[hps aulakh]

Hi friends,

I had a scorpio mhawk which had an excessive body roll. On consulting my mechanic we cut the rear coil springs by one coil each thereby reducing the body height. This cut the body roll by almost 90% and made the ride more comfortable.

The negative point was that as the shocker length was reduced from 14 inches to 12.5 inches it used to bottom on a jump. As no 13 inch shocker was available in the market i had to replace the cut coil springs.if mahindras r&d could try this with a shorter shocker the body roll in a scorpio can be reduced considerably making the ride much more comfortable.

[mooza]

Hi hps aulakh, interesting to know that you tried out this mod. I wish you had captured some pictures of the same, to share with us .

However, your coming to the conclusion that the reduction in body roll was 90 % would be correct only if the shocks had not bottomed, in my opinion. Bottoming of the shocks could give a false sense of reduction in body roll.

Bilstein B6 shocks could be tried out, I guess, to overcome the problem of the shocks bottoming out, though I am not sure of the exact active stroke length. You could get the stroke and length details from their internet catalogs, or by simply mailing them. Since they could cost around 9.5k a piece, you could try them out only at the rear, to help with the shortened coils, in case the length suits.

Also, firstly, you need to check if the reduced coil length would result in other problems during cornering, wheel interferences, and so on. This needs to bve verified before you proceed further.

4x4addict, a member on this forum, was trying to source Bilstein B6 shocks directly from abroad. I do not know his latest status regarding this, so you could try to PM him, I think. If you PM me, I give you some more details regarding the Bilsteins that I fitted on my Scorpio. Cheers!

[Yusha]

Excessive body roll can also be attributed to faulty dampers and\or faulty springs. You can try replacing the springs and dampers. How many clicks has your scorpio done? Also get all the bushes checked and replaced if worn out. My Scorpio also had the same issues after covering 60K and getting all the bushes, coils and dampers changed fixed it.

Scorpios do have body roll issues and replacing the OEM dampers with something like Bilstein as suggested by Mooza seems to be the only solution.

@Mooza - Can you PM me the details of the Bilsteins in your scorpio? I sure could use them in mine. Thanks.

[honda3938]

Originally Posted by hps aulakh

Hi friends,

I had a scorpio mhawk which had an excessive body roll. On consulting my mechanic we cut the rear coil springs by one coil each thereby reducing the body height. This cut the body roll by almost 90% and made the ride more comfortable.

The negative point was that as the shocker length was reduced from 14 inches to 12.5 inches it used to bottom on a jump. As no 13 inch shocker was available in the market i had to replace the cut coil springs.if mahindras r&d could try this with a shorter shocker the body roll in a scorpio can be reduced considerably making the ride much more comfortable.

I think cutting coil is not good .As the dampers are not working properly .

BTW where did you got it done in patiala

[hps aulakh]

The shockers used to bottom only in a big pothole or on real bad roads.I contacted
bilsteins but they did not have 13 inch shockers.There was no problem while
cornering,in fact it became more stable even at high speeds.
Under hard braking the vehicle stopped nose diving.The tyres were of 255/65
R16' and there was no interference with the body.
There was no problem with the dampers or bushes as it was a new vehicle.It had
done only 10ks when we did this experiment.
This job was done at Sandeep Motors,the authorised Scorpio dealers.

[ilangop]

Contact a shock absorber reconditioning guy and ask if the damper could be modified for the stroke length as required by the existing setup with shortened springs. In my opinion, you should not have cut the springs. Probably a stiffer shocker could have done the job. Also ask the shocker absorber mechanics if be can stiffen it by reducing the nozzle sizes inside.
Was the spring cut by heating (with a gas gun for example) or cold cut (by a hack saw)? Heating would have alterted the spring properties by now.

[hps aulakh]

Stiffer shocks do not reduce the body roll,they rather make the ride
more uncomfortable on bad roads.The springs were cut with electric welding.

[Mpower]

Originally Posted by hps aulakh

The negative point was that as the shocker length was reduced from 14 inches to 12.5 inches it used to bottom on a jump. As no 13 inch shocker was available in the market i had to replace the cut coil springs.if mahindras r&d could try this with a shorter shocker the body roll in a scorpio can be reduced considerably making the ride much more comfortable.

Suspension engineers will get a mild heart attack when they hear what you did.

Basically your shock piston is working as a jounce stop and once to hit a huge bump it will destroy the shock. What you need is a smaller shock or move the shock top mount further up or move the bottom mount further down so that the piston travel is correct.

My recomendation is to take the existing shock and reduce the length of the rod by 1 inch but cutting and re-welding the eye.

your ride height, cg and weight distribution has also now changed.

[Sankar]

Cutting the coilis not the way to do it. It affects springrate and load carrying capacity, and your scorpio now has a softer rear suspension. Most aftermarket lowering springs would have the same number of coils as a stock spring, never lesser.

Also don't do anything to the shock absorbers now. If its a gas charged shockabsorber don't ever take it near a flame!

You should've tried to source an aftermarket spring and damper set for your scorpio, from a quality manufacturer (eg. Bilstein). Save up and go for a reliable setup, springs and shockers are not just for comfort its got a safety angle too.

[SS-Traveller]

Originally Posted by Mpower

Suspension engineers will get a mild heart attack when they hear what you did.

My thoughts exactly. The complete settings for the independent suspensions would be ruined by doing that. Body roll on the Scorpio is a spinoff of the long-travel feature of the suspension, and sedan-like stability cannot be got by just cutting up and shortening the coil springs.

Not advisable at all!

[DCEite]

Thats shocking what you did.
Basically you are messing up whole engineering of the car and it can have serious short term as well as long term effects. Car manufacturers do a lot of study before implementing a certain configuration. Please do not do alterations like these on your own, for your own safety.

[Shan2nu]

Doesn't cutting the springs reduce the load rating of the coil? And the Scorpio being a load carrying vehicle, this maynot have been a smart move. You could have got the shocks stiffened instead.

Shan2nu

[ashthedivx]

It doesn't looks good move to me, may be unknowingly you have already messed up overall structure of the car which is connected to tyres via coils and shocks only.

Stiffening might had been a better solution !! Try to get it reversed else changed ASAP to avoid any Mis-happ.

[ImmortalZ]

Cut the coil springs eh? Nice idea. Did you ever pause to think about the consequences?

Now your dampers have lost 2.5inches of travel. Your spring rates have changed. Your ride height has changed.

Your shocks will blow soon, your handling will be in the pits and your tire life will shorten heavily because the geometry has changed (camber will be off, toe and caster need to be checked to be sure) and your vehicle has lost some if not all off roadability and God knows what happens when you bottom out your suspension. The dampers, springs, stock sway/anti-roll bars (if any) are all matched together. If you're doing something as crude as cutting off coils (are stock springs linear or progressive?), you've just ruined the suspension setup.

What you should've actually done is researched rear sway bars. Or gotten the Bilstein suspension kit for the Scorpio.

[mooza]

Originally Posted by hps aulakh

This job was done at Sandeep Motors,the authorised Scorpio dealers.

The authorised Scorpio dealer had no clue on the consequences regarding the bottoming of the shocks! Shocking.


You said you "had a Scorpio Mhawk" in your post. A typo, I guess, unless you sold it off already !


At least, it looks like you have put back new coils, going by your first post ?