Lowered with coilovers = shortened drop links?

Discussion and technical advice for 84-89 AW10 & AW11 MR2. 3A-LU, 4A-GE, 4A-GZE.

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munter
Posts: 306
Joined: Sat Feb 18, 2012 2:29 pm
Location: Dundee, Scotland

Lowered with coilovers = shortened drop links?

Post by munter »

So two years at MOT time my car failed on knackered drop links. Two years on and I have the same. The rubber is totally wrecked.

Last time I ordered standard replacements from TCB but when they arrived the garage was surprised to see they were too long. After checking with Trevor and Paul Woods my sanity was confirmed - they were the right length but wouldnt fit on the car.

Now I have coilovers fitted and they are set pretty much as low as they will go. Is this why I need shorter drop links? Last time the garage cut and welded them to size should I just do the same again? Would be good to get ones that will last a bit longer this time out!

cheers
shinny
Posts: 2345
Joined: Mon Nov 27, 2006 4:59 pm
Location: Reading, UK

Re: Lowered with coilovers = shortened drop links?

Post by shinny »

This does depend on the coilovers you have. However, with the suspension setup on the SW20, in general if you're lowering the car, you need LONGER droplinks, not shorter.

Also, I personally avoid anything that could mismatch a pair of droplinks (adjustable or, heaven forbid, cut and re-welded). The poiint of the ARB is to resist bodyroll. But if you mismatch your droplinks you'll give the car bias to roll one way rather than the other and muck up the handling.

TBH, I've come to rate the cheap ebay droplinks you can get. I've spent > £100 on a set of whiteline only for them to fail within 2000 miles. When I bought my car I discovered it had a sheared droplink on it because it was roughly half the length of what was needed and had been put under immense load on mountain hairpins.

Unless you have a good reason otherwise, I'd start off with stock length droplinks if I were you. And at £15 a pair, so can afford to experiment.
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