Yeah, the front rides kinda high...

 

I know right! Looks ridiculous for a lowered car huh? Well, when I originally swapped out the H&R springs on my 9-5 to the G&M springs, I was pretty p***ed because there was literally no change. It took a little over a week for the front to settle down to the height it's at now. I'm hoping the same happens with the 9000...

 

cut a coil off

 

Lowered the CS yesterday....

 

.... with a trip to Target!

I bet I got everyone wondering how the hell I got such a sweet lowering kit, well I'll let you know my secret:
It's 5 cases of Deer Park
5 cases of Pepsi
3 12 packs of Dr. Pepper

Drive around like stance king all day man:winky:

 

I vote cutting a half a coil, if it is still too tall, cut another half coil. But I'd give it a couple weeks first to see if it settles any more.

 

I was doing some research online for this lowering debacle

I'm reading that sometimes control arm bushings can bind and keep the suspension from falling into proper position, and one suggestion I read was too take the wheel off, loosen the front wishbone bolts, jack the arm up and re-tighten. I never had to do anything like that on my 9-5 - it just settled.

Also read that with a dramatic drop, in this case 55mm/60mm in the front, the front sway bar links could actually be too long, causing the sway to be under too much load, again causing the car not to settle.

Don't know if there is any merit to either of these, but I'm almost inclined to try removing the sway bar just to see...

 

AeroJ's post seems like a good thought, probably worth checking this out before cutting your nice new coils. Clean Aero! I'm gonna guess you don't live in the salt belt like me... :flipoff:

 

Yeah I def want to be sure before I cut them. A member on SC said that his was sitting on the bump stops, so he had to trim them quite a bit. From driving the car, it really doesn't feel like it's resting on the bump stops, but I suppose it's worth getting in there to try and find out...

 

Wow, I don't know how I didn't realize you were the OP. Gin, probably.

 

Intrax lowering springs on my aero 17in wheels

 

Intrax lowering springs on my aero 17in wheels

Sweet! What size tires? Did you trim the bump stops?

 

Im running 215/45/17 with 25mm H&R spacers in the rear. I had to trim the inside wheel-well fender piece. Basically I wanted a beefier stance. I also have a set of super aeros with 225/50/16 that I dont/cant run the spacers with.

 

Yeah I'm planning on spacers for the rear as well. Why SAAB designed the wheels to be so far tucked underneath the car is beyond me. The only model that isn't so bad is the 9-3 SS, but it's still not where it needs to be.

OK so compared to my super Aeros with 205/50-16, your 215/45-17 tires are ~.55 inches larger in overall diameter, so they fill the fender openings ~1/4 inch+ more than mine, which helps slightly. I still think something is wrong with my setup, and I'm leaning towards the bump stops being the culprit.

Sorry to ask again, but did you trim your front bump stops after the install?

 

I had this same concern with my 9k when I lowered it. It's perfect in the rear, but the front looks goofy. It's been lowered for a good 2 months or so now, never settled. Let me know what happens if you attempt jacking up the control arms.

 

Let's cut em

 

You need one of these combined with a trip to Target like hondafanatic

 

That or a hefty relative :th_MySaab900Like:

 

^^^^^^^^
lmao!

:d

 

So here's an update; took the front struts apart and it did indeed look like the suspension was resting on the bump stops, at least on one side. I trimmed them both down to one "rib" and re-assembled all. The results are not much difference really, if any:

Here's a pic from underneath, and as you can see the lower control arm is already slightly below parallel :-/

Not sure if I am going to try and cut the coils to go lower or not at this point. Need to think about it for a while...

 

I think I'd rather put spacers on the rear and throw in a much bigger sway bar in the back to fight the understeer.

 

At best, this would bring the car back to stock handling and not really be an improvement -- except cosmetically...

 

My 9000 always sat higher in the front on B&G/Koni. Its current owner got some of those SAS springs spacers for the rear to even it out.

