It was a joke...he said he wanted bmw-like handling....
You people are too serious.
Alex
It was a joke...he said he wanted bmw-like handling....
You people are too serious.
Alex
I think if you go for something like a 2 1/2 in drop, you have lost so much suspension travel that things have to be real stiff to keep you off the bump stops. I have Eibach 1" drops w/ Bilsteins (revalved fronts). Since the Eibachs are less firm than stock in the rear, the stock Bilsteins (HD) work well there. I can see why you're complaining about your rears, you are waaaaaaay too stiff.
If you go off on your own, you have to be prepared to experiment a little, and unfortunately, if you can't change out stuff yourself, that costs $$$. I am on my 3rd set of front Bilsteins (rear stock, fronts revalved once-not enuf, revalved again), and now I am completely happy. I do have an SE-i, so have the sway bars, which are stock. Look at the NASCAR boys, they're all the time messing with one part of the suspension or the other.
I think there ought to be a sticky thread with reports of those that have worked on their suspensions, along with their current status. I personally would be ok with someone driving my car if they wanted to see how mine has sorted out.
If you want to handle like a BMW, then you need to get a BMW. These are 20 year old cars with a very (for their day) good suspension setup, but they are 20 years old, front drive, and meant for mass transportation. You can only go so far with that.
Last edited by w261w261; 04-06-2007 at 07:33 AM.
Exactly what I did... MMMMM, German goodness. But you know, I still love my 3gee just the same. In fact I have new UCA's and front pads to install on her this weekend.Originally Posted by w261w261
What kind of wheels are you running? I have the same springs on factory struts and my ride is perfectly fine. Sits level as can be too. I did notice that with the factory 13" wheels on it for winter, the ride seemed squishy and vague but as soon as I put my fat fives back on, the ride and handling is nice and crisp again.
< I am so sick of being knocked out of the seat by every little contour of the road that I've taken to commuting in my truck >
Also, if you are getting a rebound effect from your seat, you might look at the very first thread I posted on 3Geez. I wired the springs together, but it was (then) because I had initially installed Eibachs with stock Bilsteins. I had pogo-sticking on the front, cause I didn't know that the stiffer springs needed stiffer shocks. So I would hit a bump, the front would go boiiiing, and I would bounce up on my seat. My wire job helped quite a bit, and it's not hard to take the seat out.
https://www.3geez.com/forum/showthrea...454#post466454
Last edited by w261w261; 04-06-2007 at 09:45 AM.
Yeah, that's why full bodied, intregrated coilovers are the only way to go if you want to go low. My car, for example, is 3 or 4" lower than stock, but the lowness comes from adjusting the mounting point (it's threaded) leaving full suspension travel for the spring and strut. Hopefully Legend Master will be able to come up with something for coilovers...
Granted, the geometry gets a big kooky when you go low, but it's not that big of a deal to me.
Alex
I am running H&R with front KONI and rear Bilstein at the moment. I am using the car for commuting and I am pretty happy with the set up. Even sometimes I find it stiff when I go through big bump but it is good compromise. But I dont think this is great set up for track use - they are different. In the past, I had coil over set up with other car but I chose it spring rate as soft as possible and was very good for street use plus occasional track/autocross use. I didn't have any stroke problem with that car (1st gen Mitsubishi Lancer) in the front but needed to shorten the rear shocks and worked great. With our accord, biggest problem seems to be lack of stroke in the front if lowered. If there is little stroke, obviously you need to sacrifice confort by increasing the spring rate to avoide bottoming. If you are opt for coilover, I would strongly recommend you to shorten your front shock so that you can lower the car with keeping stroke required for streetable spring. I know you don't want to throw a lot of money but it will release you from sticking with high spring rate that shake your teeth I believe. In fact, Motor Life Systems (Honda specialist in Japan) used to be selling shortened shocks for our car that goes with their 55mm down spring few years back.
