man thats freakin ridiculous the 5th gens respond best to suspension upgrades... after i put konis and eibachs on my car its freakin nuts, handles like its on rails and rides very nice too.

 

Well, I talked to a co-worker of mine lately. He has a Maxima custom turboed, he even does his own welding, so I trust in his advice fairly faithfully. However, when I brought up getting lowering springs and shocks for my SH, he warned me not to. He read some articles claiming that lowering can often make handling worse as the car is balanced and set up to handle optimally at its stock center of gravity.

Even if the gains of lowering springs were minimal, I don't feel they would be worth it to me. I realize this concept may also be different, according to the car and the stock suspension setup. I feel that the 5th gen has an awesome stock suspension as it is, and I agree, it most likely would make handling worse. What do you guys think? For those of you who have lowered a 5th gen, particularly the SH, do you feel it has any gains, and if so, was it worth it?

 

could you elaborate on how he thinks it would worsen handling? i suppose its possible but imo lowering the center of gravity would only help. and as far as making it unbalanced, only if your springs werent all the same rate and you didnt realign the wheels and such.

 

tuners do lap after lap taesting their products to test that their products do in fact improve handling. i have a lowered base model on B&G springs, and my friend has a SH lowered on H&R race springs, and both handle much better, with the exception of the stiffer ride on the streets. think about it, would honda race cars (like mugen, spoon, skunk2, H.A.R.T...) use stiffer lowering springs if they didn't work? the only down-side to lowering is that you sacrafice street comfort and wet road traction.

 

The issue that brings up the problem is that lowering springs with shocks without changing the rest of the suspension. Since the rest of the suspension is stock i.e. struts, theory is that it is designed to perform optimally with stock suspension, and that tampering with a certain part of the suspension without replacing all or a significant amount of it can be detrimental or ineffective to handling performance.

That is why lowering can work, but the problem is, does it work by only replacing shocks and springs and leaving the rest of the system stock?

 

he'd be right...if we weren't driving last generation hondas.

alot of macpherson strut suspensions as well as other weirdo (torsion beams like the mkIV vw) have a very different camber curve, both dynamic and static. what that means is that as the car gets lower, either in a turn, or through lowering, the lower control arms can de-camber a wheel, which we know is bad for handling.

keep in mind, not all mac-struts do this, but it takes a special kind of geometry (something you find on a bmw or porsche) to make sure things stay nice and negative through suspension compression. the beautiful thing about the honda double wishbone is that as the suspension compresses, the wheel gains negative camber, which is good for cornering, and why hondas are inherently good at handling.

now, the other part of the anti-lowering argument has to do with the roll center and center of gravity. the roll-center is a imaginary point below the car around which the car would "roll" (if there was no ground, it'd be the center of rotation on that plane) and the center of gravity would be the point in our irregularly shaped rigid objects (cars) that would rotate around that point in a circle. the argument is, that if you increase the distance between the roll center and the center of gravity (otherwise called the roll moment) and increases the amount of body roll created.

however, the determination of the roll center and the roll moment depends highly on the geometry of the suspension in question, and where a car like the MKIV golf is highly susceptible to strange angles and very funky roll centers and large roll moments (as well as the crappy decambering effect); the double wishbone honda isn't NECESSARILY subject to the same problems.

and so, even if we do gain some body roll on account of a larger roll moment, that is counteracted by the increased spring rate as well as something like a rear sway bar.

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by markov &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">The issue that brings up the problem is that lowering springs with shocks without changing the rest of the suspension. Since the rest of the suspension is stock i.e. struts, theory is that it is designed to perform optimally with stock suspension, and that tampering with a certain part of the suspension without replacing all or a significant amount of it can be detrimental or ineffective to handling performance.

That is why lowering can work, but the problem is, does it work by only replacing shocks and springs and leaving the rest of the system stock?
</TD></TR></TABLE>

the first part of your theory has a problem: shocks don't exist in a suspension WITH struts. it's one of the other. however, your overarching point is correct.

if you simply lower a car without changing the dampers (struts/shocks), you will suffer a decrease in handling capability. the car may feel "like it's handling on rails" because the springs are stiffer--but the second half of that is that the spring oscillations are underdamped and you'll lose grip the second you hit a road irregularity mid corner.

however, in our cars, good tires + lowering springs + shocks + rear sway bar is pretty much all one needs for vastly improved handling.

