2g Koni / Eibach Install

[2ndGenGuy]

Welp, I got started on installing my Koni reds and Eibach Pro Kit springs. Spent about 2 hours cleaning the garage so I could find all my tools and actually get this project rolling.

Of course there's the necessary BEFORE pictures of the car:





First thing to do is disconnect the brake caliper. The brake lines are too short to remove the strut towers without tearing them. So undo the bolt thats on the strut first that has the line running through it. Undo the 13mm bolt holding the caliper down. Slide the caliper off the the bracket and hang it up inside the wheel well.



There is a self locking bolt (17mm) on the back of the knuckle where it grabs onto the bottom of the strut. Undo that bolt, and that basically frees the knuckle from the strut. Disconnect the 2 12mm bolts holding the swaybar onto the lower control arm. This allows you to get the knuckle low enough to slide it off the strut. Otherwise it keeps tension on the lower control arm and the knuckle won't come off. It should look like this when you're done:



Once you've got that free, the strut should be hanging from the body. Pop open the hood (if you haven't already done so), and undo the 3 12mm bolts holding the housing onto the car.



It should just drop out after that, and you have a free strut tower, and no suspension in your car!

Here's the strut housing:



Here's your wheel well with no suspension in it:



So to get the springs free and the housings apart, you're going to want to buy a spring compressor. I bought mine at Harbor Frieght for $12. The rest is pretty easy really. You want to compress the spring quite a bit until you can feel slack in the spring where it rests on it's perches.

Once the spring is compressed, take an end wrench and stick it down on the nut in the top of the housing. It's recessed, so it can be tricky. Then get your alan wrench and stick it in the middle of the nut. Twist the two apart, and everything else will just fall out.

Here's a picture of the springs removed, and compared to the new Eibach springs with the 1.3 inch drop. Pretty significant difference.



I know that my camber will be off and everything, but I'm not too worried about it. The way I drive, the tires wear off pretty quickly anyways.

__________________________________________________ ______________

Okay kids, so tomorrow we're going to learn how to modify the struts to fit the Konis. Lots of cutting and drilling! Then I'll show how to reinstall. And then the moment we've all been waiting for... The AFTER PICS! Yay!

[MessyHonda]

dude you suck.. i want some more pics....after its lowered....oh yeah i wonder who found thoes springs?

[Pico]

Can't wait to see the finished results.

[frantik]

koni + eibach FTW!!

[88LXi68]

This upgrade will make a significant improvement in the handling of your car. I had an 85 LX and it would roll like no other. I want to see the after pics!

[led_fut]

pics pleez

[2ndGenGuy]

Well, I'm headed out to the garage right now to go put these bastards in. Pics tonight!

[bobafett]

cool nice documentation! im sure it will look awesome

[denhonda]

This is way better than in any manual I've ever seen !!!

When I'm doing the suspension on my '82 you can be sure that'll I'll be refering to this! I thought this job would be way beyond my abilities but I might actually have a go at it...

I need to get lowering springs too though as the ride height is crazy, but I'll want my camber set up correctly (any adjustments possible on these?) as I'm a SLOWWWWWWWWW (ish) driver and like maximum life out my tires.

Springs, springs, springs...

[Bglad420]

You didn't need to pull your caliper, you just needed to undo the 10mm bolt holding the line to the shock, undo the bolt clamping the butt of the strut to the pinch fork, then undo the three bolts on top, way easier.

[Ichiban]

Having the brake line in the way is a pain in the ass, and you risk damaging it when pulling the strut out of the knuckle. It's only 2 bolts, I'd say pull it and get it out of the way.

[offthahook]

Having the brake line in the way is a pain in the ass, and you risk damaging it when pulling the strut out of the knuckle. It's only 2 bolts, I'd say pull it and get it out of the way.

Werd. Dude, a $12 spring compressor from Harbor Freight sounds scurry. Be super careful with that sumbitch. Looks good so far. Pretty clean looking for having a bajillion miles on that Accord.

[MessyHonda]

any update?

[2ndGenGuy]

... And welcome back to the show! Next up, removing your rear struts... and how to convert your factory struts into housings for the Koni's!

Removing your rear struts is even easier than the fronts!

First thing you need to do is completely remove your rear brakes. This works the same for hatches, sedans, disc or drum brakes. If you have drums, there is an extra step, because you have to pull the drums off, and remove all the shoes first.

First disconnect the rear brake line. Pop the clip out, and put a wrench on both fittings on each side of the clip where it's connected to the strut.



It's easy though, just pop off the dust cap, remove the cotter pin, pull the nut cap off of the spindle nut, and twist it off. Once that is off, your bearings will come free and you can pull the drum right off.

After removing the drum, the shoes can all come off in once piece. Just pull the bottoms of the shoes out of the grooves at the bottom of the assembely. Then they should slide right off from the top. The e-brake cable will be attached to the rearward shoe, just unhook it. Getting it out of the drum backing plate is hard because you have 3 tabs to squeeze together then fit it through the hole.

In the middle of the drum backing plate are 4 bolts in a rectangular pattern. This secures the whole drum assembely to the rear "knuckle". Undo those 4 bolts, and everything is apart. Super easy!



Then the process is just like the front. Undo the pinch bolt on the back of the knuckle top where it grabs the strut and hammer it down gently. If you've got an 84-85 hatch, you have to disconnect the sway bar.

Once the bottom of the strut housing is free, it's time to unbolt it at the top. Using a 12mm wrench, get into your trunk and unto the 3 bolts. You'll need a tiny-ass socket to get this done, as there's not much room to work. If you've got a hatch, I assume you remove your rear speaker covers and speakers to gain access to the strut tops...

Thats all for now. Back after these messages.

