Topic: Unseating front coils need advice!!

[stan98tj]

Heres the deal:
I purchased a suspension kit from DPGOffroad.com. The kit came well recommended by a lot of folks on Jeepforum and other sites. The point of their setup is all about LCG (Low Center of Gravity) kits, rigs running 35" tires on as little as 2-2.5" of lift. The kits all use Old Man Emu for springs and shocks.

When I first took it off road, i unseated and completely lost my front coil. I noticed the axle was off center and the bumpstop shaft was pushing it out. I installed the kit's JKS adjustable trac bar and centered it and drilled 2 bolts at the bottom of the spring seat to act as a way to secure the spring ( i lost the spring a few more times before doing that).

Here is my issue, a few of my wheeling buddies are 100% sure that I am not running the correct size springs for the shocks I am running. The kit came with long travel shocks. They are arguing that the moment the spring becomes unseated, the droop i get is wasted "flex" as there is no longer any fore pushing down on the drooped tire. They say I need to run 4" springs or a progressive spring that would not become unseated. I called DPG about this and they guy flat told me - in a near cocky way- that this was just a bunch of bull and the reason they thought that was because no one understands LCG rigs and that everyone has been brainwashed by the "big lift" market and that the market is just now starting to come around to the LCG world. He said basically if I went up to a 4" spring, i would mess with stability and mess with geometry and essentially lose all the positive points that LCG offers, and if i ran shorter shocks, i would lose the droop my long travel shocks provided. He also said it didn't matter if the drooped wheel didnt have a spring pushing on it since I have a locked front so i wouldn't lose traction. My friends are COMPLETELY against his theory...one in particular calling him an idiot...saying that the low end with no spring load is no good for traction.
Can someone tell me who is right?

here are some pics. You can see here at near full flex the spring has a 3-4" gap above it, so nothing would be "pushing" down on the drooped side:




Again showing the spring with clearance above it. DPG noted, the bumpstops they use are not the same as mine. Mine extend the shaft while theres are placed on the plate which is better as mine cause the spring to come in contact with the extended shaft which could cause it to pop the spring out.

[neale_rs]

Capturing the spring at the bottom was the right thing to do.  Letting it droop with no spring pressure is fine as long as the spring doesn't fall out (which seems to have been solved with the fix on the bottom of the spring).   It still has part of the axle weight on the tire until the shock stops the droop.  With leaf springs or with coils captured top and bottom (unless the coils are long enough to keep pushing at full droop, which is almost never the case unless you have coilovers or air shocks) it is not quite as good because the spring will be pulling up on the axle at full droop.

 It looks like it has great flex!

[stan98tj]

Capturing the spring at the bottom was the right thing to do.  Letting it droop with no spring pressure is fine as long as the spring doesn't fall out (which seems to have been solved with the fix on the bottom of the spring).   It still has part of the axle weight on the tire until the shock stops the droop.  With leaf springs or with coils captured top and bottom (unless the coils are long enough to keep pushing at full droop, which is almost never the case unless you have coilovers or air shocks) it is not quite as good because the spring will be pulling up on the axle at full droop.

 It looks like it has great flex!

I gave Savvy offroad (they are quite active on Jeepforum along with a guy named Mr. Blaine) a call and they seem to be against this completely. I must note that the Savvy guy gave no importance to the notion of axle droop as he favored up-travel over droop. I find that hard to understand. He also said that the spring should never fall away from the top of its mount. Essentially when it does, it signifies the axle has drooped too far and you're left with "wasted travel" or "unusable flex."  Essentially my shock is a long travel shock-meant for a 4" kit and paired with a 2.5" spring. He figured my ride was prob pretty stiff since the shock was prob close to compressed.  I checked and it didnt seem too compressed, but now he's gotten in my head and started making me think the ride is too stiff.
Is that much droop "unusable flex"?

