TxFireman1972

I have a 95 DX Coupe I inherited after my daughter toasted the motor. I'm in the process of putting a D16Z6 in place of the D15B7. This car will strictly be for daily driving when I dont need my truck, so the main goal is a good solid car, that has a good ride and gets great gas mileage, and a budget friendly build.

My question is on the suspension parts, Obviously, with the car being 25 years old and over 200K miles, the suspension could you some freshening up. With my project goal in mind, what is my best route as far as suspension parts? Am I better of just buying factory replacement struts, bushings, etc? Or are there better aftermarket parts available for close to the same price?

When I do parts like control arm bushings, am I better off having replacement bushings pressed into my arms or should I just replace the entire arm with a new one that has new bushings? Thanks in advance for any info you can provide.

EFbomb

If ride quality and reliability is your goal, then I would stick with "OEM" replacement parts.
You might find "performance" aftermarket parts that are close to or the same price as other aftermarket "OEM" spec replacement parts, but they might not hold up as long.

I worked at a Honda dealership for 4 years, and i learned a few things. I only buy OEM honda parts for things that are very vital to reliability (timing belt, water pump, thermostat, and sometimes seals, distributors, and sensors)
Most maintenance parts I will use quality aftermarket parts, not the cheapest every time, but usually cheaper than OEM.

Your DX wont have any suspension away links or bushings that will go bad, so youre safe there. You can visually inspect the control arm bushings and if they are cracked/worn you should replace them. The rears it will be cheaper to buy a set of rear control arms than it will be to buy the bushings and have them pressed in. The fronts, you might find a set aftermarket, but ive never heard of that.

As far as struts, ive used KYB Gr2 OEM spec on my civic, but they didnt last more than 3 years on lowering springs, but it was probably because of the roads around here, they are trash.

While your doing the engine swap, you should replace the timing belt and water pump, and crank seals. Just to save yourself a headache later by doing them in the car.

Good luck!

B serious

iTrader: (1)

I agree. If you're looking for just a reliable daily driver with comfort in mind, just use OEM parts. Honestly, if the parts don't need replacing, don't replace them. My 150k mile stock shocks are still fine after being lowered for 2 years on springs with 2X the rate as stock...and much lower than stock.

Your 200k mile shocks on stock springs should be just fine...especially in snow/salt free texas. If they have fluid leaking out of them or you do need to replace them for some other reason, go for it.

You can buy low mileage used parts for cheap usually. If you want a little bit of sportyness, you can use either GSR or EM1 units. Or use ITR units with ITR rear control arms.

The bushings may or may not be tore up. I'd use OEM bushings to replace them as well. You can probably just buy either new or used control arms with good bushings for about the same or less cost....and MUCH less hassle. Installing bushings is the worst thing ever.

TxFireman1972

I definitely agree an will only buy factory parts for items like the timing belt/waterpump

Could I add a swaybar? Is it worth the hassle?

Are any rear controls ok? I see tons of them on EBAY, any I should stay away from?

Something simple like this look ok?
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/HONDA...item3a5a19bedc

Definitely doing timing belt, tensioner, water pump, seals, valve cover gasket, intake gasket, dist gasket, etc before it goes in. Thanks for all the help, great info!!

TxFireman1972

I do know that the rear trailing arm bushings are shot. I've been trying to find an awesome deal on an Integra disc brake conversion. If I can find a deal, I'm sure I'll need to do trailing arm bushings, so I hate to do them now, just to turn around and do them again when I do the disc brake conversion.

JasonYo

For most maintenance parts I would go with oem only, like the bushings, belts etc.

It would also be good to do the rear disk conversion like you said since you need new trailing arm bushings. If you can't find any then just go with the stock ones, rear disk conversion is pretty useless on a daily driver.

As for new suspension, you can go oem, but there are quite a few aftermarket setups that would still ride very well. I have a set of koni yellow shocks with eibach pro-kit springs on my daily driver. It's almost a inch lower than stock and rides almost the same if not better imo. and they should last just as long as oem.

TxFireman1972

Where is the best source for a setup like that?

B serious

iTrader: (1)

There's tons of vendors in the vendor area. TH motorsports is one of them I think. They have free shipping. Plus I know the owner and have a friend that works there lol.

I'd stay away from the EBAY LCAs. The bushings in most aftermarket LCAs are garbage. There are a few LCAs that come with hard rubber bushings...which should be nice. PIC is one of them. There are other companies that have polyurethane bushings....which are nice because you don't have to clock them when you install them...and they last. But polyurethane can be uncomfortable if you do all the bushings in polyurethane.

Red_Army

stay far far away from ebay anything.

i have kyb AGX and eibach proline i think it was. having an adjustable shock setting is super nice. i wouldn't bother much with aftermarket stuff for the most part. OEM will be spiffy for a dependable DD.

jhpusa.com
tirerack- for the suspension setup. mine was a lil over 600 with shocks/springs.

both have shocks but jhp has a few quality RLCAs you can check out.

EFbomb

Can you, yes. Is it worth it on a daily? No, not in my opinion. Requires the swaybar and brackets and end links, rear subframe brace(because the OEM subframe on a DX doesnt have the bolt holes to mount the sway bar) and then rear LCA's that will accept the swaybar end links that your OEM ones dont have) Even on the cheap, youll spend 500 just to get it.


Front Upper LCA's are only necessary if your ball joints are shot. I've had the top dollar Skunk2 adjustibles and didnt think they were worth the money in the end, because my friend spent 1/2 the ammount on his and they looked identical. I guess time will tell.

I've also used aftermarket rear LCA's and been happy with them. But I have not daily driven them so idk.

I'd say a good place to spend the money would be on a nice set of shocks, springs(oem) and tires. those are going to make the biggest impact on your ride quality.