Tophat mod front and rear

[ired44]

Can anyone write a step-by-step tutorial on the tophat mod for the front and rear struts on our cars...sorry if there is one already...i searched and found a few threads but not really great instructions...im planning on doing this mod on my dx hatch which ive already done a few mods on because of this awesome forum...and 1 quick ?...might be a dumb 1 but do i need lowering springs for this or can i do this with the stock springs...i have kyb gr2s with stock springs. Thanx alot guys.

[turabaka]

Here's the thread for the fronts. No one ever did a tutorial for the rears, but if you scroll down the page a bit there's a pic of what it could look like.

https://www.3geez.com/forum/showthrea...ghlight=tophat

[labeledsk8r]

why are you needing to do this on stock springs and struts? this is normaly for lowerd cars to take some stress off of the strut

[turabaka]

Good thing you mentioned that. I didn't even notice he didn't have lowering springs.

Doing this mod won't make your care any lower. It's so that you can use lowering springs, and still give the shocks their full amount of travel.

[ired44]

Thanx guys i guess i could figure out the rears and yea im getting some 2.25 sprint springs

[2oodoor]

I thought it was for using civic springs and struts, which would make it lower and retain full strut dampening.

[labeledsk8r]

I thought it was for using civic springs and struts, which would make it lower and retain full strut dampening.

it allso can take some length abd presure back off of the stock/aftermarket shock, since theres really no shock out there (besides a few konis or blistens) that can handle super stiff/low springs, this mod helps take some of the lowerd amount off of the shock only makeing them last a bit longer then if just slammed on them normaly

[markmdz89hatch]

So who was just waiting for me to jump in and be a scrooge?

I like the thought of trying to reduce the stress on the struts, but with lowering springs on not-strong-enough shocks, this is not really going to do much at all in the way of reducing the stress on the shock. Valving is valving, and if you're getting the majority of piston travel at 6" extension as opposed to 4" extension, you're still at the same lb handling. The only way I see this justifiable is with using civic shocks out front because the body is longer, so raising the hat will allow you a little more travel. You still need to be fully aware of the amount of travel the uca has before it smacks into the inner wheel well. If you raise the hat 3" and only have 2" of travel for the uca, instead of the bumpstop on the strut doing what it's supposed to (being the first point of contact to bottom out and save everything else) you're going to cause some serious damage with the uca/knuckls assy.

Anyway, with stock springs on GR-2's, if all you want to do is lower your car a bit (not more than 1-1.5") your best and safest bet is to just cut the stock springs. The GR-2's are valved to handle 15-20% greater force than the springs deliver, so you'll be setup more proper that way instead of using way-to-strong springs on shocks that will end up just being there for the ride.