to create a 5mm gap and lock it all down. But on a divorced rear beam setup, things are much more tricky. First you spin the spring height adjuster until you think you have it about where you want, then you need to adjust the length of the shock so that when you bolt the bottom of it to the beam it will compress the spring that 5mm. This is basically impossible to get right, the spring will want to sit diagonally and there is no good way to measure. So I just tried to make sure it was compressing a little bit and called it good enough. This brings me to my first big annoyance: I can't get the car high enough because the shock length is too short. There is a little window on the shock (see my image with the tape measure), and you want the whole thing filled with threads to be safe. I was able to get the rear of the car to 24 inches but no more (unless I'm adjusting the preload wrong). For those who might want to copy, I spun the collars 20 rotations up from the bottom on the spring adjuster, and set the shocks to the maximum length where threads filled the inspection window.
Once I had the backs installed. I felt around in the trunk for where the tops where, and took a razor and cut an X in the carpet and stuck the adjusters in. I'm going to start for 5/32 clicks in the rear.
So that's where I'm calling it a night, tomorrow I'll do the fronts and make another post. Let me know if I missed something obvious or you have any tips or questions. thanks.
First here is how my car looked on the whiteline springs:
Next up I unboxed the suspension. The packaging was great, they included covers which I appreciate. The instructions are very generic and mostly useless. I checked ISC's website earlier and they didn't have anything specific for the fiesta. I decided to call them to ask about the rear beam setup install, pressed 2 for support and got a voicemail. So not a great start. At least all the components look well built.
Tonight I tackled the rear of the car and will do the front tomorrow (and update this thread again.
I forgot the the golden rule of working on rear beam setups: first unbolt both shocks or you'll have a bad time. So I muscled my old springs out when it could have been so easy if I had undone both shocks and let the beam hang fully down.
I'm used to seeing the rear spring adjuster at the top but with the ICS design it's very clear that the adjust goes on the bottom only. I used anti seize on any threads that will remain exposed and ran the collars up and down to spread it around, will probably do this yearly. The rear of my car was 23.25" from floor to highest point of rear arch with the whiteline springs. I wanted to go at least 24, ideally 24.5 with my new setup.
Let's take a time out to talk about rear preload and droop. Preload is how much pressure is on the spring while it has the shock connected, but is in the air. ISC calls for 5mm of preload front and rear. On the front combined coilover (aka true coilover) this is really easy. You spin the spring hand tight, snug up the locking spring, the wind the top spring up to create a 5mm gap and lock it all down. But on a divorced rear beam setup, things are much more tricky. First you spin the spring height adjuster until you think you have it about where you want, then you need to adjust the length of the shock so that when you bolt the bottom of it to the beam it will compress the spring that 5mm. This is basically impossible to get right, the spring will want to sit diagonally and there is no good way to measure. So I just tried to make sure it was compressing a little bit and called it good enough. This brings me to my first big annoyance: I can't get the car high enough because the shock length is too short. There is a little window on the shock (see my image with the tape measure), and you want the whole thing filled with threads to be safe. I was able to get the rear of the car to 24 inches but no more (unless I'm adjusting the preload wrong). For those who might want to copy, I spun the collars 20 rotations up from the bottom on the spring adjuster, and set the shocks to the maximum length where threads filled the inspection window.
Once I had the backs installed. I felt around in the trunk for where the tops where, and took a razor and cut an X in the carpet and stuck the adjusters in. I'm going to start for 5/32 clicks in the rear.
So that's where I'm calling it a night, tomorrow I'll do the fronts and make another post. Let me know if I missed something obvious or you have any tips or questions. thanks.