A grip machine.

[Reptile]

I am wanting to build a grip machine that can corner sharp as hell. Can anyone tell me what I need? I have this web site so far and I was wondering if anyone could tell me anything about their products.

http://www.ground-control.com/


If any one else has any webpages or products that they know work I would appreciat you letting me know. Thank you.

[Jims 86LXI HB]

Originally posted by Reptile
I am wanting to build a grip machine that can corner sharp as hell. Can anyone tell me what I need? I have this web site so far and I was wondering if anyone could tell me anything about their products.

http://www.ground-control.com/


If any one else has any webpages or products that they know work I would appreciat you letting me know. Thank you.

You can order their coilovers and the Koni Special sturts they carry and get a rear Suspension Techniques sway bar from www.nopionline.com and find a way to add poly urathane bushings to the stock front sway bar and end links.

If you want to kick it up a notch higher get the ground-control coilovers with custom stiffer springs, 400lbs front and 350lbs in the rear and order Bilstein H.D. struts from shox.com and have them send the struts back to Bilstein to have them revalved to be able to handle the stiffer springs. No matter what I would recommend light weight 15" rims40mm offset 12lbs or less with 205/50-15 Falken Azenis Sports. If you have to have 16" find some that are 15lbs or less and run with 45mm offset so you can run 215/40-16 size.

[Reptile]

Well I really don't want to lower my car, I'm already so low I scrape all kinds of things. I live in MO, the third worst roads in the entire country. Thank you though if I have any other questions I'll post them here. Now I just need to do some research.

[Grant2k]

Jim, i know this might be off topic for this thread and i should be able to find it elsewhere, but if i got the Suspension Tech rear swaybar for my LX, would i have to drill to install it or are the holes there?

[Jims 86LXI HB]

Originally posted by Reptile
Now I just need to do some research.

Why, I've allready done a ton of that, ask your reasearch question? If I don't know the answer I will do the reasearch for you and get the answer. Thats something I do for members.

If you don't want to lower your car yet you still want a grip machine, all the reasearch in the world will not turn up stiffer springs that have stock ride height, they do not exist. All you do is get the coilovers and set them to a stock ride height. Are mention that your car is low allready and hits things. You must mean that the springs/struts are letting this happen, or is your car lowered?

As you car come from the factory honda and pretty much every car manufactuer in the world like to dial in lots of nice safe understeer. If you were to shift more of the cars cornering load to the rear and ask the rear to do more work. The cars cornering balance becomes more bananced with less understeer and you will corner faster. That is why if you look at the post I did at the top of this section you will see a list of most all the lowering springs that show's how much stiffer than stock they are, it will show that most of them increase the spring stiffness in the rear more than the front. Increasing rear sway bar size and not the front sway bar is another way to increase rear roll stiffness and reduce undeersteer.

[Reptile]

It's not that I ned you to so much tell me what I need, I need to look around and see what I like best. I don't want to burden you to much with a responceability that should be mine. However I will stick around this topic and ask you for your help if I need it, for the most part I just don't want to bother you. Plus I need some ideas anyway. Thank you for your help and like I said I'll contact you agian, because I am surtain i'm not smart enough about this stuff to ge it right on my own. lol.

[Reptile]

In short I just need to shop around your site for a while.:)

[Jims 86LXI HB]

ok, keep in mind that the list of what they make for our cars is a short one, especially with the sturts. I've run several cominations and I've read pretty much every reply on the topic for the last 2 years. And I know the techs for pretty much all the strut makers out their and I regularly talk to them. I'm here to help and lots of people ask me allot of questions allot of times over their stay here on the board. Asking me a question, no matter how offten or how small, is never a problem in any way. And I mean that. Never shy away from me because you think you are bothering me, that's not possible. I'm here to help other's not waste their time and money by getting their suspension wrong. When I first started out I had to do all the reasearch to get my car right. I want to save people from that.

Jim C.