Then if you want to reduce the side roll during the cornering, you may want to uprate the stabilizers - I have heard that Type-Rs have rather soft spring plus thick stabilizer and if that is true it make sense to me. Probably the best option is coil over with shortened adjustable shock, yeah I know that would be expensive and I want it someday.
Also if you want to be very accurate about ride confort/handling, tyre is also very important. Good street tyre will give you confort as well as grip in good balance. My friend who works for car manufacturer told me that it is common that manufacturer specially order tyre company to make tyres for very specific spec for particular car - they seems to be the same Bridgestone Potenza but the OEM ones are slightly different from after market ones even if the size etc are identical. It is possible because car manufacturers buy tyres in huge numbers. It means that they know that tyre are that important for setting up the syspension otherwise they dont have to be that fussy to sell "normal" cars with tight budget.
Wow..a lot of people posted on my thread today..
Ok, first..I think the fronts aren't that far off. And there is still a gap between the tire and fender there. I can't go lower ever since I changed my steering knuckles to the 88/89 style without increased camber. (87 car) Bullshit. Don't ask, I have a whole thread about this alone. But that's fine anyway, though, I don't like scraping going out of parking lots, etc.
I think most of the roughness comes from the rear. I think the springs in the back are just too damn stiff. I don't think it helps me hook either. It's just pointless and stupid.
and as far as changing out stuff myself..as well as being one of the OG's to first turbo their 3g, I did the whole b series swap myself, mounts, wiring, everything, since the pri kit isn't out there anymore, so springs and shocks are like a 45 minute thing..basically, I'm used to doing shit on my own and my suspension will no doubt end up being a continuation of that..
And as far as handling like a modern performance car, I think that's mostly possible, it just takes a little effort. My car handles/grips really well, it's just rough and totally uncivilized. You can just jerk the wheel and it goes where you point it, although sway bars would still really help.
uggghhh..and as far as the money for this goes, cop just got me doing 86 on a country road, damn it..but I'll definitely get the GCs eventually and let you guys know how it all ends up..
Well, a year and 2 months later..still no ground controls. Almost done with the new vtec setup at least though. There was a surpising amount of work involved in this, I'd say I've changed more than 2/3 of the shit in the engine bay, from the intake manifold to the water pump to the power steering pump, brackets, pressure line, crank pulley, etc, etc.
I also added another muffler inline instead of my old cat, trying to quiet my shit down.
Still have to fix this shit too..
Those springs would probably be okay with my stiff ass bilsteins then..
After looking at the sprints in the back, I see why the car rides like such shit. The sprints are "progressive", but are so incompetently engineered that the softer part completely bottoms out with only a battery and my less than 50lb sub box in the back. Then the insanely stiff other part of the spring knocks the shit out of the car with every little bump.
At least you are making progress.
There is definately a fine line to be had with the rear suspension, the front of these cars seems to react from rear susp. with too much travel, too little and it bumps yur guts out. Custom paired components (spring/strut) like neuspeed or GC would be a good choice.
sorry to be off topic but do you have a thread of your swap..i want to see your set up. since i might be going B
1989 Honda Accord LX-i
B18c1 swap since 7/2011
175whp and 132tq
Redzone tuned
Why do you dare say that? lolShitsubishi.
I do..I have threads about just about everything on this site. But plodding through all the pages just to find that I redid half of my shit 3 times to get it where it is now kind of sucks. But at least I know how to do it now, lol. Use integra mounts, adapt the accord chassis to fit. I used an 89 teg passenger side axle, and a 3g pass axle+ teg inner end for the driver's side. Everything else you can figure out on your own, except maybe the stupid VSS incompatibility thing with the obd-1 and 3g dash. That just requires a simple circuit to work.
