Bc Coilovers For Nm35 Stagea.

[Daleo]

Sooo, I got home today to find my BC BR Coilover kit had arrived by FEDEX!

I've been talking to the vendor on Ebay for quite some time about these kits regarding the fitment issues encountered by Scotty last year. He did some research with BC, found out about the issues and was assured the kits for the NM35 were updated in Sept to correct ALL fitment issues.

So in the next few days I'll be fitting these up, and once I'm done I'll post up some pics and hopefully some positive results regarding fit. Also I'll try to describe the ride quality (improvement or otherwise) and adjustment proceedure.

Given the poor damping my stock suspension is displaying at the moment, I'm expecting a decent improvement.

Wish me luck! Dale

[scotty nm35]

Good luck

No seriously, I hope you have a better time fitting them than I did. They handle pretty good for the price.

[KNG35M]

Hey Dale

how did u go with the bc's

cheers

[Daleo]

Hey Dale

how did u go with the bc's

cheers

Hey Damo, been busy with work, but have the fronts in and height set, rear shocks in, but haven't had time to drop in the rear springs yet.

Fronts were a piece of piss, probably took an hour or so (had to take them out a couple of times to finetune heights.

Rear shocks; still had to use original top mounts, but all the new rubbers and spacers fit fine, bottom fork mount is closer now, only used a 1.5mm spacer when fitting.

Damper rates are very nice, at fully out, they are not much harsher than std, just much more controlled, fully in; rides like a brick, so there's plenty of leeway for personal taste. Front springs are claimed to be 10kg/mm, rears 8kg/mm; they don't seem to be anything like that hard, but quite ample for my family car. I'm extremely pleased so far, given I paid $1100 delivered.

Don't know about rear spring height yet. Scotty; do you remember the free length of your BC springs? Mine are 265mm high with the digits 62 97 260 012 printed on them. Hopefully different to yours.

So on the face of it, quite a good spend, will update once I have enough time to fit rear springs.

Cheers, Dale.

[scotty nm35]

Hey Damo, been busy with work, but have the fronts in and height set, rear shocks in, but haven't had time to drop in the rear springs yet.

Fronts were a piece of piss, probably took an hour or so (had to take them out a couple of times to finetune heights.

Rear shocks; still had to use original top mounts, but all the new rubbers and spacers fit fine, bottom fork mount is closer now, only used a 1.5mm spacer when fitting.

Damper rates are very nice, at fully out, they are not much harsher than std, just much more controlled, fully in; rides like a brick, so there's plenty of leeway for personal taste. Front springs are claimed to be 10kg/mm, rears 8kg/mm; they don't seem to be anything like that hard, but quite ample for my family car. I'm extremely pleased so far, given I paid $1100 delivered.

Don't know about rear spring height yet. Scotty; do you remember the free length of your BC springs? Mine are 265mm high with the digits 62 97 260 012 printed on them. Hopefully different to yours.

So on the face of it, quite a good spend, will update once I have enough time to fit rear springs.

Cheers, Dale.

I can jack it up and check the numbers if you want...

So they havent fixed anything mate? At least you had warning. Have you told the supplier?

The rear height is about perfect at full stretch on mine so I was never too worried. I can spin up a spring spacer on the lathe, if you need one, to jack it up more but I just used the conical rubber under the spring to gain an extra inch.

[Daleo]

I can jack it up and check the numbers if you want...

So they havent fixed anything mate? At least you had warning. Have you told the supplier?

The rear height is about perfect at full stretch on mine so I was never too worried. I can spin up a spring spacer on the lathe, if you need one, to jack it up more but I just used the conical rubber under the spring to gain an extra inch.

Yeah, seems that way, not really that worried, what I had to re-use, took no time to change anyway... I'll fit the springs and see how I go.

Thanks for the offer, if I need 'em I'll just turn them up at work; they can pay for materials.

I'll definitely be getting in touch with the supplier, he was very upfront and seemed interested to know how it went.

Still quite happy for the price though.

BTW, did your little boost sensor repair, nice find.

Cheers, Dale

[Daleo]

Ok, so I fitted the rear springs yesterday, for those who don't know how;

Jack up car, support car on stands.

Remove wheels (optional) You can get at everything you need with them on.

Loosen the outer locating bolt on the lower arm.

Mark position of eccentric bolt on inner mount (critical for toe adjustment) and loosen.

Support arm under spring mounting cup with trolley jack.

Jack up slightly to remove load from eccentric bolt, slide bolt out.

Lower jack, which allows arm to swing down and towards the outside of car.

Spring will now come free.

Remove upper bump stop snubber.

Install adjustable spring platform in vacated space.

Re-using damping rubber on bottom of spring, install CORRECT LENGTH BC SPRINGS!

Reverse process, jack up, line up inner mount with a punch or similar (Not fingers!) thru hole, install bolt.

Tighten lock rings on spring platforms

Nip up all bolts hand tight only.

Roll car onto ramps, now suspension is at ride height, fully tighten all bolts that were loosened.

Drive car at newly slammed ride height!

The reason for 2nd last step is so you don't tear the centres out of all the rubber bushes, which will be unnecessarily preloaded if you retorque them at full suspension droop.

The final step should be a proper wheel alignment, by someone who knows what they're doing, not K-mart Auto Service

If you install the springs with the platforms at full extension you will have std ride height (on rs/rx).

I elected to go down 20mm on the platforms which gave me 350mm guard lip to hub centre, this matches my 365 lip to centre on the front. Not super low, I know but enough to look much more muscular. as a reference, the front of my car is nearly 60mm lower than with std, the rear around 25mm lower. The car now has a 10mm rake front to rear, and I can still get up my (steep) driveway without scraping. You could however, go low enough to scrape anything & everything!

It is much firmer now, with the rear springs installed, than it was with only the front coilovers in with the BC shocks in the rear. I am running damping at fully out (soft). Still quite acceptable by my standards and absolutely stormin' through my favourite test road. Much flatter, well controlled through multiple consecutive deep undulations at speed. These used to set up a frightening, uncontrollable wallow, now just eats it up and carries on.

Sorry about the length, but I was very much in two minds about these when I purchased them, as there was little or no previous feedback, aside from Scotty's slightly less successful experience. As it stands, these are an excellent set up, with handling that finally befits the character of the car; Devastating when you want it, cruisy when you don't. Very pleased .

I'm happy to field any questions if anyone wishes to know anything more. Cheers, Dale

[andy65b]

where are the pics. :-)

[Daleo]

where are the pics. :-)

I'm a bit of a luddite, so I'll have to sit down and work out how to load some up.

[scotty nm35]

Glad to see you got them in mate and that the springs were longer. They are definitely a great low budget setup, if only they would install correctly.

Do they realise how many sets they would sell if they fitted like JDM?

[BoostdR]

That's good advise scotty to fit the OEM conical upper rubber under the rear BC spring to get an inch of height back. I have to do this also as I almost ripped my exhaust off going out the driveway after fitting up some BC's(2011).

On full extension without the rubber the car sits a fingers width to the tyre and the spring is not overly captive.

Matt