[mudmav]

Hey guys so 12 months ago I fitted jimnybits 2 inch extra articulation lift to my sq625

Since this time I have ruined two front struts, it starts with a horrible noise from the strut and when I pull them out they no longer rebound.

So the issue came up again and while I had the car on jack stands I compressed the shock by jacking up the hub assembly. Turns out that when the shock is fully compressed I still have about 70mm of clearance before the bump stops contact???

This confuses me as the car only lifted about 50mm when I fitted the lift? I know the obvious answer is to fit some bump stop spacers (anyone done this on the front). However I am curious as to why this issue is happening.

Specs are below

2 inch jimnybits extra articulation kit
Coil corrections shims fitted in front (to correct spring bend)
Old man emu struts in front with camber correction bolts.


I so t really want to fit bumpstop spacers as I would like a little more up travel in the front anyways. Can anyone help

[Gwagensteve]

Are you using the screw on strut spacers that are included in the kit?

[mudmav]

No as I figured I didn't need to when using a longer shock like the ome

[Gwagensteve]

Can you take a photo? something sounds very wrong.

[mudmav]

I can but not for a couple of days, it just seems really strange to me that I've fitted 2 inch lifted Shocks to suit a car that lifted 50mm and its all gone weird

[Gwagensteve]

There's no such thing as 2" lifted shocks. There really isn't. Never has been. The ONLY relevant measurement for shocks is compressed length, and OME struts, certainly for a Vitara, have the correct compressed length to use standard bumpstop, however, I thought a bumpstop spacer was required to run OME vitara struts on a GV or XL-7



If you're not running these I imagine the strut might overcompress - but these clearly aren't 70mm long, and even when lifted I don't think there will be 70mm between the bumpstop and A arm at ride height.

I'm not expert on GV suspension though

Steve.

[mudmav]

Yeah I'm going to take some more measurements later this afternoon and see what I come up with

[mudmav]

So from the little bit of research I did today I have found that ome front struts have a compressed length of 318mm and standard front struts have a compressed length of 224 mm

So that's a difference of 94mm in compressed length, so ome coils are listed as a 35mm lift over standard height. My lift raised the front 48mm, so even with the 48mm lift that still leaves a difference of 46mm or nearly 2 inches?????

So my question is how would this shock ever work correctly? I would have thought that your replacement shocks would be longer to allow more droop but with a compressed measurement very close to factory spec??

AM I WAY PFF TRACK HERE???

[watermouse]

The 224mm measurement seems way too short even for stock. What are they measuring from? Are the two measurements from the same source?

[Gwagensteve]

You're a bit off track - but it's understandable, almost everyone thinks the same as you - that lift is there all the time. It isn't, its only a new "rest" position of the suspension.

Lets think about it like this.

Lets say a stock GV has 180mm of suspension travel (the accuracy of this number doesn't matter, only the relationship). Stock, that might be 90mm of compression and 90mm of droop. If you lift the car 40mm, you now have 130mm of compression travel and only 50mm of droop. The compression limit is the bumpstop, the droop limit is the length of the strut. The springs don't have anything to do with those limits, they only change the rest position of the suspension.

Some aftermarket struts have added travel. In this case, some "headroom" or safety factor on the compressed side is taken up to add some extended length.

However, I believe that GV's and Vitaras run slightly different strut lengths, so what ARB do is rather than have two part numbers, they add a small bumpstop spacer to the bumpstop, so now the compressed length of the strut can be longer.

Remember that spring travel is 1/2 strut travel on a vitara/GV, and also consider that ARB are using up some safety factor in the strut length to get a longer strut in there, so even though the ARB strut is onger full compressed, there is probably 40mm of additional strut length in used-up safety factor (that's 20mm of bumstop squish being used up) , and the balancenof strut length being accounted for by the (required) spacer. I'm sure that when used with the correct bumpstop spacer these struts work just fine - but they do need the spacer.