[sharpxmen]

limiting straps

EDIT: you can't use any of the droop once the coil is not resting on the seats anymore since all the load on that wheel is just the weight of the wheel anyway, a limiting strap will keep the coil in check and should have no negative impact on the travel (the only time you "unseat" the coil  would be when the wheel is suspended anyway so there's no point getting there).

[aw12345]

They all are selling you a bunch of baloney, as far as shocks getting stiff, shock valving is pretty much the same through it's entire travel. Springs coming loose on the front of a lifted TJ is a common thing. A antirock resolves a lot of that. As far as limit straps you can run a center strap with about 2-3" of droop before it gets tight.
With a center strap once it's tight when one wheel pushes up the other wheel gets pushed down regardless of the spring being loose on the side that has the droop.
Even with 6" lift springs they can fall out when the swaybar is unhooked.
Would not bother with with limit straps at each wheel or worry much about the springs being loose, as long as they stay put , you are fine. If the Jeep wheels well to your liking I wouldn't change a thing.

[stan98tj]

They all are selling you a bunch of baloney, as far as shocks getting stiff, shock valving is pretty much the same through it's entire travel. Springs coming loose on the front of a lifted TJ is a common thing. A antirock resolves a lot of that. As far as limit straps you can run a center strap with about 2-3" of droop before it gets tight.
With a center strap once it's tight when one wheel pushes up the other wheel gets pushed down regardless of the spring being loose on the side that has the droop.
Even with 6" lift springs they can fall out when the swaybar is unhooked.
Would not bother with with limit straps at each wheel or worry much about the springs being loose, as long as they stay put , you are fine. If the Jeep wheels well to your liking I wouldn't change a thing.

With the the bolts I drilled into the spring pad, I'm not worried about the springs falling out. I'd like to keep my droop, but I'm being told it's useless since the shock is allowing it to drop further than the length of the spring and therefor has no force pushing the wheel down. Also, Savvy basically told me droop was useless for crawling rock-said they prefer max uptravel with slight droop. Is that something you go for as well, Art? I know you do a ton of rock crawling.

[aw12345]

For rock crawling buggies it's actually the other way around with coilovers or air shocks droop is a good thing. My big Jeep has 5" up in the rear and 9" down down travel. In the front it's 6" up and 8" down. Buggy is going to get 5" up and 11 down in the front and 5" up and 13" down in the rear. Your Jeep since it's basically a street driven vehicle should have 3-4" uptravel if you don't want to bottom out on every speed bump. They like all that uptravel since to go fast in the desert you need uptravel in the suspension. For street driving if you are happy with the way it works then leave it alone. As I said in the previous post a center strap will convert some of the useless droop in usable droop.

[neale_rs]

There is a "legendary" Jeep here locally that works uncommonly well. It has been the first to make a bunch of crazy obstacles where many others had failed. It has custom long arms and coils.  The springs on it unseat at the top by 6 or 7 inches, sometimes they go beyond the bump stop extension and somebody has to guide the spring back in, but it works so well that it would be hard to say that unseating springs reduce performance. 

[stan98tj]

ok so the overall opinion is that my unseated coils will not affect my performance in a negative way. I'm looking into the anti-rock system or strap that Art suggested. I had heard that the on-road characteristics when running the anti-rock is somewhat reduced. Of course, if any of you have used that system, feel free to chime in.

here is a pic of the unseating that occurs while on the trail. The coil no longer falls out, but as you can see is unseated. I run a locker up front so I couldnt understand why some of those guys out there are against this by saying you lose traction because the spring is no longer pushing down on the drooped wheel. I felt as though it was working fine, and you guys don't seem to think it's a concern.

kind of blurry:



Better pic

[sharpxmen]

I run a locker up front so I couldnt understand why some of those guys out there are against this by saying you lose traction because the spring is no longer pushing down on the drooped wheel. I felt as though it was working fine, and you guys don't seem to think it's a concern.

you don't lose traction, you just have none once it has no load on it, but limiting the travel won't make it any better for traction just will keep the coil in place, if you can get away without it then it doesn't matter.

