Help, New on the Scene...Advice??

[MyGarbageLXi]

Hey im new to the scene of suspension, and i just a bought a set of tech 5 lowering springs and i want to put them on the car,
can someone tell me the diff from Shocks, springs, and struts. im all confused... also... when puttintg on these new springs am i going to NEED to replace the Struts, controlarms shocks or anything along those lines??? and when i take the old springs off will i have to disassble any of thosse things??? im not sure how it all works and ihavent really taken A good look at it all, please help and answer all or as many of these questions as u can thanks

[pimp86LX]

well there are the regular suspension guru's around but i'd first ask how much of a drop those springs are. and you will probably need new shocks depending drop..(i think) or you could revalve them to be stiffer but i think that costs more

if you go further than 1.5" you will need a camber correction kit or some 2g prelude control arms

thats all i know

bye

[Chrome_thangs]

There's a very helpfull post on this in the "how to" section!!:lol

[AZmike]

Since your lowering springs are (or should be, at least) stiffer than stock your strut choices are really limited:

softest to stiffest (i think):
Bilstein $70??/each
Tokico ~$70/each
Koni ~$110/each
revalved Bilstein ~$130?/each

The front springs are typically much stiffer than the rears so you'll probably want the Konis or better up front to prevent the bounce that you'd get with an underdamped system (soft struts with stiff springs). You have more choices for the rear if you want to save money, but the posts I've read from people that got Konis all around were positive.

Going through old posts in this topic to learn more is probably also a good idea. Jim (Jims 86LXI HB) has done a lot of research so keep an eye out for his posts. And if I've said anything wrong he'll straighten you out when he replies.

[Jims 86LXI HB]

Originally posted by MyGarbageLXi
Hey im new to the scene of suspension, and i just a bought a set of tech 5 lowering springs and i want to put them on the car,
can someone tell me the diff from Shocks, springs, and struts. im all confused... also... when puttintg on these new springs am i going to NEED to replace the Struts, controlarms shocks or anything along those lines??? and when i take the old springs off will i have to disassble any of thosse things??? im not sure how it all works and ihavent really taken A good look at it all, please help and answer all or as many of these questions as u can thanks

The springs you bought are most likely re-labeled sprint springs.
You will need some kind of camber correction in the front. You can purchase a camber corrections kit by eibach or ingalls, www.tirerack.com or www.optauto.com carry them (the eibach kit at least). OR purchase 2nd gen prelude arms and some washers to correct the camber. Those springs are much stiffer than stock. Their aren't many struts made for our cars, so your choices are limited. And those stiffer springs will require a stiffer strut as well, your choices of stiffer struts is REALLY limited. KYB GR-2's are not any stiffer than stock, they are oem replacements, so cross them off your list. The Tokico's are mildly stiffer than stock and should work in the rear of the car, but certainly not in the front, especially when members complain that the tokico's are to soft on the SOFTEST lowering spring made for our cars. So what you should run in the front would be Koni specials. The koni's should cost $216 for the front pair and the tokico's should run between $99 and $116. www.tirerack.com www.shox.com and www.ground-control carry the koni's. www.nopi.com www.optauto.com and www.shox.com carry the Tokico's.

[MyGarbageLXi]

hey fellas thanks for all the Input, im really not likeing this whole idea of lowering the car anymore, to much to worry about, i just really need to know once and for all,i spent 40 on thet springs... what am i goin to spen all together on shocks, struts and instalation, ball park figure, where do i find 2nd Gen Prelude Struts?? whats a strUT?????????? haha sorry, i really odnt know anything about this, as much info as possible is greatly appreciated

[AZmike]

You get the A arms off an 83-87 prelude in a junkyard for about $40 for the pair and some washers to make them fit for a few dollars at a hardware store. Four Konis brings you to a grand total of about $450-500 depending on shipping and where you find the best deal. You could save about $50 if you went with the Tokicos for the rear, but some people think they're too bouncy. Those prices are for the parts only. If you don't think that you're up to it after reading the how-to that will be another hundred or two.

The strut is what stops your car from bouncing after you compress your suspension and it springs back. Without a strut (assuming something else kept your spring in place) after you hit a bump you car would bounce and bounce and bounce.

[Jims 86LXI HB]

You could save about $50 if you went with the Tokicos for the rear, but some people think they're too bouncy.

It would be about a $100 savings and I've never heard a member say they bounce in the rear with lowering springs, only the front.
But I could understand when you get up to the rear spring rates that say the ground controls have, coupled to the fact that those springs are linear, not progressive and then the tokico's may not be the ideal choice, or they my give the car the feeling that the front and rear dampening rates are not on the same page. But the overall impression is that the tokico's work ok in the rear

[MyGarbageLXi]

Koni's are shocks right??, do i really need to replace the shocks?? im only gunna have the car for 2 years, is it really a nessacary expense?

