Afco DA Coil overs/shocks

[John N]

Who has experience with afco shocks in the rear and coil overs in the front? I installed some on my 87 Regal and ended up going with TRZ coil over adapters in the front. The upper spring cup did not fit between the stock spring perch in the frame. Even those TRZ adapters are giving me an issue. One still isn't fully seated because it's so difficult to get some of those frame tabs out of the way. I'm trying my best to keep the frame perch intact so I can revert to the stock spring/shock set up later on for any reason. My main issue is with the shock lengths being too long. the fronts are the shortest available and I think they may be too long still. I currently have 12x2.5" springs in the rear I will be shortly replacing with 14x2.5" springs to see how much it helps. Cutting the bump stops down front and rear I'm sure would help, but I don't know if it will be enough to solve the problem yet. The rear shocks seem to be bottomed out. The front shocks have a little more coil over adjustment left on 8" springs (think 10" would have been perfect, but I was sent these)

So I am wondering who is running these shocks and what length and if you ran into any problems.

 

[TRZ Motorsports]

We recommend cutting out the 3 outermost stock-spring tangs in order to get that CO spring adapter to fit properly in the frame. Either way, if its mostly seated, it can't go anywhere so you should be fine. Also, we recommend using 10" springs with our coil-over lower control arms to make sure you don't have a coil-bind issue... which it looks like you'll have with those 8" springs should your car ever do a slight wheel stand. AFCO springs have a thicker coil than a Hypercoil spring which means they'll coil-bind that much quicker as well.

 

[John N]

I think I only need to cut maybe one tang to get it in there all the way. I do want to go the 10" spring route as I really do see it being a problem in adjustability and bind later on. Any idea on if these AFCO shocks usually fit up front height-wise?

 

[boyzbad]

10SECBU on here put some Afco's up front. Not the co shock but the "bolt in" which Todd seemed to think it was just a regular co shock anyway. He had to add a peice on top of the frame up front to allow for an extra 1" or so of room.

 

[John N]

I do remember that post. I was hoping he would chime in. The coilovers are the same as the normal shocks, just with the spring cups.

 

[TRZ Motorsports]

Whats the stroke on them? We have people use AFCO's all the time, they're a great shock, so you should be fine with them and a 10" spring up front.

 

[John N]

I believe front stroke is 4.5". I wish it would warm up a little here so I could go mess with everything a little and see where I really stand.

 

[TRZ Motorsports]

Depending on the ride height you're looking for that shock may be to long. We usually use a 3" stroke shock with stock spindles. If you have drop spindles then what you have will be fine height wise. But, after I looked at the pics again, it looks like you have the BNC shock, with the adjuster on the bottom. That knob will most likely get in the way of the coil-over bar. Just a heads up on that.

 

[John N]

Yeah, I was thinking drop spiondles might be the easiest way because I like my cars pretty low. but if I need to bring the back end up an inch or two I may as well leave the front high to match. I already had to take the knob off the bottom of the shocks up front. At full extension they still didn't hit so I will hopefully be OK there. Thanks for your help, I want to try to get some work done on the car today and see exactly where I stand.

 

[REGALPIMP]

i have the afcos on the front of my regal my chassis guy put the coil overs on it with the tapperd afco upper spring cups and after the first pass the shock was leaking so we put a temp fix to it and made another pass then both were leaking so we tore it apart and the shock was binding up on the spring tabs and it bent the shaft of the shocks. so we cut 3 tabs off each side of the sring tabs had the shocks fixed and it had 30 passes with no problems .the car has trz uppers and lower control arm on it also. just my 2 cents i hope this helps craig