front strut

[harrym2]

I am in the process of rebuilding my front coilovers on my m2 and in as i have been doing this i have been reading all the information on coilovers that i can find on this site .

and one of the things that keeps coming up is shorten struts . could some one tell me how tall is a normall strut to start with . this way i can check mine and see if they are shorten or normall hight . i just wont to know what i have on my car .

[Tommy]

If your struts had old stock inserts in them they must be stock lenght.

Body of stock insert according to my files is 446mm. Normally the struts are shortened about 50mm. VW Rabbit/Golf insert is 318mm so about 75mm spacer is needed with that still after shortening.

HTH, Tommy

[harrym2]

my strut body is only 435mm long so a normal insert is not going to fit . so the struts must of been shorten

[Tommy]

That would be strange it's shortened so little. Can someone confirm my figures? They are from old forum posts and I have not checked them.

[peteinjp]

Harry- I agree with Tommy. The strut continues down into the casting for the spindle. You have to measure the inside depth. You may know this but just checking.

Pete

[harrym2]

I measured the outside of the strut body its self not the insert . I am looking for the normal lenght of the strut to see if mine have been cut and shorten . I cannot measure inside the strut yet as it still has the insert is still fitted and i can not remove then untill tomorrow when i can get into my friends workshop .

[Standalone]

Just did a rough measurement on mine that are off the car from the bottom of the strut housing to the top lip of the cup should be about 419mm and to the top of the threads should be 457mm. Theses are non-tii struts.

Hope that helps

Aaron

[steve k.]

her eis the picture illustrating the difference between standard hight and shortened strut coilover

steve k