- What is going on guys, and welcome back
to the Fitment Industries YouTube channel.
Today, we're gonna be doing something
a little bit differently.
As you can see behind me, we have an ND Miata.
Into my hands here, this is a set of ST coilovers.
We're gonna put these ST coilovers on this Miata.
We're gonna bring that stance down.
We're gonna make it a little bit more aggressive.
We're going to make it handle a little bit better,
but most importantly, we're gonna teach you guys
the essentials of putting on a set of coilovers in your car
(gentle music) so you can do it yourself.
This is "Installing Coilovers for Dummies."
(upbeat urban music)
(horn honks)
Do somethin' cool. (engine revs)
So first things first, we're gonna get
a couple of things done that are easier to do
while the car's on the ground,
so we don't have to go up and down with it a bunch of times,
and that is gonna be taking out
the whole entire trunk liner.
There's a bunch of plastic clips you need to get out
so you can get access to the top bolts
of the struts to drop everything
once we get it up in the air.
And while they're working on that trunk liner,
I'm gonna go ahead and break loose the wheel lugs,
again, so it's easier once we get it up in the air.
Oh yeah, proper torque spec makes it nice and easy.
(upbeat urban music)
All right, so now that the liner's out of the trunk,
there's a couple of other things we need to get
out of the way.
We've got this big heat shield in here
that's covering the filler neck
and some other stuff back here.
We've gotta take that out to get access
to those strut bolts on top over here.
There's another little bracket in there
we might have to take off just to make it
a little easier to work on,
but let's get that stuff off so we can get
this thing in the air. (upbeat urban music)
♪ Oh yeah ♪
- [Man Red Beard] Now that we've got everything loose
and kinda ready to go and get this car up in the air
to get the wheels off, we're gonna show you guys
where some of the jack points are
so you guys can do this at home.
So you're gonna wanna grab a jack, some jack stands,
or if you're nice enough to have a lift,
if you come under here and look at your pinch welds,
you'll see a couple spots probably under here
that are doubled up, and that's gonna be for extra support
from your jack stand or your lifts so you can use that.
A lotta times on modern vehicles, you will have an arrow
kind of pointing where it needs to go.
Sometimes you'll even see little rubber pads
under here that you guys can get on.
So make sure you guys are doing this safe.
Use jack stands, please, and let's get these wheels off
and get started on the suspension.
(upbeat urban music)
(tool whirs)
So we went and found out what tools we need for this job,
and as you can see here, there's not actually a whole lot.
You can really get this job done with just a basic toolkit
that's not very expensive
that you can really kind of get online.
Power tools are a plus, but they are not needed.
Let's go take this thing apart.
So first thing's first, visual inspection.
You're gonna wanna get in here and kinda see how,
you know, your suspension works
and where it's all connected.
So, first thing I see is we got a single bolt
at the bottom of the strut.
There's gonna be, I think, three on top.
The sway bar is connected to the lower control arm.
We're gonna have to undo that, and then,
probably most importantly, you're gonna wanna get
any lines out of the way that you might stretch.
So to get started with this, we're gonna actually disconnect
the hardware for the ABS line. (upbeat urban music)
A real quick tip for you guys,
if you wanna absolutely remember where your hardware goes,
you don't wanna lose anything,
put the hardware back where you found it
and then you can't lose it. (squeaking)
And now it's safe.
So, now we're gonna disconnect the sway bar
at the sway bar link.
The reason we're doing that is the sway bar's
actually gonna hold the control arms together,
and we don't want that.
We wanna get that control arm
to swing nice and low so we can get that strut outta there.
So I know we really we have to take that apart,
so I guess let's just go ahead and do that.
(tool whirs) (metal clangs on metal)
There we go, yeah, wiggle, wiggle.
So we got the sway bar and link off.
We're gonna go ahead and hit
the bottom bolt on the strut. (metal clangs on metal)
I think we're gonna leave the bolt in,
but we're gonna take the nut off
and then kinda reassess from there.
(tool whirs) (hammer clangs on metal)
On this particular car,
we do need to unbolt the mounting points
of the upper control arm,
and we're kind of, we do the same thing
we did with the bottom strut but only with one bolt.
So we're gonna disassemble the hardware.
We're gonna take one bolt completely out,
and we're gonna leave one in
until we're ready to do the full disassembly.
(clicking) (metal clangs on metal)
(clicking)
All right, that's out of the threads,
but we're gonna leave it in there for now,
and then I think we're gonna move up top
and get those bolts loose and see
what we got going on up there.
We're gonna bring it down a little bit
so we can get started on the top.
(upbeat urban music) Yeah.
All right, so
visual scanning again.
We've got three bolts on the top,
but that's also housing a bracket for some computer stuff,
and then we have one of these intake noise
to the interior things.
Anyway, this stuff has to come off.
We got to 10 mils here.
Get that outta the way.