[GreenMachine]

Hey jim instead of making a new thread for this i'll just ask ya here.
What would be my next best upgrade for the $, I have monroe sensatrac on all 4 (new) and a set of used blue lowering springs from the wrecker. Also have urethane front sway bar bushings and 4 new lwr control arm bushings. The car just doesn't stick to the corners the way i'd like it too. I had 88 lude with just cut springs and it just kicked in the corners compared to the 3gee.
Any tips/ideas is appreciated - thanx

[Jims 86LXI HB]

Originally posted by GreenMachine
Hey jim instead of making a new thread for this i'll just ask ya here.
What would be my next best upgrade for the $, I have monroe sensatrac on all 4 (new) and a set of used blue lowering springs from the wrecker. Also have urethane front sway bar bushings and 4 new lwr control arm bushings. The car just doesn't stick to the corners the way i'd like it too. I had 88 lude with just cut springs and it just kicked in the corners compared to the 3gee.
Any tips/ideas is appreciated - thanx

Were both cars run on the same rims and tires? Your sig says you have 17's, what tire are you running with them? And is you car a model that has a rear sway bar?

[GreenMachine]

Yes it has rear sway bar, have never replaced the bushings though. Also yes there are on same rims and 2 of the tires are diff now but same make yokahama 205/40 not sure of model.
I was thinkin maybe some r. urethane sway bar bushings, does anyone make them for us ? and would i notice a big diff if i put new springs in - thanks again

PS - I read in another post you crashed your hatch is that correct :(

[Jims 86LXI HB]

Originally posted by GreenMachine
Yes it has rear sway bar, have never replaced the bushings though. Also yes there are on same rims and 2 of the tires are diff now but same make yokahama 205/40 not sure of model.
I was thinkin maybe some r. urethane sway bar bushings, does anyone make them for us ? and would i notice a big diff if i put new springs in - thanks again

PS - I read in another post you crashed your hatch is that correct :(

Yes some lame women pulled out in front of me. I can't wait till I'm I can go back to work and collect from her insurance company,grrrr.

Find out what model of tire from yokahama is on both front rims, would like to know. Urathane bushings in the sway bars will not make the bars act like they are thicker, they reduce the responce time between action and reaction. Since their isn't soft rubber that has to be compressed for the bars to do their job. At this point I'm wondering about the front tires ability to grip and if the springs have moved more of the cornering load to the front. This would make the car understeer (plow) more and cornering speeds would go down. Also your struts don't have enough power to control stiffer than stock springs so the car won't feel as responsive or lively as it would with firmer struts. And that would go along with lower cornering speeds over less than smooth pavement as well, since weaker sturts let springs do things their not surposed to do over bumps and ruff pavement.

Different springs may be what could fix things in the short term. What shade of blue are those springs? How much of a drop do you think they are?

[Low Tek]

JIM... you seem to be the gurue in this deal... so I have a question, not sure if this is the correct topic for this thread but...

I have an 86 accord HB LXi, I have lowered it 2 3/4 and I am running 205-45-16.. I was goin around corners like mad and grip hard, but recent times.. it seems to sink in to one side and scrap the back passenger wheel well.. and that seems to be the only side?? :wtf:

I am goin to replace the struts with monroe sensatrac's this weekend, but you think something else might have gone bad... anything I should look for??


hope you can help :bow:

[Jims 86LXI HB]

Low tek, I'd check you suspension bushings at that rear side and your ball joints as well. What offset are you running anyway's?

How do you have a 2 3/4% drop, coilovers or cut springs?

[86AccordLxi]

monroe = kinda crappy...i have 'em too...i want konis...

Alex

[Low Tek]

haha - not sure for the off set... but the springs were cut, smoothed and cleaned up.. the stopper was cut in half, and all put back together...

[GreenMachine]

Ya the struts wre only $250 can. and my car had the originals with 350000km so I didn't have a lot of $ at the time cause I was doin the efi conversion and figured the be a hell of a lot better. So basically if I want better cornering then I should cut the springs so it it sits lower :D

[Low Tek]

thats what I did... cut springs, bad ass.. and teh for camber kit - do 87 lude upper control arms, and then get a camber kit for the back...

oh yea baby!!! lol

[Reptile]

It's not so much that I think that I'm really a bother to you. In fact I admire your dedication, people like you are one of the big reasons I enjoy this site so much. I just need to look at what you have given me and see if I want to do it or not. Just out of curiousity, what do you think would maximize my handling the most, where can I get it, and what have you done or plan to do to your own car to improve it's handleing?

