So you’ve decided to install Professional Awesome Racing/Fortune Auto coilovers on your Honda Insight. Smart move, good for you! This guide isn’t going to be a step-by-step instruction manual, although we will provide some guidance. Taking off the stock suspension and putting on a replacement is a fairly simple job well documented in the OEM service manual, which can be found here. This guide will go more in-depth on how to make your coilover install the best possible for your application. The stock suspension on the Insight leaves a lot to be desired and we’ve stepped in to help. What’s wrong with the stock suspension? In my humble opinion, the biggest shortcomings for the OEM Insight suspension are two or maybe even threefold. First, the suspension doesn’t have adequate compression travel. Anyone who has driven a stock Insight knows the feeling of hitting a bump, the suspension bottoming out, crashing into the bump stops and feeling like the whole car is dying. Combine the minimal bump travel with the next problem, too soft of springs, then you’ve got a perfect recipe for running out of travel and smashing the strut body into the top hat. Lastly, we have inadequate compression damping, which is icing on the cake. In the rally car world, cars need to be softly sprung to manage all the bumps, dips and jumps, but suspension designers compensate by using a lot of suspension travel and compression damping to slow the suspension down under bump to keep the car compliant. Our joint venture with Fortune Auto, years in the making, is this customized set of coilovers with options for both OEM and K-Swap installs! With this in mind, how did we tackle the suspension issues with our coilovers? The great thing about working with Fortune Auto is that the strut assembly is adjustable in so many ways, it gives us a lot of freedom to make any changes necessary to work within the constraints Honda gave us. The first adjustment that we can take advantage of is that the ride height can be controlled via the spring perch as well as the lower spindle mount. Let’s talk about what we can do with these adjustments. The most important adjustment you can make! The lower spindle mount is the most critical step in your coilover installation journey. This controls where the wheel travels within your suspension arc. If you extend this adjustment (making your total strut assembly longer), you limit how far your tire will compress into the wheel well before the bump stop engages. If you reduce this adjustment (making your strut assembly shorter), your wheel will travel further into the wheel well under compression. Neither adjustment is good nor bad, but a choice you need to make depending on the wheels and tires you run and your desired ride height. On the right is a fully assembled coilover and on the left is one with the spring and bump stop removed. The one on the left is where you want to start your install to ensure adequate wheel and tire clearance as well as optimize your overall coilover height, as measured by the measuring tape, for your desired ride height. The most important adjustment is highlighted by the red arrow. This green collar is what needs to be loosened and then you'll adjust the entire height of your coilover assembly as needed. So how do we adjust this so it’s optimal for each install? There are two things to keep in mind and the most important is wheel and tire clearance. The second is desired ride height. Let’s start with clearance. If you reduce the height of the overall strut assembly too far, it is possible for the tire to contact the wheel well and rub on stuff you don’t want it to. This is more likely to happen if you run larger width/diameter tires, as well as aggressive offset wheels. In order to keep clearance issues from happening, we have to adjust the lower spindle mount with a lot of consideration. How to adjust your lower spindle mount. Now for the most fun/annoying/time consuming/sucky part of the job. The best way to set this adjustment is to disassemble your coilover and remove the spring and bump stop, then reassemble everything (preferably with a ½” packer to simulate a fully compressed bump stop) and install it on your car, with a wheel/tire. Now, with the car in the air, compress the wheel fully and rotate the tire to see if it rubs on anything. If it does, extend the lower perch mount adjustment. If it doesn’t, reduce the lower perch mount adjustment. Repeat and test again. Once you are in the ballpark of a good adjustment and nothing is rubbing, add a little bit of steering lock left and right and see if there’s any rubbing. You don’t need to put full steering lock in as you aren’t cranking the steering full bore and hitting massive bumps at the same time and if you are, well, you have much bigger issues. You may need to adjust camber and check clearance as well. This is a bit challenging as it’s hard to be certain exactly the amount of camber you’ll have under full compression, but I’d start around 0 degrees and see what happens. A MacPherson strut suspension doesn’t gain much, if any, camber, so don’t expect your wheels/tires to tuck like it would on a Double Wishbone car. Once you’ve checked thoroughly for clearance issues and if there’s no rubbing and you’re happy, I’m happy. On to the next step. How desired ride height impacts everything. With the lower perch mount adjusted so you don’t have any clearance issues, now it’s time to think about how this adjustment impacts your desired ride height. Here’s how it worked on my car, but it’s probably going to be a little different for you. You’re welcome to ask us questions for your specific application. My stock ride height, as … Continue reading How to Optimize your First Generation Honda Insight Coilover Install
