TypeSH

I'm trying to track down the "CLUNK" issue in the rear... and why my springs are moving around on the perch =\

So, these are all for the rear springs/struts.

0) Year of your accord?

1) what struts did you match them with, and if they had height adjustable perches, which setting?

1.5) did you guys install the rear spring with the tightly wound coils towards the top ('Eibach Prokit' readable rightside up), or with the loosely spaced out coils towards the top ('eibach prokit' lettering upside down)? anybody try both?

-edit-
yea i know its supposed to be eibach read rightside up, but I'm wondering if anyone tried it the other way.

2) did you require a spring compressor to get the strut mount on? if not, how much effort to get the mount on (how hard was it to compress the spring by hand?)

3) with the above mentioned setup, did/do you guys have a "clunk" going over speed bumps?

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I'll post my ideas on what I think it is after.


[Modified by TypeSH, 8:38 PM 1/20/2003]

iam7head

Prokit on my accord coupe 2002..no click or clunk
1)factory shocks, factory struts
1.5)they all should be up right read eibach prokit not upside down.
2)I didnt install it, i paid 40 bucks at local tuner store.
3)no clunk what so ever

TJP_AccordV6

I just installed mine two days ago and it took us about 2-3 hours cause me and my brother didn't know what to do but about an hour later my older brother came(he is a mechanic) look at we done and said "Dam, you guys are to slow" LoL. he finish the front in 30 min. and the back was kinda hard it took us a long time but when it comes out. Its looking good at 1.5

Tools:
Spring Compessor
Sockets and air tools
Jack Stands
Metal Pipe

You should read the direction there they say words go up not upside down.
Stock Shocks and Struts
And i think you need allgnment in the back. I think?

iam7head

get an alignment after the spring settle..about 2week..dont drive it hard..
tell the ppl that you have lower your car, ask them to correct the TOE and camber as close to zero as possilble.

TypeSH

yea guys i know the words are supposed to be rightside up, but I'm curious if anyone has tried them upside down, and possibly what the actual effects are of doing so.

and i have installed springs many times and have them aligned... I'm just trying to isolate my knock problems... and trying to maximize the performance/quality of my prokit install w/ playing w/ the spring install side and perch heights.

btw, buy a lifetime alignment, it works wonders. You can get the intial one after the springs settle, then buy rear washers and longer bolts, correct according to the first alignment... and then get antoher one 3,000 miles later (install the washers then), see how much you corrected, and keep guessing/testing every 3k miles til you correct the rear to what you like.


[Modified by TypeSH, 1:34 AM 1/21/2003]

jweller

99 coupe
prokits w/koni yellows on middle perch
never clunked, ever

prokits are progressive rate, so if they are upside down I imagine you would get some pretty odd handling.

did you put the black rubber piece from your old springs onto the new ones. it wraps around the bottom coil

TypeSH

the rubber lining for those are molded for the stock strut perches, i have the flat metal perches (bilstein HD struts, similar to the koni yellow perches as well), so the rubber I don't think would seat evenly. =\

any 4th/5th gen guys?


[Modified by TypeSH, 3:54 AM 1/21/2003]

BigChris

only time i got a clunk noise was when my struts were dead. Maybe yours are dead too?? How long have you had them?? Are they the OE struts??

TypeSH

bilstein HD's... they were supposed to be "unused" when i bought them off a guy at hondasociety, but eh... they came kinda funny. The perches looked used, but the struts were totally clean. I assumed they were clean so I'm wondering if its eibach's design w/ bilstein's perch locations causing this. I'm thinking the struts don't have enough travel to stretch when the spring lengthens over the "resting" length due to a pothole... or something like taht, I'm gonan try playing w/ the perch settings, but wanna get some thoughts from you ppl first.

Conechaser

I have the clunk, Pro-Kit w/ KYB AGXs. It however is only on the passenger read side. So I am assuming it was my swaybar hititng my exhaust. I have the ST rearbar and stock exhaust. However, since I have removed my rear interior for my rollbar install, I am tending to beleive it is my strut hitting the top of the perch, because i can hear my rear strut bar vibrating when it hits. My struts are a little over 2yrs old i believe and i have done A LOT of autoxs and trackdays on them, so it is possible they can be blown, but it would only be 1 shock.

WheAs MaI MojO

GOSH what is up with the prokits and the clunk? I have an 02 coupe and i get the clunk on the rear passenger side. I only get the clunk when i go over speedbumps and it has been driving me absoloutely crazy. Can anyone find out what that is about?