one of the things is to go through the stock setup and rebuild it. use quality parts not cheapo chinese crap. you will be amazed at the difference. these cars really do have a great suspension, most hondas even today use slightly modified versions of the same suspension thats on the three g. these were the first front wheel drive cars ever sold in the US, that had double wishbone on all four corners,that was exotic stuff. it's still pretty much up to date. i overhauled my suspension on my hatch,and i have none of the problems you have. it has a nice neutral feel. also make sure your caster is right and your toe in, and your rear camber is adjustable. what you are describing is bump steer, and it can be aggrevated by alignment problems and worn components.
well you have to remember that when you lowered your car you misaligned and preloaded every component of the suspension. For example the control arms are biult to run parallel to the road and perpindicular to the dampeners causing greater stability at speeds. when you lowered your car you misaligned the sway bars to the dampeners causing a weak joint. If you brought your back to normal ride height and kept the same spring stiffness I bet it would ride better due to the nature of the design. To properly lower your car you need to keep everything in the same orientaion. Thus the only proper way is the full bodied coilovers. this keep the body in the same place to the other components and help in travel geometry. I doubt this makes sence but Im not sure how to word it otherwise. Jump under your car when its on the ground and look at the suspension parts in comparison to a stock picture. youll see everything is at different angles than it was designed to be. Fix this and it will ride better.
oddly enough, the c/v's actually benefit (in terms of geometry) from lowering, but as mykwikcoupe said, all other parts end up out of whack.
As lost and others have already said though, these cars are 20 years old. Despite a great setup on paper, all bushings, etc are now old and worn. Replace all these first (ie. lca bushings, ball joints, tie-rod ends, sway bar end-links & mounting bushings, radius rod bushings, etc, etc, etc. Do that and you'll be 1/2 way there (ie. you'll be starting from square one, instead of square -5).
If you have bump-steer (which I personally HATE), chances are it's because of the notorious 'front too hard' condition that all manufacturers send their cars out with from the factory. All race applications (FWD) harden up the back end and keep the front 'loose', but nearly all manufacturers do just the opposite, and lots of those aftermarket 'band-wagoner' manufacturers just follow the theory of stock+x instead of looking at what actually benefits a car.
That said, you need to be very careful with what you choose. If you have Billstein's (stock valving) then the most you could get away with is Eibach's or H&R's. G/C's will make you bounce uncontrollably.
Contrary to popular belief it's actually not bad to lower your car by cutting the springs (at least with our cars, and most others). We have progressive stock springs. If you didn't bottom out on your stock setup, as long as you don't cut into the 'harder' coils, your chances of bottoming out on cuts are not much greater.
Struts will make your car handle better much more-so than springs. (ie. Koni's on stock springs is infinitely better than stock struts on any aftermarket springs.) Although I've started arguments with the statement, I hold strong to the fact that springs merely compliment struts, not the other way around.
Now that you have a swap done, it further complicates your problems. Unless that motor/tranny is nearly the identical weight to the A20, you'll now need to get your car corner weighted so you know where you are now.
k, sorry for the book. there's plenty more to add, but that will wait. baby-steps for now.
Last edited by markmdz89hatch; 06-09-2008 at 07:04 AM.
-Mark D.
What is with these last few posts..??
Lostforawhile, I'm assuming your post was addressed to me, but you know my revalved bilsteins aren't cheap chinese crap, my car was aligned perfectly..and my complaints have nothing to do with bump steer. They have to do with the fact that sprints are complete crap! I never had bump steer..Bump steer is a change in steering angle due to suspension travel, it makes your car try to move sideways when you hit a bump mid turn, my car never did that.
