AudiAgs

I'm running the Stasis Streetsports...(yes, for those wondering they are a little softer than what I hoped for, my uncalibrated buttocks says they seem softer than stock sport...but after dumpping a grand on them there's no turning back)... so i want to know other peoples experience in adjusting the heights.

To get approximately the same height on the fronts 25.75" my exposed thread is about 1/2-1" different between the right and left side. I think there is even more of a difference in the rears...I realize the weight distribution is different at each corner and that will influence the load on the spring at each corner...but I haven't been able to find a spec on what the weight distribution is on our cars so am not sure what to expect. So when folks are setting their heights to a certain level...let's say 25.75" is that just an average so each corner may be off 1/4" or so? Or do you adjust the spring perch so that all the heights are exactly equal and expect that the exposed thread under each perch (at each corner) is going to be different. This issue has always perplexed me...

I was running em at 25.5" but with winter coming and me doing a whole front control arm replacement this weekend I figure I'd adjust the heights for winter at the same time.

AudiAgs

Set your spring perches even on each axle...make sure an equal amount of thread is showing below the perch on the driver's side coilover and passenger's side on each axle. The rears will likely have a different amount of thread showing under the perch than the fronts to acheive your desired ride height but again make sure they are even on the axle left side to right side. This will result in slightly different ride heights at each corner but will get the car closest to the original balance as it came from the factory. For me, my fronts ended up almost dead even in ride height (I chose 25.75") and I was within 1/8" on each side, but the rears ended up being 3/8 - 1/2" different. Driver's rear was about 25.5-25.625, passengers rear was about 26". I'm going to leave it that way though because she seemed a lot smoother over bumps and better balanced today on the road. It really felt significantly more so to me.

If you want to address the overall balance and improve handling even further than the the way it came from the factory you could corner balance the vehicle. You need four scales to do this and in summary you adjust the spring perch to change the load or amount of weight each wheel is carrying until you reach an optimum weight distribution for your car. If you are interested, there are a number of posts and articles out there describing the process and calculations, just do a search on "corner balancing". Now mind you, if you go to this level of adjustment to optimize handling on your car, your ride heights will not match on each corner because the very way you increase or decrease the weight load at each corner is by increasing or decreasing the spring perch until you reach an optimum balance point. So you have to make a set up decision...go for looks and match ride heights at each corner, or adjust the corners for optimum weight distribution and handling but sacrifice looks by having uneven ride heights at each corner. I understand that the ride heights have a greater chance of being different for a softer set of springs, when corner balancing. Of course you can always take the easier path...find a shop that does it and have them corner balance for you. Furthermore, there seems to be a significant amount of debate whether corner balancing on the average street car helps at all given the amount of soft bushings in the suspension. So if you don't track or have a track set up you may not want to bother.

btw...this approach will work for any coilover, not just the Stasis/Koni package I'm using.


Sorry for the long post but, since I spent countless hours scouring the Audiworld site and found only one post on the S4/RS4 forum I thought I would summarize my findings to save some other weekend mechanic like myself the agony and time of reading a half million posts. I actually left the Audiworld site and googled for a while and found a post on a porsche forum and some other sports car forums, and read some installation instructions from various coilover manufacturers and vendors and one thing lead me to another...anyway I'm pretty pleased with my ride quality now...good luck with your project.