I have prokit on 02 coupe I4
Stock shocks

Conechaser

Mine clunk when i hit ANY bump at all. Deeper/Taller the bump the harder it hits, sometimes it sounds/feels like it is going to bust through my strut tower in the back.

WheAs MaI MojO

This is very frustrating because we are all having the same problem and on the same location (rear passenger side) and we cant diagnose the problem. I know that this noise is not good for our cars, but is it damaging our cars in any way??

iam7head

I dont know mang, mine never clunk,click or make any strange sound..
did you check all the bolts and nut?
all tighte down?

WheAs MaI MojO

man.....**** this.....imma take the **** back to promax where i got it installed and tell the foo to fix that ****. I paid 70 dollars for install too........

ratherbewalking

its not just pro kits, i have a friend that has neuspeed springs or something like that. im pretty sure ive figured out what it is. there is a rubber upper perch thingy that your spring sits in, when you lower they car, you look at it and think "i dont need this" and prolly threw it away. i got some new ones with my energy suspension master set

YodiBrodi

hmmmm... mine has been clunking for a while now too. somebody in the prelude forum brought this up too, called it "shock knock." it did it before the ST swaybar and struts were installed and it does it now. odd that it is the passenger side that EVERYBODY hears clunk. maybe it does it on both sides but we just don't hear the driver's side for some reason?

ratherbewalking

i hear both, and mine is only on small road drop-offs, or uneven payment.

TypeSH

I've narrowed it down to like 3 possibilities to check... (oh and that was me who started the thread)

1) the tightly wound coils unwind over a bump as they lengthen and slam into each other because the springrate of those coils are really low, thus they compress/decompress too easily ( don't even see why eibach used those instead of linear rate springs).

solution could be to use the coil wrap like someone suggseted

2) the 2 strut bushings (inner and outer) might be too worn and compressed, thus there is play and it allows the strut or something to bang when the suspension moves.

solution would be to add washers or to try new bushings and washers to fill up the space

3) There might not be enough suspension travel for isntances where the spring lengthens (not compresses). I believe this occurs when the springs are installed on a low perch setting, thus you barely compress the spring a little to get the top strut mount on... meaning it only has that little bit of room when the springs lengthens over a pothole or something...

possible solution is to move the springs on a higher perch and thus give it more initial compression?? (might require a spring compressor).


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anyone agree/see some of these theories? any corrections? suggestions? other theories?

jweller

id say those 3 ideas are pretty good places to start. #2 sounds the least likely to me.

I was worried about the clunk when I put them on, but never heard it.

one other thought. myself and iam7head both have never had any clunking, and we both have 6th gens. I'm not sure if thats a coincidence or not, but since 90-97 share suspension and 98 - 02 are different, there may be something different in the suspension design that makes the older ones clunk.

YodiBrodi

hmmm never thought about that one dude.

my thought were this: to remove the rear springs from the perch we didn't even have to use a spring compressor since they're so short from stock. this isn't really a problem when the spring is loaded and it's rarely ever not. but when going over bumps (at least the ones i always hear it on i.e. going over a speedbump not slow or fast enough) i figure it may momentarily unload it just enough to let the spring out of the perch a little and it settling back in is the "clunk." who knows, the car handles like a vette still and nothing has ever gone wrong since i heard it so i quit worrying about it. or it could be something to do with that the suspension wasn't designed to ride like that all the time and it could be regular suspension movement but just somehting we aren't used to hearing since it's rather toward the extremes of travel.

f22a

this could help, but probably not. my and my friend both have 4th gens and we are pretty f'ing low.. (we are both dropped over 3 inches)..anyways, we both have a knocking on the front passenger side, coming from around the fender well. it seems a lot of 4th gens get this, some with small drops and some slammed. my friend and i have pinpointed it to be the control arm (front passenger side only) knocking against the top of the fender well, neither of us had this problem before we got camber kits and gave ourselves within-spec camber. anyways, i doubt that has any relevance to ya'lls problem, but just a thought

TypeSH

control arm banging due to camber kits is a very common issue. I dont have any trouble w/ the knocking in the front... though there is a ticking from the driver side front corner of the car...but thats something to fix later.

There should be no control arm banging in the rear of the car, esp not w/ prokits.

now that i think about it... I might try lowering the rear springs so there is more initial strut compression, and trimming my rear bumpstop a little bit. I might be wrong to try to raise the rear perch.