[Jims 86LXI HB]

Originally posted by Reptile
It's not so much that I think that I'm really a bother to you. In fact I admire your dedication, people like you are one of the big reasons I enjoy this site so much. I just need to look at what you have given me and see if I want to do it or not. Just out of curiousity, what do you think would maximize my handling the most, where can I get it, and what have you done or plan to do to your own car to improve it's handleing?

Wheels and tires, definately a first step. Something that doesn't weigh allot 15lbs per rim or lower if you can afford it. 15" or 16"
www..whalentire.com has a good selection and www.discounttiredirect.com has some nice light konigs that won't kill your wallet. Used acura teg rims from the 94-95 gsr look really nice on our cars and weigh 15lbs. They can usually be found for less than $250, usually with tires on them. Tire sizes you will want to run are 195/55-15 or (better) 205/50-15. For 16" 205/45-16.

Then go to a junk yard and pull a rear sway bar of a lxi or Sei and it's mounting hardware (good cheap mode). That will reduce the car's understeer some.

Next would be the springs and struts

My first mod was the rims and tires, it made a big differance, without much sacrifice with the ride. Next came the springs and struts. That further improved things. Then came better front struts, that again really improved things even more.

[Reptile]

Well I wasn't going to change my rims, I stole them off my old LX-i and thus I'm kind of partial to them (they are the alloy ones). The junk yard thing wont work, there simply isn't any Hondas in a junk yard within a 30 min drive from where I live, and I seriously don't think there are any 3geez at all! I was going to get tires down the road though. So then the link I provided about the kit I was thinking about buying realy wouldn't help me any? If so that sucks. Your npoi link however has a lot of things I'm interested in, I just need to look at it a little more. Thank you once again for your help.

[Jims 86LXI HB]

Originally posted by Reptile
Well I wasn't going to change my rims, I stole them off my old LX-i and thus I'm kind of partial to them (they are the alloy ones). The junk yard thing wont work, there simply isn't any Hondas in a junk yard within a 30 min drive from where I live, and I seriously don't think there are any 3geez at all! I was going to get tires down the road though. So then the link I provided about the kit I was thinking about buying realy wouldn't help me any? If so that sucks. Your npoi link however has a lot of things I'm interested in, I just need to look at it a little more. Thank you once again for your help.

Hey ya know since you've got 14" rims you can get some really awesome high performance tire's Falken azenis sports their only $45 a tire and they kick serious butt. I think the 15"s would be better with the 205's, but those falken's will kick it up a notch for you.

The www.ground-control.com link has thier coilovers and if you search the site they carry the Koni struts as well.. But you can get the Koni's for a little less and save allot on shipping at www.shox.com Nopi has the ground-congrol coilovers for $10 less, to save a few bucks.

[GreenMachine]

Does any company make urethane rear sway bar bushings or even larger sway bars
thanks

[Jims 86LXI HB]

Originally posted by GreenMachine
Does any company make urethane rear sway bar bushings or even larger sway bars
thanks

No company makes direct replacement urathane bushings. However, if you use the search button on the board at the top, you can run a search sway bar bushings and you'll be able to find some of the posts were members tell how they used certain kits and part numbers to do just that.

Suspension Techniques and Addco both make sway bars for our cars. The addco bars are on back order and do to order levels, they will not be produced any time soon. The S/T front bar is only 1/16" thicker, so it represents a very small improvement, but it does of course have the urathane bushings on it. The S/T rear car is 1/8" thicker so it makes more of a differance. S/T front bar 15/16" rear bar 5/8" (stock 7/8" front 1/2" rear) You can do better if you want:D http://www.sanerperffab.com/products.htm
Send sanner a stock front and or rear sway bar(s) and all the links and mounting hard ware and for $180 per bar, they can make a larger copy of it for you. I was planning on using them, before the wreck that is.

[AccordEpicenter]

Hey are LX-i sway bars (front and back) the same as SE-i sway bars? Do bigger aftermarket sway bars for front and back make a big difference? What about shock tower braces like the one DC sports makes for the PGM cars?

[Jims 86LXI HB]

Originally posted by AccordEpicenter
Hey are LX-i sway bars (front and back) the same as SE-i sway bars? Do bigger aftermarket sway bars for front and back make a big difference? What about shock tower braces like the one DC sports makes for the PGM cars?

