coilovers + sway bars - one wheel in the air on driveway :( - three wheeling?

[onosqv]

Well, after a long *** july 4th weekend , I'm finally done w/ the majority of the things I had planned for by lil baby (89 240sx).

Anyway, the major things are the suspension technique sway bars & kts coilovers.

I didn't lower the car "that much" - rear fender is just above tire & front looks about 1/2" - 1" lower than sportline.

First time was when I was trying to get up a steep driveway, so I angle, and vrrom vrrrooom no move - one wheel is in the air - put it in neutral, had some help pushing it so the wheels hit the ground - go up again at less of an angle (scrape, but got up). I guess you call this 3 wheeling, but it was more like on 2 wheels.

Raised the car up in the rear a little thinking that would help the problem...

Then later going up my own driveway, no more than 30-45 degree angle & the car is three wheelin it again.

How do I correct this? Does it have to do w/ the coilovers or sway bars or both?

The coilovers are set to "soft setting" - 4 out of 16 *edit: spring pre-load: 0 or really close, basically just about enough to clamp the spring down

& the sway bars don't seem to have a setting - just bushings that are suppose to be tightened til they "bulge"

It's not the biggest hassle, but I don't want to be stuck in the middle of the street somewhere - that's too dangerous for me.

Thanks guys.
Modified by brokeAs240sx at 11:38 PM 7/4/2005

[sil80drifter]

I'm afraid that this is somethign you'll have to live with, until you get an LSD of some sort. It's the same situation as spining one wheel in the winter, or when it's raining. In an open differential, the wheel with the least resistance gets the power transferred to it, so unless you can get something under it (like a wheel ramp), you'll be stuck.

I know it's tough entering driveways when your car is lowered, but as logn as you have the open diff, you'll have to do this:Entering the driveway at the biggest possible angle without scraping the front bumper, and as soon as your front wheels have cleared, start straightening the car out. That's as good as it gets for your setup. In the winter you'll have to have somethign in your trunk that you can put under that spinning wheel to prevent you from gettign stuck everywhere. Just be mindful of very steep druveways in your area. I know I was, until I got my VLSD

sil80

[onosqv]

Ok, that's what I figured (now I have a legit excuse to get an lsd, haha).

So a vlsd is good enough? I don't need to get a fancy two-way or anything?

... Let's see if I can make it up the parking lot driveways to get an alignmet... , wish me luck.

[lrb_2000]

yeah, i don't see a point in spending $800 on an LSD if you're not going to be doing some mad crazy drifting all day, when you can spend like $200 or maybe less for a vlsd from a junk yard or something.... but that's just what I think... I don't know anything.

[onosqv]

Well, got my alignment - need to go back - car is swaying to right.

Driveways haven't been "as bad" after I raised the rear & front some - good thing my aftermarket front bumper is almost stock height, the exhaust seems to want to almost scrape on some driveways/lots but not dangerously 1 can crazy low, low, haha.

I'll be on the lookout for a vlsd, was thinking maybe just getting the one from lsauto.com.

Also, I talked to SPL about the problem & they said getting helper springs will alleviate the problem, which they sell also -> same cost as a used vlsd... I don't feel like ripping my suspension apart again any time soon, hahaha.

Thanks for all your help guys, gotta get used to NOT going deep angles .

[HisMajesty]

I'm only posting because nobody really answered one of your original questions. The reason you are "three wheeling" is from the sway bar. The sway bar basically connects the two sides together, so when one wheel goes down, the other goes up. And like everybody else already said, getting an lsd will send some power the wheel that is not up in the air.

[lonelywanderer]

my car 3 wheels with just coilovers.... i think its just the spring rate kinda hard

[slownslurious]

its the bars, stiffer springs contribute. I have very stiff springs and very stiff bars and the same **** happens to me on a regular basis.

[cyrus240sx]

i remember structure had shown a picture of his car 3 wheeling awhile ago when he got coil overs.... didnt think it could ever be a problem...

btw what happened to your pimped 240? you sell it?

Modified by cyrus240sx at 1:44 PM 7/11/2005
Modified by cyrus240sx at 2:13 PM 7/11/2005

[onosqv]

It was just a problem because I was used to going slow and high angle (before I only put sportlines on but after my old body kit, it scraped a lot - vis techno-r one).

After the new body kit, it wasn't so bad, but now I lowered it more w/ coilovers.

Soooo... when I go slow & high angle, I get stuck -> driveways not so bad since I'm the only one around

when I get stuck on steep driveways (i.e. alignment shop, shopping plaza, or the worst of them all: Super Autobacs in OC - never understood why they have such a deep driveway when most super autobacs customers have slammed *** cars, haha) there's usually some traffic, so it can get a little hairy.

Currently, I've raised it enough so that I can kind of "bash" through like Structure was recommending sort of. I only scrape my poor lil exhaust for now, body kit doesn't matter too much to me.

The other thing I thought of as being an issue is if I have someone else drive my car (not that I want them too, but sometimes you don't have a choice) - don't want to endanger other ppl, so I just tell them to not worry bout the body kit and go straight on into bumps & dips.

[st33f]

weld that ****!