Bilstein 5100 heigh adjust with OME coils

Hi all,

I've heard this a few times here, but not sure I understand or agree: "you can't use the height adjustments on 5100s with OME springs because the spring seat isn't designed for the additional preload"

I currently have OME 880s and might want to go up one or two notches. As I've been thinking about this, it's no different than getting 881s. We know the spring rate of 880s and 881s is identical, they're just different lengths. We can also assume that the shock is fully extended once you assemble with the coil (consider the case where the strut assembly is off the truck for right now)

Let's assume that when you assemble an 880 onto a 5100 there is no preload (lengths perfectly align). This isn't true but it doesn't matter for this thought experiment. So if you fit the longer 881 spring onto the shock assembly, you've compressed it by x, leading to a preload force of x*k (k is spring constant). If you adjust the spring seat up by x and put on an 880, you now have the same preload of x*k.

Sorry for the long read. Any thoughts?

 

Not designed for the additional preload? That's a new one...

But that's not why you generally shouldn't change the height of the 5100's when you already have lift coils.

It's basically because that's how you can easily "over lift" it, since you're now stacking 2 different lifts on top of each other. This mostly comes form people with OMEs and 5100s wanting to max out their potential lift, where they can easily get over 4" lift with an OME/5100 combo which is bad.

Technically speaking, you could, if you only have a 1" lift coil, set the 5100 on the 2nd clip position, and that would give you 2" lift. It's really no different than people who use the stock coils and lift it 1" with the 5100s (I did that). Just don't go over 2-2.5" without making other suspension/drivetrain changes, too.

 

Alright, makes sense to me. Definitely don't want to get to the 2+ inch lift range - I'm using ome880s so on the lowest setting there isn't much lift at all, probably just want to being it up one or two settings

 

How did this go? I am in the same position, literally and figuratively (I just learned how to spell figuratively, lol).
I want to move up to the second position on the Bilstein 5100s with the OME 880s. The lowest, first, position seems to be stock height with 5100s and 880s.