 

Yeah saw those spacers and I may consider them, but the problem is too much space between the front tire and fender. I think the rear is perfect with my current wheels tires, except I need hub spacers to kick the rear wheels out a bit. I guess if I went up to a larger wheel/tire with a lower profile tire but an overall larger diameter, the space in the front would decrease and I would probably need the SAS spring spacers to make the rear wheels not looked tucked since it would be too low then

 

remove the springs

 

That is definitely an option! Lmao! Can you say tucked AND slammed?

Cheers!

 

I've been following this thread because I'm pretty much doing the same thing. Don't cut the coils just yet. Are you saying the car is resting on the bump stops? Push the car down on each front corner as hard as you can with the KONI's set to full soft, are you getting full downward movement?

 

Well, movement was def restricted before. Since I removed the front struts and cut the bump stops, the car has settled ever so slightly lower, but still not where I want it. I trimmed them to less than half of the original size, and I'm hesitant to trim them any more, since they are about an inch tall now.

Cheers!

 

I bought the same springs and KONI's. With the sway bar disconnected and no installed wheel arches I can get three fingers between tire and fender. This is expected as I've yet to drive the car on what is for the most part a new front suspension. I left my bumpstops unmodified and I can push as hard as I want on the corners and not hit the bumpstops. That of course means nothing in terms of actually driving the car.

I'm not quite sure what your problem is, but you have me sufficiently worried as I have the same spring/shock. Try jacking the car up on one corner, then put the jack under the tire, jack to what you think the car rests at, then jack until you hit the bump stop. How much travel do you get?

 

You bought G&M springs!? Are you in Europe or the States?

Yeah I have about that much space too :-\ It's been over a week since I put everything back together the last time, and it hasn't come down at all. I've been driving it everyday. When the car is on the ground, the spring coils are pretty close together, as I don't think I could get one finger between them. That would lead me to believe that they are very compressed.

I'm on holiday out of state for this week, but I'll check when I get home this weekend. Lemme know how it goes for you!

Cheers!

 

States. Ordered them as listed on the speedparts website through the canadian supplier. Shipping was around $40 and had to wait a few weeks for the springs. I'll head home this evening and check my suspension travel.

 

Well here is what I was able to work out with my car. Suspension travel is definitely very limited. I jacked the tire to where it sat on the ground (3 fingers clearance), then kept jacking to where the jack started lifting the car and that was around 1 finger clearance. I'm assuming the bump stop is fully compressed at this point. The spring is pretty compressed but not close to bottom out. Not sure what I'm going to do about this. I'm going to shoot speedparts an e-mail to see what my options are. There's no way these are 60mm lowering springs though.

 

Man that's tough. Totally agree though they are NOT 60mm. The whole reason I went thru the trouble of getting these was for the lower drop. Otherwise I could have just bought Intrax, Eibach, etc.

I emailed Speedparts 2 weeks back, but no response yet. Usually they are pretty prompt. Go figure. Lemme know if you hear anything :-\

Cheers!

 

Yes, you are correct. What I was expecting was a spring that lowers as advertised. A shorter spring with a higher spring rate will lower the car but will not easily bottom out due to the stiffer spring. Ride quality goes down, but that's something I can live with. This is what I expected. Instead, I have the car sitting higher than my other set of mystery lowering springs that originally came with the car. Not happy.

Now I'm stuck with the option of cutting the spring which will limit the travel even more, but it will in turn lower the car and raise the spring rate. I'd prolly cut the bump stop down to gain that travel back. This is all bullshit I wasn't expecting to deal with.

 

^^^^^
+1 What he said :-\

Cheers!

 

AeroJ, Disconnect your front swaybar and see if the car sits down any further.

 

I was thinking about that but I dismissed it since I thought it can't make that much difference - or could it? If that works, then maybe shorter swaybar links are needed..

 

Still zero miles on the front suspension and I'm at 2 fingers now. SAS swaybar has been disconnected the whole time. Only explanation for the drop is I was jacking that wheel at the way up a few times over the weekend and rocking the suspension pretty hard. I can see these springs easily settling the last half inch or so over time.

One thing you might want to consider is getting the SAS sway bar. Aside from the huge handling advantages the end links on the SAS is very different from stock that very well may deal with this particular issue.

Heres a pic from another thread.

I'll have pictures for you tomorrow.