The LX-I/SE-I sway bars are the same size front and rear.

The Suspension Techniques bars are only slightly thicker than stock, 1/16" thicker in the front and 1/8" thicker in the rear. Being that it's slightly thicker in the rear the S/T bars will reduce your understeer a bit. And since they are of course equipped with polyurathane bushings, that will improve their responcesiveness over stock bars as well. Frankly, I don't see a problem with only getting the S/T rear bar only and find a way to equipe the front stock bar with poly bushings, in a effort to reduce understeer more, unless your willing to get custom bars that are larger than the S/T bars.

Being that our car's were designed before the manufactuers really went after chassis stiffness, they can benefit from strut tower braces. The idea is not let any flex between the strut towers to happen, theirby improving the cars responsiveness. DC Sports only offers a front bar and of course only for LXI/SE-I cars. Every now and then, justin (the Admistrator/moderator here) will offer custom rear strut tower braces that he makes. When he makes them, he offer's them in the market place section.

[Reptile]

bumping it up. I have a few more questions but I dont have the time to post them.

[Jims 86LXI HB]

Originally posted by Reptile
bumping it up. I have a few more questions but I dont have the time to post them.

Allrighty, postem when ya can.:wave:

[Reptile]

Ok, what would be the best things I could do to turn a 89 LX-i into a grip machine? Also what were those tires you recomended to me that were supposed to be really good but only cost $500 a peice? Please if you can post links to places where I can get the products you are recamending me I would appreciate it.

[Grant2k]

Originally posted by Reptile
Ok, what would be the best things I could do to turn a 89 LX-i into a grip machine? Also what were those tires you recomended to me that were supposed to be really good but only cost $500 a peice? Please if you can post links to places where I can get the products you are recamending me I would appreciate it.
as long as i'm reading this i might as well put in what i can. i think what you are asking are for Falken Azenis. a bit more than $50 (not 500) each. i hope that helps.

[Reptile]

Yes that is what I meant. $50 a peice not $500. The Falken is what I want. Thank you. Hmmm, maybe I should fix that. Naw, I'll leave it there so every one can see that a lack of sleep is a bad thing. :)

[Jims 86LXI HB]

www.ec-securehost.com/OnlineTires.com/Falken_AZENIS.html#FalkenAZENIS

$43.29 for 195/60-14 you can't get a better high performance tire in 14", unless it's a competition tire with a treadware rating of 50. I don't know if proxy T1-s's are avaliable in 195/60-14, those are good tire's to.

For springs I'd recommend that you go with coilovers, that way you can choose to keep the ride height stock or drop it a little if you want and still have nice performance spring rates.

PLAN A:
First choice would be ground-control coilovers from www.nopionline.com for $329
Koni sturts from www.shox.com for $424 w/free shipping
(or front Koni's for $212 and rear tokico's from nopi for $119)
After running this setup for a few week's if you feel you have more body roll then you'd like for your driving style then either invest in the Suspension Techniques sway bar set from www.nopionline.com for $239(may be $229) or find a way to convert the stock front bar to urathane mounts and only purchase the S/T rear bar, since the S/T front bar isn't much thicker than stock anyway's. You've got a LX, so the carb air filter and all prevent's you from running a strut tower bar. You could find a shop does fabracation and have them tie in some braces from the strut tower's to the firewall.

PLAN B:
Either stiffer Ground-control springs from ground-control for I believe a extra $70 +$339(400lbs front and 300lbs rear) or purchase Dropzone coilovers $100 http://www.ketronsales.com/coilovers.html they have the stiffer springs allready 450lbs front and 350lbs rear
Revalved Bilstein struts from www.shox.com for $530 DO NOT RUN STOCK KONI'S with springs as stiff as the Dropzone's.
Same deal with sway bar's as plan A.

Let me know, I may know of a way to get the revalved Bilstein's for $440, they'd work for either plan.

Plan C:
Tokico 1" drop springs on clearance at tokico for $58!
www.tokicogasshocks.com
Either koni's front and rear or with tokico's in the rear.
This setup has a stiffer front spring and weaker rear springs so I would recommend the rear S/T sway bar and keeping the stock front sway bar.

