New to working on cars in general. Help., Serious. Options

[Tedskiii]

Well as from my previous thread, I've purchased a 240. And it's my second car. I'm really into them, but I have this fear of working on it ! I don't know why. I guess because I'm new to it, and I don't know where to start !

I'm just scared to mess up because of stupidity. Right now the car is all stock other than coilovers which aren't set low, and an exhaust. The coils are K-Sports, and the exhaust is Megan. I plan Lowering it pretty low, not oil pan scraping low but decent. I plan on picking up a floor jack tomorrow, idk if I should get a low pro, or a regular one.

But my first plan is to adjust the coilovers, but I don't know where to start. I'm trying to find a tech manual or somthing I can just read through to learn more. But for now this is just my regular Daily driver.

Any help/thoughts on this?! Thanks.

[steinkrunk]

There's one tool it seems you have missed and it's the most important one of all. Google, or any search engine, is an insanely valuable resource for wrenching on cars. No matter what you are doing, someone else has already done it and has hopefully written online how/what they did and what to watch out for to not break stuff. Coilover adjustment is rather easy once you actually know what each part does.

Most newer coilovers have preload adjustment separate from ride height adjustment. That means that changing ride height won't have any affect on how tightly or loosely your spring is held in and you won't have to worry about a "drooped" spring falling out if you hit a pothole. The coilover itself has a threaded body in which a bracket and 3 collars are spun on, each part has it's own job and they all work together to make your car happy.

First is the bracket, this connects your coilovers to your front knuckle and is a vital link in making sure your suspension works like it should. It's threaded onto the body and held in place by 17mmx2 bolts. Some brackets have an oval for the top hole to aid in small camber adjustments. Don't worry about that hole at the present time as it has nothing to do with ride height adjustment. Spinning this bracket clockwise up the threaded body will lower ride height, and counter-clockwise will raise ride height. The fronts and rears work in the same manner.

Next is the first of 3 collars. These small aluminum collars spin up and down the coilover's threaded body and "lock" the various pieces of the coilover together. This first collar is meant to lock the lower bracket in place. So after you finish spinning the lower bracket up or down to achieve your desired ride height, turn this collar counter-clockwise and "lock" it to the bracket. This will make sure the bottom bracket doesn't come out of adjustment.

The second and third collars are for spring pre-load. This is something I've never really looked into since I've never driven my car in a motorsports setting. A rule of thumb is to tighten/loosen your top collar against the spring until you can spin the spring by hand but can't move it up or down by hand. Then use the second(middle) collar to lock the top collar in place.

There you have it, coilovers explained in a simple manner. There are also a bunch of other adjustments you can get into like dampening adjustment and camber adjustment, but since you're concerned with lowering your car I just explained that part. Crank your dampening to it's stiffest setting and max out your camber and women's panties will be dropping in no time.