alphaoenz

When I bought my Tokico HP's for my 96 Civic I noticed the mounting bracket on the rear shocks were quite a bit shorter than other brands (Koni, KYB, oem).

I am concerned because there is nearly NO clearance whatsoever between the control arms and the struts. If I am making a sharp turn, the shock looks like it would hit the control arm due to a more severe angle, and I would think that would put a lot of pressure on not only the shock but the top hat as well.

With a lower drop, there would be more clearance due to the control arm being more horizontal, but right now I have H&R OE springs. I think, without a doubt, that with OEM springs the control arm and shock would be touching.

Here is a picture of what I am referring to (disregard the road salt, New England winters )





Has anyone else run into this problem?

CRX T-Si

Those look more like EG rear shocks to me. Here are a pic of an EG shock modded to fit the skinnier EK arms notice the bent U hoop.

Picture below that is how the shock should look but I am not able to locate a tokico rear shock pic for the EK and even the one that I did find did not look right.

I had EG ones on my car and they work fine just needed some spacers to fill in gap where it bolts to the arm but yes it is close to the arm like yours.

alphaoenz

The directions that came with the shocks said they were for 92-00 Civic and for 96+ use the included spacers (since the shock mount is wider). I just checked some retailers and the parts numbers are the same for 92-95 and 96-00.

dpetro1

well i cant see the picture at work but i dont think you should be concerned. install them like the instructions tell you and you should be all set. im sure tokico would have corrected their design if there was a problem

CRX T-Si

Well it won't do any damage for you but those shocks were originally intended for the 92-95 civic arms and the 96-00 ones were supposed to be longer but people still swap them and interchange them.

If you jack up your car you will notice that the U will be touching the arm which isn't a really big deal however now you know what that is all about.

builthatch

that would annoy me; i can see where you are coming from.

interestingly enough, i ran illuminas on my old '97 hatch and even when hanging on the lift (full extension, aka worse case scenario for that angle there) there was plenty of clearance in the spot you detailed. i find it curious that the blues would be different, but it looks like they are!

alphaoenz

It was a pain in the *** putting them on too. When the car is jacked up, there's too much of an angle (with the hub and subframe bolted up) to allow the bushing and shock to line up, so I had to bolt up the hub and shock first, then use a jack to push the control arm up into the subframe.