Mykwikcoupe, what..? While you're right about everything being at different angles, everything else you wrote... Ok, first, misaligned and preloaded every component of the suspension? The roll center might be off now, in a negative way, but the rate of camber gain is higher and the caster is higher, both which help handling. I wouldn't say that's misaligned, it's just in a different geometry. Of course you're going to have to realign a car once you lower it. And of course I did that. The preloading you describe, the only thing that is preloaded is the rubber bushings, but that is easily alleviated by loosening the bolts, allowing the bushings to rotate to the new postion of the arm, and then re tightening them. (You never tighten control arm mounting bolts when the car is in the air for that reason.) What you wrote about the sway bars is incorrect, sway bars don't respond to overall ride height, they just respond to a difference in side/side height..the whole sway bar just rotates when you lower the car. And then you wrote full bodied coilovers somehow correct the suspension geometry? The Only way to lower a car without altering the suspension geometry is to Not Move the suspension, with drop steering knuckles/rear trailing arms that relocate the wheels/axles higher in the knuckle or arm, while keeping the everything connected to that in the same position. And of course there are no drop knuckes/arms for the 3g, they don't exist for even many popular cars. Any other way, wether it's full bodied coilovers, sleeve coilovers, or drop springs, moves the suspension up and alters the geometry.
Markmdz89hatch, I'm not going to rebuild my entire suspension. Why? Because I don't need to. It's easy to tell what components need to be replaced, by just a good basic inspection, and I don't drive cars with worn out parts. When you put the car in the air, and try to rock the wheels back and forth, side to side, top to bottom, as long as you're not a cute 100lb female, lol, that will reveal worn ball joints, tie rod ends, uca/lca bushings, and wheel bearings. Then you drop the car back on the ground, grab the wheel (easy with my 6 spoke 17s) and try to roll the car by jerking the wheel forward and back. (car in neutral, obviously) Put some muscle into it, and this will show any weakness in front to back movement, ie the radius arm bushings, or weakness in uca/lca bushings that wasn't evident in the previous test. Most people don't know to do this test. You might be amazed at how much movement you get, esp when you think about how much force the driveline puts into the wheel vs your arms. This is why I'm replacing my radius arm bushings with urethane ones.
I realize I might sound like I'm trying to be an asshole, or that I think I know everything, but I'm not and I know I don't. If I did, I wouldn't have this thread. I just feel that it would be wrong of me not post up what I know, as this is a public forum, and I don't want people reading and believing or misunderstanding something in my thread that isn't accurate. So no offense meant to you guys who I just wrote shit to.
Anyway, what I'm trying to figure out here, I guess, is what spring rates to get for my bilsteins. 375/120 front, 300/100 rear valving, whatever those numbers mean. I emailed, GC, of course they never responded, because I'm talking about an 87 accord. But like I trust the guy on the phone or computer anyway. ?
Maybe I'll post up on honda-tech, see what anyone over there has to say, if anything at all. Once I figure that out, then I'll have to figure out what sway bar setup to get to compliment that.
Probably get it to a place that can weigh the car out like markmdz89hatch said, then educate yourself on the formulas used to get the rate that is best for the kind of use the car will get.
Im no expert either, but I hope this thread can be a learning experience for all.
I think Lostforawhile was responding to the "want it to handle like a bmw" remark made way back when. ;o)
no offense taken at all. That was not necessarily directly specifically to you. As you mention, this is a public forum, and there are a bunch of people reading this thread. Although you know what you're talking about, there are a bunch of guys that might see your thread and say 'hey, lemme see what people are suggesting b/c I'm having the same trouble".
Anyway, to directly answer your question....
First, I'm assuming those numbers you posted are your rebound/compression settings on the bills. Is that right?
If so, that front setting is a great starting point. Personally, I would revalve the rears to something like 450/(don't care). Without doing that, I would go with Progress: 358F/240R.
I have heard GREAT things about the Progress springs. Although I have not run them, a few members had them back in the day (including the OpelLoop Accord if I'm not mistaken) and they loved them. (I *think* these are linear springs.)
Along with some better springs, I would also suggest an upgraded anti-sway bar out back. Don't worry about the front, just leave that as is. For the back, I hear 4G bars fit with very little modification, but Sus.Tech and Addco both make upgraded rear bars.
