Toneco

What are my options for a hatch??

shoot me brands, looking for a daily driver suspension.

thanks

E-AT_me

well, not many still exist. konis are no longer in production. KYB makes GR2's. tokico still is available and not a terrible choice. there are a few coilovers for the rear, like ground control and monkey tekz. for front torsien bars upgrade motoring offers larger replacements. if you have the bling you can find a set of tiens via heeltoeauto, which is probably your best bet.

the biggest issue with these cars is if you want to "slam" it the front shocks run out of travel REALLY quick. i'm lucky enough to have a set of koni's that have been shortened on my car, and it really makes a difference. i'm not even that low, still have gap between the tire and fender lip, but that's as low as i can really go with still being comfortable.

good luck.

cbstd

A rear sway bar is a huge help to eliminate understeer. Summit Racing sells an Addco rear sway bar for your car.

E-AT_me

very good choice, too as i run one also.

Joseph Davis

If you look at the heeltoe Tien writeup it's obvious that the front dampeners are sourced from an 88+ vehicle and use a modified top hat to place the shock rod in it's sweet spot. The rear dampeners are nothing special, just an eye mount. If you don't mind minor fab on the top hats you can get some really good suspension under there - DIY revalveable Bilsteins > china suspension anodized a bright color.

You might be able to get the Tokico Illuminas for a decent price. Avoid the Tokico Blues, they are overpriced OEM equivalents that people confuse for a performance shock.

Toneco

Thanks alot guys.

I will look into all that.

NW Classic Honda

The front and rear sway bars was my best upgrade so far. Finding nice struts are next on my list to.

Jayrotz

What suspension are you guys using to lower the front suspension?

cbstd

The front suspesnion on these cars is completely different from all later Hondas. It is not a bad design, it is just VERY different, using torison bars instead of coil springs.

Honda makes it very simple to adjust ride height in front. There is a single nut on a bolt that is loosened to drop and tightened to raise the front suspension. Get under the car and it will be very apparant where that nut is on each side.

If you want to get a radical amount of raise or drop (and going too low is never a good idea because low means loss of suspension travel and suspension travel is a good thing) you will need to remove the trosion bars and move them one spline from the stock location.
Anyone with air-cooled VW experience can tell you that this is not such a big deal.

As long as you have the torsion bars out for the drop, you might as well replace them with thicker (stiffer) units. Generally speaking, do not use thicker than 25mm front torsion bars. And be sure to match the new front torsion bars with stouter springs (350lbs. is a good size) in back.

Red Pepper Racing's web site is agreat source of parts and information on these old cars. For some reason, HT will not let us put a link to there site, so do a google search with the three names without spaces.

Scott

E-AT_me

for a daily definitely 25mm is a good compromise. i'm running 27.5's in mine and it is a little bit rough. i am also running a b series so i need a little extra support. they key to the front suspension working well on these cars is to keep as much shock travel as you can up front. either with shortened shock shafts, or knocking off the brake line bracket and setting the shock lower in the mount. i lucked out and have shortened konis. camber plates will help also by putting the upper mounting point higher for more travel.

oh yeah, if you lower to far, your axle will make contact with the body.

suprasam

lots of good info in this thread

Scotticus88

This is my first car I've actually looked into improving and the info here has been really helpful. 87 Civic Si

I found ST front and rear sway bars along with 4 Tokico HP shocks for just over 500$ is that a good deal? I can always shop around more but I'm new to this market. Also how much experience and amount of garage time would you need to swap these with in?

I'm also looking for new wheels as the ones on it are all mismatched due to previous owner, any good recommendations?

E-AT_me

keep with 14's for wheels if you'd like to maintain some decent handling and daily driver characteristics. otherwise, don't go larger than 15's. 15's are about the max i'd run on my car. anything more and it's just too donky..

$500 isn't too bad for the bars and the shocks. it shouldn't be too bad for you to do them yourself as long as the car isn't your daily. that way if you screw up it isn't as big of a deal.

cbstd

Leave the stock front sway bar, it is fine. Concentrate on getting a large rear sway bar. And replace the suspension bushings.

Scott