[2ndGenGuy]

Do you want to improve your handling? Do you want to corner like your car is on rails? Install Koni shocks and in your second generation Accord! Here's how!

This process is the same for the front and rear struts...


Using a spring compressor, well... compress the spring!

With the springs compressed, insert the appropriate sized alan wrench into the top of the strut, and get an end wrench to grab onto the nut with. Twist the nut off the top, and the whole housing comes apart. You can then uncompress your springs.

Take your old strut and tap off the cap.




I just used a screwdriver and hammer to get this done. It comes right off with ease.

This is what the strut looks like with the cap off.


See that little lip around the top where the cap was? We need to get that off. Koni says to use a grinder. When we did so, it seemed to not work, and only heat the inner strut top to the housing, making it harder to remove, like below:


So what we did was cut around the outside of the housing, just below the top. This makes the operation much faster, but can cause a serious mess. Oil started coming out all over the place. Make sure you cut it as close to the top as you can. You want to be able to fit the whole strut inside the housing.



Gently remove the guts from the shocks. Make sure to have something handy to catch the oil in, the struts are full of the stuff!


What you end up with looks like this. Notice the now hollow strut housing with the guts removed. This is the home for your new Konis!


But before you can fit the Koni's you have to make the bolt on the bottom of the Koni fit through the bottom of the strut housing. This means you'll be drilling a hole down there!

I started with a small hole, then drilled up to a 1/2 inch. The Koni directions indicate to use a 13mm drill bit. I went to the stores, and coudln't find anywhere that carried metric dill bits. So I just converted to standard (which was 1/2 inch)

You need to make sure this hole is lined up dead center in the strut. I measured the middle and marked it using a compass. Use whatever method you feel necessary.


Once you've got your new empty strut housing, it's time to fill it with your Koni's! Simply slide them in as far as they go, and make sure that the threads on the bottom are lining up properly. Tap the strut into place. The top "cap" on the Koni strut fits very snugly into the housing. Once you've got the struts in, put the bolt on the bottom. Tighten it to 50Nm of torque. Then place the cap you tapped off, back on.

Your results should look like this:


Yep, thats them. The look just like the OEM struts, but now they're adjustable.

The shocks on the front are only adjustable outside the car. But the rear shocks I'm using are for a Prelude. They fit perfectly into thier position, and they're externally adjustable. So all I have to do is pop my trunk, reach in and adjust them.

I'm going to be buying another set for the front and sending them into Koni. They will rebuild any strut for around $100. And they even told me they could build it to be externally adjustable. So for about $250 I can get the front shocks externally adjustable as well. Just pop the hood and turn the knob! For nw, though these will work...

Hopefully tomorrow, I can get all the suspension in, and the rear brakes bled out so I can take some after pics! More to come tomorrow...

[MessyHonda]

nice i didnt know you had to Frankenstein your old shocks....good info

[shepherd79]

what is the inside diameter for the struts? and what is the dimentions for them when they are compressed and fully extented?

[2ndGenGuy]

what is the inside diameter for the struts? and what is the dimentions for them when they are compressed and fully extented?

The inside diameter of the old strut housings you mean? I don't really know. But it measures exactly the same as the outside of the widest point at the top of the Koni's. They fit exactly in there. I think it's somewhere around 36mm.

I also have no idea about the compressed and extended dimensions. I do know that it's the same as the stock struts. I compared them before hand. Guess I shoulda taken pictures of that too.

[forrest89sei]

Sweet!

[88LXi68]

this is really cool, but I would definitely recommend sending those struts out to koni and get them made externally adjustable.

[Cheeseburger]

nice write up!

[2ndGenGuy]

Well it's all finished. I got it all tightened up and back together. The assembely is pretty much just the reverse of taking it apart. Just make sure that the bearings at the top of the front struts are nice and clean, and even grease them up when putting them back together.



The only wierd issue I ran into when putting the struts back together was on the rears. The springs were so short that when the shocks were fully extended, the spring wouldn't be seated in the perches. It wasn't drastic like my springs were going to pop out, but it was enough to concern me. I figured if I'm autocrossing, and I get the car up on 3 wheels (which has happened), or if I hit an unexpected pothole and the shock drops clear out, it could be bad news.

To solve this, I simply cut the collar that goes between the strut rod at the top and the bushings. I only took about 1/8 inch at the top off, but it tighetened the perches down on the springs tighter. It also tightened the cap up on the bushings much more securely. I felt much better with this assembely than without those cut off.

Here you can see how they looked originally, vs how they look after cutting. There's not a lot cut off, but it made all the difference.



And finally here are some after pics:






Overall, the handling is MUCH improved. The rear shocks are set all the way at thier softest setting, just because I knew I could set them after they were in the car. The fronts are about 50/50 stiff vs soft. I adjusted them half way between completely stiff, and completely soft.

The springs are just what I wanted too. It's hard to tell sometimes, that the car has been lowered at all. The front end is pretty drastic though, as that 5 miles of wheel gap is mostly gone. I thought that it would be more drastic, but I'm actually thrilled with the ride height.

Overall the ride is even better! The car doesn't feel like an old car anymore. Feels more modern, rides smoother, stiffer, less body roll. It was worth the 2 days of work. So much fun and such a great outcome!

I do think, though, that I want to make my front shocks externally adjustable, and get a rear set rebuilt. I'll probably buy another set for $40 or whatever (heheh so cheap!!), and send them in while I'm running these. It would be nice to daily drive with the soft, and switch to the stiffer ones at the track...

[MessyHonda]

looks bad ass....now take some daytime pics

[2ndGenGuy]

I'll get some daytime pics when it's sunny out. It's been cloudy here the past few days... She needs a good douching too, she gets dirty when she's wet.

[seancornelis]

Wow AWESOME write up, should definitely move this to the FAQ section