We're gonna get these off,
and then we're gonna drop the whole assembly,
and then probably take that nut on the bottom of that strut,
and then I think it's ready to come out
and get the other one in there.
Aw, we don't have, like, the fancy clamp for this.
- Clamp? - Ow, well, I can get in there
like this. (tool whirs)
(bell dings) And put the hardware back
on the thing, and then you don't lose it, you know?
(tapping) All right, I think we're
gonna pull it down,
and then we're gonna pull the hardware
out of our control arms
(creaking) is that we left in there
and then the control, we're gonna pull out,
(metal dings on floor) and then we should be able
to get this low enough
and we're gonna lift it up.
That's scary, watch your paint.
Push this down. (tapping)
You're gonna wanna get the bottom
up and over, and then you'll have enough leverage
to carefully
pull out your stock strut.
Now in this particular application
with this particular set of coilovers,
we do have to transfer over the top hat.
So we're gonna put this thing
in a spring compressor under this nut,
pull the top off, put it on the coilover,
and then we're gonna go back in.
So you've got your stock suspension out,
and you're gonna open your brand new coilover box,
but these aren't ready to go in yet.
What you're gonna wanna do first is make sure
the ride height is kinda even front to back.
These will be set from the factory
with a pretty safe ride height.
I wouldn't suggest lowering the car
until you get 'em in, see where it's at first.
Either way, on this set of coilovers,
we don't have an adjustable body
so you will be adjusting ride height
by this perch here, but that is going to affect
your shock travel length.
If you do have adjustable damping,
you're gonna wanna kinda set that in the middle.
If you've got 30 clicks of adjustment, say,
I'm on a set of BC racing coilovers, set it to 15.
Again, adjust that later.
Adjusting preload's pretty important, too.
Really, all preload is gonna do is make it so that
when you jack your car up off the ground,
your spring's not gonna go floatin' around anywhere.
So you can see, this is just barely tight here.
You can move this spring by hand.
The preload is adjusted separately on something with the,
with the adjustable shock body,
but this one doesn't have that so this thing's
pretty much ready to go in once we make sure
it's level with the other side.
(whooshing) All right, so now it's pretty
much just putting everything back together in reverse order.
We're gonna stick this in through the hole,
we're gonna line it up, get it in the thing,
probably put the hardware in here,
but not tightening yet,
then I'm gonna have the hands of a trusty,
a trusty assistant over there,
and extra hands always helpful
so that we can get this setup in,
and he can start these threads so that he can hold it up.
If I was doing this by myself,
it would probably weigh itself down and be really hard.
So let's put this thing in. (tapping)
Oy.
(clicking) Ah, there it is.
(clicking)
(rapid clicking) So sweaty.
All right, so now that we got the front all put together,
we're gonna move out to the back.
I'm gonna put some support under the suspension,
and then I'm actually gonna take the nuts off the top,
and then I'm gonna come out
and lower it down and do what I need to do under here.
So yeah, let's just get right into it.
(tapping) (tool whirs)
Well, that was easy.
Didn't even have to undo that stupid
quarter-inch round sway bar,
which probably doesn't do anything anyway.
Moving on to the back, we're gonna double check again
kinda that height adjustment and that preload,
make sure the spring's not wiggling
around all loosey goosey.
We're gonna make sure the thread counts are
the same, kinda back-to-back.
I like to use a little tool like this,
and then I can audibly (clicking)
count the threads.
It helps me count in my head.
Yeah, that's about it.
These things look good, so let's get this thing on.
And then, I think next time, you know, a couple of minutes,
we're gonna see this thing on the ground.
Bye.
But before we want this, I did wanna point out something.
Sometimes from the factory,
your stock strut will have, like,
a nut welded to either side and then this bolt will go
through and turn into it. (clicking)
As you can see, this one clearly doesn't have that,
so ST has provided us (clicking)
with new hardware to make that installation correct
and ultimately easier.
So, you know, reverse,
reverse the thing, and
it'll be done in a couple of minutes.
It's three bolts. (clicking)
And right here we have our pair of nuts.
You just gotta put 'em on, and then, literally,
jack it back up,
double check everything, make sure it's all torque,
get the wheels on, and we're gonna roll this thing outside
and check it out. (clicking)
We've got the driver's side all done.
We're gonna go ahead and mimic everything
that we just did on the passenger side.
Then we're gonna get that trunk liner in,
and I think we're all buttoned up
ready to get this thing on the ground,
so next time you guys see this thing,
it's gonna be done.
As you can tell by the wardrobe change,
it is the next day, and the Miata is done.
We've got those ST coilovers on this thing.
We've brought the looks up
by bringing the ride height down,
and this thing's gonna handle
a little bit better, as well.
So if you guys wanna take your ride to the next level,
you guys know where to go wheels to tires and suspension
@fitmentindustries.com.
Don't forget to subscribe and like the video
if you guys learned anything today.
I will see you later.
Peace. (upbeat music)