well, after about 6-8kkms on crap roads i decided to trade up my hr sports for the softer oe sports. If you are a diehard, you might want to skip this thread.

note: the sp3 yellow shocks have 5 perch adjustment grooves, definately a plus with the weight of the swap up front.

BEFORE - h&r sports on neuspeed koni yellows (rear at second bottom groove, front at second to top)..



NOW -the OE sports (rear at bottom groove, front at middle "stock" setting)



black is the sports spring, grey is the oe sport one...



now, the oe sport spring is supposed to give a .75" drop all around and the sport springs are 1.5 - 1.8" drop. my feeling is they sit a little higher on the koni yellows, as i've seen pictures where they look lower on kyb agx shocks. Anyway, the 5 adjustment grooves were certainly worth the extra 50 bucks. this car looked like a jacked up dragster when i first put the sport springs on the middle "stock" perch groove (with b18c swap).

RIDE - the oe sports ride a lot nicer. the sports weren't "bad" at all, and they were perfectly fine on normal roads. but all the jarring and rattling on the horrific roads around here made my car unpleasant to drive.

HANDLING - i remember being dissapointed when i first put the sports/yellows on. as it still understeered pretty bad. but when i threw the gsr sway bar on, it made <U>all</U> the difference. I keep the shocks set at approx. 75% stiff at the rear and 75% soft front, and the car retains the same tight, rear happy rotation ability in turns, with maybe a bit more roll. But i'm happy with it, its a daily driver, not a race car.

LOOKS - its definately a bit higher than i wanted, especially in the front. Softer rates mean higher ride height for some mathematical reason. I'll wait and see where it sits after it settles, then maybe i'll lower the front 1 groove.

d

 

dunno why i never saw this thread...prob didn't look hard enough. what are your driving impressions now that you have had almost 2 months worth of driving on the OE Sports?

 

after reading your post here i realized that i never actually tested out the new springs with the konis stiffened up. So full stiff rear and one turn towards soft up front and i just went for a ride.

honestly, as far as i'm concerned, they handle just as well as the sports did. I remember crxlee said 95% of the handling is in the rebound, and thats what the yellows let you mess with. And as i said above, i noticed, by far, the biggest handling improvment to be the gsr rear bar.

I pulled over on flat pavement and the front end wheel gap is slightly less than the rear now. Not as good looking as a good low drop, but saves a camber kit up front, header dents, and i can go through snow if i have to.

The ride...well, i'll never go back to stiffer springs on a daily driver. I reall like it that my rear hatch glass doesn't go "thwump thump thump" over every friggin bump in the road.

My philosophy now is that if i some how need a better handling daily driver, then i'll buy some rwd car thats actually built to handle well in the first place. that way i don't have to give up all my ride comfort trying to make a lesser handling car handle well.

d

 

do you think your front gap is larger than your rear ones? also, i was thinking about getting the oe sports, do you think the kyb gr2 can handle (reliabaly) the .75" drop?

 

the second pic above is with the oe sports. that pic was right after i swapped in the front springs, but the rears were in for about a week prior. the front has settled now to be a bit lower than the back. Keep in mind that teh rear is not on the stock perch setting, with which these sp3 konis give flexability. Also, teh gsr engine sinks the front end a bit.

When i was researching what shocks to buy, i looked at some pics of hr sport springs with kyb agx shocks and they looked lower than my yellows with the hr sports on the "stock" perch setting. If i put the rear perch up to the "stock" height setting with these oe sports, or put a d-serias engine back in, then it would sit i good little bit higher than in my pic.

if the kyb gr2 can't handle a .75" drop then i don't know what they're for.

d

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by daver &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Not as good looking as a good low drop, but saves a camber kit up front,...</TD></TR></TABLE>

so i take it that you have a camber kit for the rear?

what are your suspension/alignment settings?

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by doughboy_88 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">

so i take it that you have a camber kit for the rear?

what are your suspension/alignment settings?


</TD></TR></TABLE>

i jsut have the washer trick for the rear camber, it was noticable.

I havnt been in for and align since the oe sports install, but when i got the sport's aligned, the dummy went and cleared the readout without printing it out for me, even after my previous request. He said only one front wheel was slightly out of camber, but its fine.

Since the front is slightly higher now with the oe's, i'm sure its good, pending a formal checkup.

d

 

I personally was going to go with the OE sports but im glad I got the SPortlines. either way you still have to be carefull over bumps and the looks of the sportline set it off for me
how are the roads really bad? I guess I dont really feel much since Im riding on 14" stock wheels but heres what the Sportlines look like on my DC4



EDIT

Do I need a camber kit People tell me I dont but im kinda having doubts. how many washers were you running in the rear?

 

i have 2 washers in the rear on each side. I can't tell much from your pic, but look at the tires head on an see if they're angled like a teepee. If its less severe, then you may need to get it checked.

I put washers in the rear, til the angle "looked" right, then i took it in for the align and he said it measured fine.

d

 

so is that 2 washers stacked on top of each other under each bolt

----00
----00

Or two washers like this

--0
--0

the hyphens being the bolts that connect the linkage the 0 being the washers. My suspension "Looks fine but I cant really tell. I think I might need a camber kit in the front but I dont know what kit is good I hear horror stories about bumpsteer and I dont want to loose a wheel in a turn or at 100+

Thanks

 

i'd have to check to be sure, but i believe it was 2 washers under each bolt, with longer bolts.

d

 

damn bro thx for posting up ur results....i'm defintely..going to get the OE's....so your camber is okay right??

 

you can read my comments on the camber above ^^. Just remember for the pics here, i have the neuspeed sp3 koni yellow shocks which give me 5 adjustment grooves so i could mess with the perch heights. Other shocks will have different lowering results, same deal if you have the extra weight of the trunk back there, etc.

d