Coilover: Spring Preload

[BryanGrigsby]

Ok, I just installed my coilovers, KTS. When I did I tightened the lower perch and add some preload to the spring. Do I want to do this? Or should I let the let the perch out? I know I dont want to hit the bump stop but I dont think I am in much danger of that.

I understand that preloading creates a greater initial force that the spring has to be over come before the spring will compress. So would I want to run as little preload as possible before hitting the bump stop?

[chmercer]

you dont need to run any preload. if you want to superficially stiffen the spring run some preload. im sure there is much more to it than that but i dont fully understand how to properly preload a car myself, and would leave that to a race alignment shop. just adjust the height of the car with the lower bracket. you would have to do somthing very strange to hit the bumpstops imho.

[Red coupe]

Pre loading can be used to even out the weight distribution of the car side to side and front to rear...I wouldn't mess with it unless you had scales to do it right...you could end up making the car handle different one way or the other, or other strange things.