EDIT: Check out https://www.3geez.com/forum/showthread.php?t=48185 for more spring rates as listed. Based on that list, the Sus.Tech might also be a viable solution for you too.
From personal experience: I have B&G's on mine w/ Koni's. If you like LOW, the B&G's are the way to go. Be aware though, they are stiff as hell. My rear Koni's are said to be good for 350 (w/ the B&G's at rated at 357) and I'm sad to say I'm pretty sure the Koni's are just about spent. I don't know what is industry standard, but what I use as best practice is valving the dampers to about 10-15% greater then the spring rate of what you're pairing them with.
Last edited by markmdz89hatch; 06-09-2008 at 10:33 AM.
-Mark D.
i didn't say you had cheap crap, reread what i wrote, i said you should rebuild all the bushings and other parts,but not to use cheap chinese crap, aka autozone parts. stick with moog if you can. and why are you jumping on everyone? we are making useful suggestions here not putting you down. and yes i know what bump steer is,it can also be caused by suspension parts that don't work well together. if your compression and rebound rates aren't matched to the car i don't care if your struts cost 10000 dollars, they still won't work.
http://www.heldmotorsports.com/Honda/Front_Spindles.htm
try to look at these. Id bet with minor or no modifications these will fit. Or just send one of the factory arms to them and see if they can compare or manufacture these. When I said out of whack I was referring to the angle of the arms, linkages not the wheels themselves. You are correct about being ble to help it but its still not designed to work optimally in this way. Hope this helps or gives a better idea.
My sprints with konis work great. Id like the GC's myself though. Ive got the front knuckle shaved 1/2 inch like jim said and am curious what itll be like when I get the lighter b20a in. Let me know what you find out. Mike
Mike,
not to get off topic, but any idea what pricing is on those? When you say you shaved a 1/2" off the knuckle, I'm guessing that was from the top where the uca seats right? Strange how many people are reading this and might say to themselves "who's Jim". Oddly enough, most of us in this thread know who he is though.
-Mark D.
<< The preloading you describe, the only thing that is preloaded is the rubber bushings, but that is easily alleviated by loosening the bolts, allowing the bushings to rotate to the new postion of the arm, and then re tightening them. (You never tighten control arm mounting bolts when the car is in the air for that reason.) >>
This is why I love this site. I'm about to have a new lower control arm installed, is the description above what all mechanics know what to do, or is this something I have to insist on? I've never heard of it before, but that's not saying much.
AccordTheory: I feel your pain on the bumps. I had a '73 3.0 CS once that the owner had gone with Bilstein/Eibachs, and it would rattle your teeth when you hit a bump.
According to Bilstein, their stock shocks are 195/46 (rebound/compression). When I got the 1" drop Eibachs and installed the stock Bilsteins, the shocks were just totally overpowered by the springs in the front. The rears were pretty good, and I didn't mess further with them, but I definitely had to do something with the fronts. Because I needed to drive the car, I ordered another set of fronts, revalved to Bilstein's suggestion (which had been repeated here several times) to 300/100. They came in and were duly installed, and to my chagrin, were STILL not damping enough, there was still that little bounce. Now came the tricky part, what was my next guess? I sent off the first set of Bilsteins and had them revalved to 340/110, and Bingo, perfect! No overdamping, no underdamping. A bump on a high speed sweeper and the car is perfectly settled. Thankfuckinggod.
But that's with the Eibachs. Your springs obviously differ, and the rears sound like they would like to put the rear seat cushion into the headliner on a big bump. It isn't just the shocks or the springs, but the matching of the combination. Tricky shit. So my experience is just for my particular combo, and I would recommend anyone trying to mess with the suspension to let someone else do the research and spend the $$. I did, and now I'm OK, but it wasn't cheap.
Last edited by w261w261; 06-09-2008 at 06:38 PM.
yep thats the jim thread. no clue on prices i just happened across them and sent the link. id be game for a set under 450 shipped myself.
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