Hey, I have a 97 lx, Im thinking about dropping it, I have maxspeed coilovers I got from a family member. If I installed these would it be bad for the stock shocks or struts on my car? Im trying to see if its a good idea to do it or not.

 

you can but you will need to replace your shocks sooner

 

If you leave it at "stock height", the shocks won't suffer. If you dropped the coil overs all the way (4 inches to the bottom), you would need a camber kit correction, and new shocks pretty soon. Reason why is that your shock's piston will travel all the way down too frequently, hitting the very bottom of the shock, causing leaks or eventually damaging the piston's travel itself.

 

Im planning to only drop it 1 1/2 inch to 2 inches. would that be okay on my stock shocks?

 

the effects gianinline stated will still take effect but not to the same amount of degree but nonethe less save up and buy all the necessary parts
ull b happy later down the road

 

The actual reason your struts go bad is because they are moving more frequently out of their normal travel area. With stock suspension you normally only use about 40% of the strut travel in one area. With this over the years it "breaks itself in" to that area and the remaining % is virtually untouched.
When you add diffrent springs it causes the strut to work in an area it usually does not and has not been able to break in (the o-rings on the piston are but the strut casing has not been worn as much), so that adds extra strain to the o-rings and thus causes leaks. Had you lowered this car on day one they would not leak nearly as quickly.
hope that helps