[Reptile]

Ok, the coilovers are good because I don't want it to be any lower to the ground than it already is. I am willing to lower it as much as maybe one inch if I absolutly have to. But one thing though. This is for the 89 LX-i now, not my LX. I'm not modifying the LX anymore, I'm selling it to a friend as soon as I can get the money up for an LX-i. Tell me what will work for an 89 LX-i and I'll see where I can go from there. Also most likely I will like about half or lees of the body roll than what is in my stock accord now. Like I said I want a grip machine. I was a car that can turn on a fucking dime. I'm talking like 90 degree angles at at least 40 mph. This is going to be my ultimate 3G. In the long run money doesn't matter because when I find a LX-i that matches what I'm looking for I will never part with it. I will see to it that it will never die, regardless of what I have to do to ensure that.

[Reptile]

Plan A looks really promising though. I might do something like that with maybe a little of B as well. I don't know, you tell me what will work.

[Jims 86LXI HB]

Plan A is fine, I figured I'd give you some choices to suit your driving style. I can say from experience that the revalved Bilstein sturts do outperform the Koni's. I felt they were worth the price premium over my koni's. The koni's definately outpeformed the standard Bilsteins and really were a improvement. But, revalved the Bilstien's were even better. Either one will work.

When do you think you will be buying the stuff to upgrade your car?

[Reptile]

Around this time next year at the earliest. Really when ever I save up 5k and find my dream car. What ever is left over from that 5k and then the $1500 from selling my LX to my friend goes into my new LX-i as fast as I can get it there. I'm geting headers and a CAI for the engine and other than a wing and a new coat of paint anything goes.

[maka_RTH]

Originally posted by Jims 86LXI HB
No matter what I would recommend light weight 15" rims40mm offset 12lbs or less with 205/50-15 Falken Azenis Sports. If you have to have 16" find some that are 15lbs or less and run with 45mm offset so you can run 215/40-16 size.
i've wanted 17" cuz i like the big rims but i was wondering why 15" would be the best for cornering and whatnot?

[anchovies]

Originally posted by maka_RTH
i've wanted 17" cuz i like the big rims but i was wondering why 15" would be the best for cornering and whatnot?

Weight - 17s are heavier, added rotational weight at 4 corners is bad
Tire meat - 17s you'll have to run rather low profile tires. When cornering, you won't have enough tire to counter the pressure.
Price =D for wheels and tires

[Jims 86LXI HB]

Originally posted by maka_RTH
i've wanted 17" cuz i like the big rims but i was wondering why 15" would be the best for cornering and whatnot?

Read this thread, be a sponge;)

http://www.sccaforums.com/ubb/Forum7/HTML/000303.html

Rotational weight and slip angle's are the key
It gets scary expensive to get 17"rims with less than 15lbs in them. $355 each for 12lbs velox pg-5's $375 each for 14lbs SSR competition rims.

[pearldrop]

It gets scary expensive to get 17"rims with less than 15lbs in them. $355 each for 12lbs velox pg-5's $375 each for 14lbs SSR competition rims.

Haha
That is the average price that I usually pay for rims. I wouldn't classify rims as scary expensive until they get up over the $1000 each range.

[maka_RTH]

Originally posted by Jims 86LXI HB
Read this thread, be a sponge;)

http://www.sccaforums.com/ubb/Forum7/HTML/000303.html

Rotational weight and slip angle's are the key
It gets scary expensive to get 17"rims with less than 15lbs in them. $355 each for 12lbs velox pg-5's $375 each for 14lbs SSR competition rims.
thanks for the link and info, it's fun being a sponge ;) it all makes sense now, didn't think back to my days in physics

[87DXHatch]

Originally posted by Jims 86LXI HB
Read this thread, be a sponge;)

http://www.sccaforums.com/ubb/Forum7/HTML/000303.html

Rotational weight and slip angle's are the key
It gets scary expensive to get 17"rims with less than 15lbs in them. $355 each for 12lbs velox pg-5's $375 each for 14lbs SSR competition rims.
Wow, that looks exactly like the car audio threads I read... only having to do with wheels and tires.

Crazy crazy stuff... they seem to labor over the tiniest details... :D

I think I've changed my mind... I think I will get a nice set of 16's instead of 17's... I think it'll work better all around that way.