i forget where i saw this done . . .

basically what the guy did is take the top hat for the coil/strut on his car, and cut the part that sticks up on the top of the hat, the part that holds the bushing that holds the top of the strut. he cut it off, then welded a 1" length of steel tubing of the same diameter onto the bottom of it, then welded that onto the hat. basically what it did was raise the mounting point for the top of the strut on the vehicle by 1", thus lowering the car.

now, theoretically, since the length of the strut has remained the same, it was "safe." however, since that 1" is kind of unuseable for travel, this isn't true, now is it? furthermore, since the strut has now been shortened 1", and the spring length hasn't changed, and supposing you're using a progressive-rate spring, your spring preload will jump up. so in reality, this isn't exactly the "perfect" lowering strategy, keeping spring preload and travel optimal, is it?

i want to lower about 1", but i want to keep all my travel. i use ITR springs and Tokico Illumina dampers, and i drive on some tough, bumpy roads, so travel is a must. and height-adjustable coil-overs are not an option b/c of money. i'd like to fab something, but i wanted to know what you guys thought of this method. maybe somebody has an idea out there that would work really well. i've though of shortening the front damper forks, but what about the rear? this is a DC4 integra, BTW.

 

You are incorrect. Raising the upper mount (the way you described) will NOT lower the vehicle any amount. All it does is extend the shock piston more than stock. Also if the tube welded into the upper mount is large enough, it add some shock bump travel because the shock body can extend into the upper mount.

Also, that mod doesn't add enough as much pre-load as the chassis does once the car is on the ground. This means there is going to be no noticable difference in ride quality/spring rate...

I will show you that thread once the search function is working again...

 

I just saw something on this pretty sure it was here. Check the fab section.

 

so maybe this is just a way to get extra travel for an already lowered car . . . extra travel is always welcome, even at my [stock] ride height. i'd still like to find a way to lower the bottom of the damper tube though. like i thought about cutting 1" off the front damper fork; this of course would be pending a little study of what effects this would have on axle clearance. what could be done in the rear? i don't know any way to modify the little bracket on the bottom of the damper b/c it's already so close to the control arm. only thing i can think of is a custom control arm with the damper's hole moved down 1". that's actually kind of tempting, now that i think about it . . .

 

You don't need to cut your front damper forks. You can actually remove and/or modify the brake line brackets from your OEM shocks (they are just pressed on). This method can lower the shock into the damper fork without cutting anything (A how-to by "CRX Lee" can bee found in my second post in this thread). I have read about people that lowered their shocks about 1" without axle clearance problems. This technique can accomplish 1 of 2 things:

- Lowers the car without sacrificing shock travel.
- Adds shock travel when you raise it back up with coil-over sleeves.

All this added shock travel doesn't come without a price though. I'm pretty sure that with just my Ground Control extended upper mounts (adds .75"), I am capable of smacking the shock towers with my UCAs. I was originally planing on adding even more shock travel with the brake bracket mod to keep off the bump stops, but now I'm thinking twice. If I do that, the bump stops won't absorb ANY of the energy before the UCAs hit the shock tower. I've seen pics of nasty dents in the engine bay from UCAs hitting the shock towers...

 

i have aftermarket dampers. Tokico Illuminas, to be precise. on these, the entire body is about 1/4" larger diameter where it is made to stop the damper from falling into the fork. the whole body from this point upward is too large for the hole, and i'm not one to cut material away from a damper like that, especially a damper with a lifetime warranty voided when you screw around with it or open it up.

 

here. youre talking about this thread.
https://honda-tech.com/zerothread?id=469485


if youre using stock springs, then you shouldnt mod the top hat. you can achieve what you want TO THE FRONTS by lowering the shock in the fork by cutting off the brake collar as shown.

the problem is that you cant do the same in the rear. the only way youre going to be able to lower the rear is to cut the "dead" coils or just get lowering springs, or get some adjustable spring kit. i actually suggest you try to cut the dead coils. youll lose that amount of shock travel in the rear however.

the other way of basically lowering your ride is by using koni shocks. they have different circlip settings for the lower spring perch. but you need to get the NEUSPEED koni spec, which have more settings.

i would still recommend trying the above mod to your illuminas. you are correct that the top hat mod is to gain back lost shock travel from already lowered springs.

 

you can't just move/remove the brake line holder. the whole body is larger at that point, so short of taking a grinder to the body of the damper all the way around, it won't work that way, and i won't be grinding on anything with a lifetime warranty unless it was free.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by 95lstegman &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">you can't just move/remove the brake line holder. the whole body is larger at that point, so short of taking a grinder to the body of the damper all the way around, it won't work that way, and i won't be grinding on anything with a lifetime warranty unless it was free.</TD></TR></TABLE>

then there's your answer. You can't do it. Either buy new shocks (Koni's), buy some coilovers or live with it at stock height.