[Jeffy]

With the the bolts I drilled into the spring pad, I'm not worried about the springs falling out. I'd like to keep my droop, but I'm being told it's useless since the shock is allowing it to drop further than the length of the spring and therefor has no force pushing the wheel down. Also, Savvy basically told me droop was useless for crawling rock-said they prefer max uptravel with slight droop. Is that something you go for as well, Art? I know you do a ton of rock crawling.

The reasoning is that with very little weight on that tire, there's very little traction.  It's basically the same reasoning people didn't like Revolver shackles.

The problem you run into with coils though is that you can only put so large of a spring in there before you start to get limited by the compressed length.  Not to mention having too much lift.  It's OK that your shocks are longer.  Actually, it's preferred as you don't want your suspension hanging on the shocks.  That's a good way to damage them.

I don't think I've ever seen a car or truck where the up travel was more then the down travel.  One problem I see if when you have more up travel then down, you keep the CG low but you're also going to be dragging the drivetrain over everything because of it.  Look at all the low-slung rock-crawlers and they have very limited up travel with almost all of their suspension is down.  At an extreme, all desert racers have huge down travel compared to their up travel.

[jagular7]

From the pics, you look to have too much shock for down travel. XJs have a little tang that is bolted to the axle mount to hold the coil onto the mount. Its 1 little hook. However, you can add a brace across the axle mount and secure it with bolts. You'll have to drill and tap the hole as the front axle passenger side is difficult to get a nut under it due to the track bar brackets. Driver's front and both axle mounts in the rear are easy to gain access. You usually have to drill and tap anyways to add bump stop risers....rather than use a riser, you a 3/8 x 1 plate. Issue is when at full compress, you compress the coil on top of this. For the top, you can add a round plate small enough secure the coil from coming out. It can be fit between the bump stop mount in the down stub.

I have ACOS up front wth 3" bump stop riser to protect my shock. My shock has 12.5" body. My coil does unseat but is held in by the ACOS itself.

The rear is more relative to loose a coil. The coils float both top and bottom. To hold the coil in the base, do the same thing with a plate bolted into the base.

For the rear, I have 2" poly spacer and this gives a bump stop extension. I've got 1" bump stop riser on the axle and a longer poly bump stop in the stock moutn. My shock body is 13" in the rear. Like the same, at full articulation, the coil is retained by the bump stop. I

[aw12345]

Have had a antirock on the front of my yellow Jeep for years. Yes it gives more body roll on the street, drives much better offroad though, A TJ with the front swaybar disconnected makes you just about sea sick it rolls so much.
Anyway if you have plenty of coins to burn go antirocks front and rear.
My simple advice is this, if the springs don't come out go wheel it have fun and when other Jeeps that are similar in setup as yours, but do better then start looking at them and figure out what makes it work better.
You gain the most by fixing the rear suspension. If the rear geometry is good it will climb like a mountain goat, as long as the front suspension doesn't unload.
As long as you can get the front tires up and over stuff the front does pretty much what it needs to do.

[stan98tj]

Have had a antirock on the front of my yellow Jeep for years. Yes it gives more body roll on the street, drives much better offroad though, A TJ with the front swaybar disconnected makes you just about sea sick it rolls so much.
Anyway if you have plenty of coins to burn go antirocks front and rear.
My simple advice is this, if the springs don't come out go wheel it have fun and when other Jeeps that are similar in setup as yours, but do better then start looking at them and figure out what makes it work better.
You gain the most by fixing the rear suspension. If the rear geometry is good it will climb like a mountain goat, as long as the front suspension doesn't unload.
As long as you can get the front tires up and over stuff the front does pretty much what it needs to do.

Yeah, the rear suspension does pretty well. I'm gonna have to read up on the CUrrie anti-rock

[Bounty Hunter]

I'm a fan of LCG and droop over compression.  Repeated over-compression of springs is common in our sport and dramatically shortens the life of a spring.

If you unload one end of the axle, your traction is very limited regardless of the spring being seated or not.  Solving the unseated spring with a limiting strap or longer springs will get you nowhere faster.