I live in Greece and bought the Ohlins DFV suspension for my IX from Japan. I managed to set the ride height by looking at the pics of the manual but obviously everything else is in Japanese.
I understand that the same model is sold in the USA. Can someone who has the DFV give me the most important info in terms of adjustment/ servicing and other stuff that I should know about.

thanks in advance!

 

Hello Dimitris,

I believe we met on lancerregister. What kind did you get? The one with 10/8 springs or the one with 4.4/5 ?

Peter

 

Hi

I bought this from Fuzyy at OOparts he has really good service.I was actually asked to choose a spring rate from Ohlins Japan. Standard is 10/8 and I got 9/10. I prefer to keep the stock spring rate philosophy. 9 is the soffest I could go with on the front and 10 is the highest for the rear.
My problem is that this suspension was just to good to be true when i first installed it. I used the highest Ohlins recommended height setting (standard is 35mm/30mm, mine is 20mm/15mm). I set the clicks to 2 out of 30 (almost the softest) just to break it in. Using this height setting the rear remained stock and the front was lowered 15-20mm. After a week I lost some of the amazing sharpness of the steering response and the way the car responded to quickly changing lanes with 50 mph.
I measured the height again and the front seems to be lower than before. I wonder if this is what affected the change in the way the car responds. Perhaps now the click adjustment adjusted to this soft setting and I have to stiffen it up.

This is why I am looking for the English owners manual. To doublecheck recommended height and click settings/ break in etc..

 

No help here. The US market also gets the Japanese manual.

Dave

 

that's great :-( !!!! i was wondering if you can adjust as many clicks as you want or if you have to go 2 clicks at a time like older Ohlins coilovers.

 

I'll preface the following by saying -- I'm no expert but I believe the following to be true.

It's my understanding that springs will settle a bit a few days after you put them on. So you probably would need to re-adjust your height settings after a few days of putting on new springs.

A lower ride will change the camber and will probably change the way the car handles.

 

This is correct but for me changes in the way the steering responds are most likely due to more important geometry changes i.e. control arms orientation. Small camber changes should not be so noticeable. I will increase height by 5mm and see what happens.

 

Make sure your spring perch and other measurements are still the same. You may have had something came loose and your suspension is not the same setting anymore.

 

i dont think this is the case. it is most likely my control arms being parallel to the ground. i will report my findings when I readjust the height

 

Yes the US version also comes with the same Japanese manuals but the diagrams are pretty self explanatory and easy to figure out. You can figure out which direction on the knob with soften it and stiffen it. The shocks can easily handle a -/+ 2k spring rate change. The fronts can go from 8K to 12K and the rears can go from 6K to 10K in spring rates very easily. I've had the pleasure of changing springs quite a few times.

Changes in the ride height doesn't change the suspension geometry it only affects the CG, roll center, camber and toe in that particular location. This is probably what has affected the turn in and "feel" of your car. A minor change in toe can greatly change the feel of the car.

Coilover springs don't "settle" like regular car springs due to the design of the upper and lower spring perches and it way too early for the springs to start sagging. If it did that corner weighing the car would be a nightmare! Check your spring perches and make sure they are tight. Also check the 2 bolts that hold the shock body to the bracket and make sure they are tight and there is no play causing changes in ride heights. Just make sure everything is nicely tight and snug.

You can change the ride height back and make sure your alignment is correct. Or you can change the setting on the shock to soften or stiffen it. Probably a good idea to corner weight the car too if you haven't done so.

 

I just my put DFV in stock ride height. I want to keep my CG, roll center etc stock.
i dont care about looks as it certainly drives much better and is more comfortable in 15 clicks in the front and 8 in the back. I had to add more preload on the spring to get 2 cm extra ride height from the front shocks to reach stock height. Ohlins recommends only 1.5 cm extra height from the shock body so i had to change the preload. Now I feel that the front understeers a bit more but i have also reduced my neg camber. I will try about -2 degress camber in front to see if it takes away the understeer.

 

Erm, guys. With adjustable coilovers, isn't ride height a by-product of corner weighting? Or did you guys get adjustable coilovers and not gotten corner balanced?

Getting adjustable coilovers and not getting them corner weighted is like installing a standalone ECU and not getting them tuned, no?

 

Not exactly... Some people prefer to set the height so it looks asthetically pleasing. When you corner weight the car - the end result may not look good. So your "tuning" is based on how you want the car to appear.

Coilovers will work fine without corner weighting. Corner weighting may make it handle better.. but not needed.

 

measuring the distance from the wheel centre to the fender lip is what i do to measure height. also if you have a good eye eyeballing is very good as well.

 

What's the difference between measuring from the wheel centre to fender lip vs measuring from ground to fender lip? Given the higher probably of parallax error where wheel centre is concerned, wouldn't it be better to measure it from ground to fender lip?