After being completed disappointed with the HR springs on my DBS as they completely destroyed the ride quality of the car, I set out on a mission to solve this problem. Being a DBS owner, there is nothing out there as far as spring or coilover options besides HR so I had to do something custom. The first step I took was to contact Penske and talk to them about building me a custom coilover set with remote reservoirs which I ran on my previous viper with great results. The car was slammed 2" and the ride was like factory if not better. This set up was extreme, with different sprint rates, rebound and compression adjustments but we dialed it in perfectly and the car was very enjoyably. After speaking with a Penske rep and getting him all the needed measurements I stumbled across an old thread talking about custom coilover set ups on this forum. One comment talked about sleeving the factory shock with an adjustable spring perch that would allow you to utilize the factory spring and lower the car, in which would retain the factory ride and obtain the lowered look. I spoke with a local performance shop and we started our research. What we ended up finding out is that the DBS rear and front upper control arms wont allow the adjustable "Nut" run through as its to wide so this idea was scratched.

Now for the solution! As we had the suspension apart we noticed the factory DBS struts have a spring perch thats is "clipped" in place with a retaing clip. What we did is remove that clip, slid off the spring perch and noticed a machined groove which the clip sat in. Well the rest is very self exploratory. We machined 5 new groves below the stock one, all 1/4 inch apart and started playing around with the adjustments. Long story short we got the ride height exactly as it was with my HR springs and the car now rides like stock. Nice and smooth!!! I still have another .5 adjustment in the rear and .25 front if I wanted to go lower but there's no way. LOL

I didn't take very detailed pics through out the process but have made you guys a few images below that will hopefully explain what we did. I'm sure this will work on any Aston. This cost me $1600 all together and its worth every penny. Best of all its completely reversible.

We also spoke about having 1/8th shims made to allow for further adjustment. These shims would sit on top of the spring perch and below the spring to give the spring a bit more lift if you are trying to get an extra 1/8 out of the ride height. But with the new grooves we were able to set the ride height with out anything else and got the height identical to what the HR specs were.

Hope this helps another owner/s with the same frustrations as I had to deal with. Let me know if you guys have any questions.

Is its spelled purch or perch LOL sorry about that.

 

I love it when people get all innovative with their cars to achieve a goal!

 

Thanks man!

 

Neat trick!
I'll have to look into doing that on my Vantage!

 

Nice work! Very simple and innovative! How much did the machine shop charge you to have this done? There is always more than one way to skin a cat!

 

Very nice work! Makes me wonder about similar applications in other cars.


This concept is basically the same as the adjustable front Bilstein shocks on my F150.

 

Thanks! I had my local shop do all the work including machining. All the labor was really in taking off and installing the struts a few times and test fitting all to make sure we ended up with the same ride hight as I had with HR springs. I basically told them my concept and they ran with it. I'm sure if you took this project on your self, the machining portion would be fairly cheep. Maybe 100 bucks per shock if that.

 

You can apply this concept to any car. We lucked out with the DBS having clipped in spring perches. If they were welded it would take much more time to get the adjustment right.

 

I don't understand who those tiny, shallow ridges are strong enough to hold up the spring perches.

 

Stronger than a weld bead. Perch keeps the C clip from expanding, so the only way to fail would be to force the considerable height of the non groove land downwards...not going to happen.

 

Damn this is ballsy!

My thoughts as well - but if it's sound then it's pretty awesome.

 

Very well said!

 

You gotta love engineering!

 

Does this affect the alignment geometry?

 

The same as lowering with aftermarket springs.