DIY Extended tophats
 

umm... then what? :roll:

Huh, that's the end?

now thats the end. It took a while cause I was uploading it from my phone.

weld the bottom from the inside...don't have to grind down so much.

Do your shock bodies fit inside?

Yeah they fit

Or call aaron garcia and he'll make you a sick set for a good price!

Well this is for guys on budget who cant afford ebay or aaron like me. Spent less than $10 on all four.

The finished product looks good. :thumbup:

Thx man. This was my first set. The last one I made required less grinding ands looks just as good finished.

why would you do this? like what does it accomplish?

x2...?

gives your stock strut more room when your lowered on coilovers and such so your shock isnt bottoming out everywhere resulting in blown struts and shitty riding suspension

it allows the shock body to basically travel past the top of the shock tower allowing you to have a better ride while the car is slammed. depending on the car you can add up to 2 in of added travel without having to shim the hood.

Your control arms will hit your shock towers before your strut gets near going inside the tophat

depending on the car thats not true, on my wagon it made a huge difference in ride doing extended tophats, because it would bottom out on the strut before even coming close to the upper arm hitting the body

What happens when you drop you car is you lose shock travel. So If you drop you car 2" you lose 2'' of shock travel. Thus making your car ride shitty and potentially blowing your shocks. So lets say you extend you tophats 2" and drop your car 2". It would feel like you were ridding on stock height.

this. I made 2.5 inch tophats for the front and 3.5 for my rears just to get the preload back on my springs. THATS what make the ride quality better

i did 1.5 on my wagon all around rides great.

i see.

hmmmm thats interesting and something everyone should consider doing. ill look into it for my car, thx

also, do you need the extended top hats when you have an adjustable suspension or is the top hats just for the shocks

Drop springs and adjustable coil sleeves yes...not always needed but they help. If you're going full body coilovers they aren't needed and most likely wont fit.

True

great right up how much did u spend granted buying a grinder and welder to?

Well i already have the grinder and welder cause of my work. But i spent less than 10 bucks on material

Am i the only person that thinks ops 6 separate posts were uncalled for?

he said in the above post that he was posting from a phone^^^^^^^^but nonetheless yeah!!!!

Best DIY ever, makes a great improvement in ride quality!

Autozone sells the small pieces of metal tubing that are the perfect diameter for about $2 each.

They look pretty good

Great DIY

I had my last set done with stainless tubbing...looked better than aluminzed exhaust pipe.

All_motor_mike made them up for me. About $60 to do all 4 and I just supplied the stock tophats.


by , on Flickr

by , on Flickr

by , on Flickr

nice i have old top hats and some material laying around gonna try and see how it wrks, good diy

Will this work if the piping is 2 1/4 inch stainless steel piping? I have the 2" pipng aswell only differnce is one is stainless steel the other is exhaust piping

Y do u have 3 rear top hats ot does the oval make no difference. Jus wonderin