I had Tanabe Sustec Pro S0C coilovers installed this past weekend.* Given the tight fitment in the rear with 10.5 width wheels, I wanted to give myself some more room.* Also, I found that the rear on the driver side was about ¼ inch lower (26.38 inch ground to fender through center of wheel) than the rear passenger side (26.63 inch).* So I wanted to try to even this out.*

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Starting with the driver side rear, I removed the wheel, removed the bolt that attaches the spring cup to the wheel hub, and removed the tanabe spring, tanabe adjustable perch, and oem rubber cone.* To increase the rear height, I loosened the perch lower seat and lock seat rings and adjusted the rings downward (toward the ground).* I reinstall the rubber cone (top), perch (middle), spring (bottom) and seat the spring properly in the cup. *I have since adjusted the rear 3 times thinking that I’m going to raise it up a good amount only to find a marginal increase in height although the sides area almost equal, off by 1/8 inch.* On the driver side rear, I now have the perch lock seat almost equal to the edge of the bottom of the perch treads and still it is a little lower than the passenger rear (see pic below).* A visual inspection of the passenger rear shows the perch lock seat is sitting maybe ¼ of the length from the top (I think would translate to this side of the car sitting lower).* As I understand with the Tanabe S0C, no adjustment to the strut is needed in the rear.* I must be doing something incorrect because the perch settings are drastically different yet the height is almost the same.* Anyone have any experience with adjusting these?

Driver rear before adjustment, the passenger side rear looks like this:

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Adjusted driver rear to this:


The documentation that came with the set is non existent for the rear spring perch though it does give min/max/middle height ranges:

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Rear LOWEST: 25.62 inches

Rear MIDDLE: 26.38 inches

Rear HIGHEST: 27.71 inches

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To summarize my questions:

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1.******Am I adjusting height correctly in the rear?

2.******How can the perch lock settings between L/R sides be so different yet height is almost the same?*

a.******I will take off the rear passenger side*tonight*to have a closer look to make sure everything is seated properly.*

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Thanks in advance…

 

Picture of the set I have if it helps. Notice the rear struts are not adjustable.

 

UPDATE: messed around with the passenger side rear spring height. I was able to raise it as I had expected. So something is messed up on the driver rear because I can Max out the spring perch and it only equals about a 2 finger gap. Maxing out the spring perch on the pass. rear looks close to stock. Not that I want it like this but it shows something is odd. So a couple possibilities:

I can see more of the rubber cone bushing on the passenger side compared to the driver side. Might the rubber be more fatigued on the driver side?

Another possibility is maybe my car is lopsided??

Or? ? Any other ideas?

I'm thinking of ordering some new rubber cones and rubber spring seat to see if that helps. Otherwise ill be running drastically different perch heights on the rear L&R. Any harm in that?



Can my car be that lopsided?

 

It may be that they have not fully settled-in yet (i.e. very stiff, hardly compressing). Get it to a good even height for now, drive it for a couple hundred miles then try re-adjusting.

 

Did you use the original rubber cones? I replaced my cones with new ones when I installed my suspension since I know the older springs would have worn a groove in the cones. There's a very slight difference in height on mine but not noticeable.

 

Thanks for the feed back guys. I did use the original cones and driver side appears to sit deeper as I can see about 1/8 inch of the cone base on the driver side but on passenger side I can see 1/4 an inch. Maybe this is it. Damn rubber cones cost $40 each!