 

So, in conclusion, would you say that getting lowering springs with shocks alone, with typical tires and a stock sway bar, result in better handling. If so, do you think would it be worth the money and trouble?

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Markov &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">So, in conclusion, would you say that getting lowering springs with shocks alone, with typical tires and a stock sway bar, result in better handling. If so, do you think would it be worth the money and trouble?</TD></TR></TABLE>

yeah it'll handle better than stock in that condition. really wouldn't be that much money either.

 

who cares, we all lower for looks anyways

 

HAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHA VERY TRUEEE HAAHHAHAHA


but I have a question..... so is lowering bad on 4th gens????

 

why would you have worse wet traction lowered?

no lowering your 4th gen isn't bad

 

wrong...

 

Bad-Monkey... can you clarify under what conditions you need to have a camber kit? What is your opinion of Ingalls?

 

just like to add.


I think the optimal lowering height from stock is around 1.3-1.5". people on race springs on the street usually don't have enough shock travel...and end up bottoming the shock...and decrease handling.

I like my Tein SS with modified rear springs....I run a stock front sway bar, rear progress sway bar with endlinks, strut bars, and have the car corner weighted, and aligned to my liking. I have a pretty neutral feeling in terms of oversteer and understeer. I run 15's with 225/50/15 tires. I like my set up.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by hu &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Bad-Monkey... can you clarify under what conditions you need to have a camber kit? What is your opinion of Ingalls?</TD></TR></TABLE>

the reasons I would buy a camber kit are as follows:

1. i want to tune camber. less or more, Left to Right, Front to Rear. If my car is pushing, one way to get it to rotate easier is to increase front negative camber and decrease rear. or, if my suspension is bent, and i can't get even numbers in the front, from left to right, and i want -2.5 degrees on both sides, it's handy to have a camber kit.

2. i've got -4 or more degrees of negative camber and it's messing w/ my ability to brake and accelerate and makes my car look like it's about to start hovering.

negative camber is generally a good thing for cornering, but the price you pay is in straight line accel/deccel. where the line between good and bad lies depends on your car, what it's being used for, etc etc. however, with street driving, it doesn't matter too much, and with most drops, the naturally incurred static camber angle is around -2.0 degrees, which is, imo, just fine.

 

your co worker is on crack to have told you all that BS. Just like what the other guy said. Big companys don't make suspension and sell it for nothing. Just springs and shocks can do the job for the car and help your corner a little bit better. But changing the sway bars, strut tower bar and changing bushings will definately increase better handling. The only thing you have to watch out on the TypeSH preludes is that when you lower your car make sure you buy new aftermarket CV boots that are more flexible. Because the stock CV boots will ripp on you because it was not meant to be with lower suspension. So yes you also have a point with stock parts. IMO when i did my suspension, i did it all at once, changing the cv boots, sway bars, underbrace, control arms, energy bushings, coilovers and tower bars so i don't have any stock problems occure later on.

 

everyone i would listen to monkey because i know for a fact that he is the god of suspension and i am a loyal follower after reading many of his posts.

 

The only reason you would change the springs on an SH is to lower the car for looks. The Prelude SH has the ATTS which handles like its on rails anyways.
I dont know to many people who are not satisfied with the SH handling.

 

lowering ONLY = bad handling

lowering, stiffening, and tuning = good handling

to the O.P....why do we have to read posts from you every month about something that you heard about some part from somebody else that had some effect (pos. or neg.), and you need us to hold your hand while you make your decision about spending money?

 

Thanks everyone for the information.

And..

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

lowering, stiffening, and tuning = good handling

to the O.P....why do we have to read posts from you every month about something that you heard about some part from somebody else that had some effect (pos. or neg.), and you need us to hold your hand while you make your decision about spending money?</TD></TR></TABLE>

Because I'm learning. You don't HAVE to read my posts, no one is forcing you. I have questions. Is that a problem?

 

You can lower your SH to gain performance...to a point. If you go too low, your roll center gets too far away from your center of gravity. I had mine lowered 3.0" to start with just to see where my ideal point was. I ended up at around 1.8"...give or take after quite a few track runs to see where the best setup was.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by The_Sober &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">to the O.P....why do we have to read posts from you every month about something that you heard about some part from somebody else that had some effect (pos. or neg.), and you need us to hold your hand while you make your decision about spending money?</TD></TR></TABLE>

was this really necessary? There's no need to be an *** He's just learning and trying to clarify information he heard. There was once a day when you didn't know EVERYTHING about your car too...