It's basically impossible to make a shock that's longer extended than standard but the same length compressed. In fact most "long travel" shocks for "2" of lift" actually have about the same travel as standard. What the manufacturer does is eat up some safety factor, make a shock that's longer compressed by maybe 25mm, make it a bit longer full extended, and whack in heavier valving.

Hope this makes sense.

Remember that regardless of the spring used, wheel travel is a function of shock length and bumpstop position. It has nothing to do with spring length. Your car has the same wheel travel with the springs removed as it does with them in place.

Steve.

[Gwagensteve]

I see these measurements for Vitara struts from an old thread.

STD lenght struts = 390 open 260 closed 5.2" travel
OME = 429 open 243 closed 7.4" travel
Ironman = 430 open 235 closed 7.8" travel

I'm not sure thats right either. I'll keep searching.

[Gwagensteve]

These are monroe's specs for a stock vitara strut:

Compression - 8.750, Extended - 15.250, Travel 6.500

thats 222mm compressed, 387mm extended.
that sits very comfortably with the OME struts at 243 closed 429 open.

[mudmav]

So the struts I have are n103s and I have attached a picture of the spec sheet which doesn't match those lengths your quoting








First two are ARB specs last is Monroe stock length shock??

[mudmav]

Also seems to contradict this

[Gwagensteve]

That looks right.

[mudmav]

Gwagensteve wrote:

These are monroe's specs for a stock vitara strut:

Compression - 8.750, Extended - 15.250, Travel 6.500

thats 222mm compressed, 387mm extended.
that sits very comfortably with the OME struts at 243 closed 429 open.

So the table I listed is correct then???

[Gwagensteve]

Which table?
The last one? - because that's the one that looks right to me - it shows the OME struts to be 23mm longer compressed and 39mm longer extended than standard. That looks right.

Steve.

[mudmav]

Yeah that one looks great but you mentioned earlier that monroes stock strut was 222 compressed and 387 extended

[mudmav]

And if the table i posted is correct and I fitted 2 inch coils with ome shocks then I can't see how I would be having the issues I am

[Gwagensteve]

Those strut lengths I posted are for a Vitara, not a GV.

[mudmav]

That's strange in the ome catalogue vitara and GV use the same strut

[J--A--C--K]

I've only skimmed this thread but wasn't that allready stated at the start, hence the spacers to make up the difference .

[fordem]

A couple of quick points ...

Based on OME's application guides the FK27 bump stop spacer kit is required ONLY for the XL-7, it is NOT required for the GV, or any other Suzuki model.

Based on measurements personally made during the installation of my OME suspension, the compressed length of the OME N103S is 15mm longer than that of a stock GV strut (41601-65D10/41602-65D10) - one of the reasons I made my own measurements is that I had already experienced the wide variations in measurements reported by other people, which I suspect is simply because they measure between different points on the struts (if anyone is interested in the open & closed measurements and how they compare to the OE struts I can provide them).

I am curious as to how mudmav made the measurements in the first post - as I recall it the bump stop sits in the center of the spring, so it limits against the control arm - he reports jacking the "hub assembly" - why wasn't this done under the arm (to me the most logical place), was it done with the spring in or out - if it was done with the spring in, how do you know when the strut is at full compression? Also were the measurements taken with the damaged strut in place - is it possible that the damage is restricting the compression?

Again based on personal experience, I know the OME struts & shocks can be used on a GV with stock springs - this is documented in their application guide and I confirmed it with OME by email before doing exactly that for several months with no problems, and I don't see how that could happen if the strut is limiting at 70mm away from the bump stop with 2" lift springs, my expectation is that I would hit the bump stop 25~75mm before the strut meets end of travel.

[Chop]

Just out of curiosity, are you still running your swaybar? Have you done big whoops/bumps at speed?

[mudmav]

No front sway bar but no real hard work either

[Chop]

Ok, no swaybar means the extended struts would be maxing out at full droop. My dobinson strut died because with my lifted heavy duty springs and no swaybar they would max out, as soon as the swaybar was back on it has been fine as it restricted the droop.