[Jims 86LXI HB]

Do you want to spend the next 2 years making exscuses to not drive your car? Really stiff springs + stock or oem replacement struts ='s really bad bounce and not allot of control for the suspension. You will find your self taking different routes home, trying to not go down streets your know the car hates. You'll learn which lanes gives you the least headaches. You'll learn to fear and hate driveways and speed bumps. Plus it will only get worse as the more powerfull springs accelerate the meltdown of your struts. If you drive the car very much the springs will cause the struts to blow and things will really bad. You'll have to ask your self what's more important. I know we are not all made out of money, but lowering springs really do need stiffer struts as part of a lowering package. It's your car and you can of course do what you feel like doing, I'm just telling that it is in fact not a good idea.

Yeah the koni's are struts, which is what our cars use, not shocks.

If you have any other questions just ask:smokin:

[Jims 86LXI HB]

check this out, I'm not the only person that will tell you the same thing.

http://www.automotiveforums.com/vbulletin/t57412.html

[MyGarbageLXi]

ok thanks alot Jim, so shocks are the struts on our cars, understood so basically what i should do is go to the junkyard, see if i can find a pair of Prelude Arms, Then Buy a pair of Koni Struts for the Front and a pair of Tokicos for the rear, Grand Total being somewhere in the 380 range if i get shity deal?, sound right lemme know, if thats right then that dont sound so bad after all

[Jims 86LXI HB]

How about if I can save you about $65 on that $380 price, $316 for front koni's and rear Tokico's

http://www.autocarparts.com/search/r...&subcat=Shocks

[DBMaster]

That's why I like my stock springs and Sens-A-Trac struts. My car already hates speed bumps and R/R tracks more than most due to the stiff, sporty suspension the car caem equipped with.

To make it even stiffer and take out some of the already lacking suspension travel just doesn't make sense. I am not willing to trade functionality for looks in this area.

I am not saying these cars don' look good lowered (as long as they are not ground-scraping lowered), just that it's not worth it to me.

Later!

[Jims 86LXI HB]

Originally posted by DBMaster
That's why I like my stock springs and Sens-A-Trac struts. My car already hates speed bumps and R/R tracks more than most due to the stiff, sporty suspension the car caem equipped with.

To make it even stiffer and take out some of the already lacking suspension travel just doesn't make sense. I am not willing to trade functionality for looks in this area.

I am not saying these cars don' look good lowered (as long as they are not ground-scraping lowered), just that it's not worth it to me.

Later!

Interesting comments, your a good example of how some people judge things very differently then others and that's ok, it's what makes us all different. But I would never ever in a million years classify the stock 3rd gen suspension as stiff. And my stock suspension didn't care about speed bumps or driveways. When I had weak struts with lowering springs it sure did. Not all aftermarket springs and strut combo's will give you a stiff ride. As an example the H&R's I had, are among the softest lowering springs you can get for our cars. And Koni special's are not a stiff strut, if they were they'd be to powerfull for some lowering springs. My car was firm, not stiff and theirs a world of difference between the to.

One of the reason's I choose to never go below a 1.5" drop was because of suspension travel concern's and clearence issues. However new car manufactuers have them selves produced high performance versions of their standard cars where they lowered the car and did nothing to compensate for the reduction in suspension travel. Mazda Protege MP3, BMW M3, Audi S4, Ford Focus SVT and Contour SVT. I can see to a certain point that reducing suspenion travel isn't a good idea, but,... the as above production cars have shown, it's not a valid arguement when a slight drop is concerned. Especially when tied to using proper sturts with those lowering springs. And a further point of fact is in performance. If in fact the 1.5" reduction in suspension travel was to have a negitive effect on my car the real world issues of ride and handling would, in some way, make the car less hospitibal and slower around corners that were NOT smooth. This was not the case and while bumps were more noticable, I've driven cars that didn't have performance labels on them that rode far worse than my lowered car (2002 Toyota camry SE!). And the speed I could carry around corners whether smooth or not was much higher once the car was lowered. Part on the credit for increasing the speed I could negociate a corner is due to the fact that most of the lowering springs made for our cars are tuned to make the already overburdened frontend, give more of the cornering load to the rear of the car, less understeer in other words.

[DBMaster]

I am glad you explained that, Jim. I see where you are going. I have hit the car's handling limits a few times and it is pretty scary (and very difficult to handle) when the front end breaks loose. Based upon your narrative I might actually consider a small drop next time I need to change the struts (or, next time I have a few hundred bucks burning a hole in my pocket).

I guess i have seen far too many crappy lowering jobs around here with the back wheels looking like this / \ and the peopls inside looking like bobble heads every time they hit a bump.

I like the tire/wheel combo you chose, too. Not too radical and still enough rubber between the road and the wheel to keep a bad set of R/R tracks from messing up one of your alloys. There are some REALLY bad R/R tracks around here.

C Ya.

[Jims 86LXI HB]

Allrighty, I just wanted you to know that I understood where you were comming from. And to correct what I thought was a few misconceptions. I'll add that the setup I had was very easy to drive quickly. You always knew what the car was up to and you could walk up to the cars limits and you always knew you were getting close to them. If you overdid things, lightly touching the brakes brought the car back in line instead of spinning it. Of course it's nice to have a rural twisty foothill road to test things out on. And the roads where I live are really bad.

I see plenty of messed up lowering jobs every day here, bouncing all over the place. I've always known I would't want 17's around here, plus I would not want to pay the high price I'd have to, to keep them as lite as 15" rims.