My friend just bought a 92 EG.
It was lowered with these Matrix adjustable springs or something like that, never heard of them.
Anyway, he's been complaining about the ride since day one, so I decided to drive it around, and noticed it was really harsh.
I'm no expert on suspension so he took it to a shop by where we live and the guy told him it was due to the springs being installed w/o the bump stops.
He wants to know if it's okay to drive w/o them, I'm guessing not such a good idea. And if not, what does he need to do?

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by 93EGB18C1 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">My friend just bought a 92 EG.
It was lowered with these Matrix adjustable springs or something like that, never heard of them.
Anyway, he's been complaining about the ride since day one, so I decided to drive it around, and noticed it was really harsh.
I'm no expert on suspension so he took it to a shop by where we live and the guy told him it was due to the springs being installed w/o the bump stops.
He wants to know if it's okay to drive w/o them, I'm guessing not such a good idea. And if not, what does he need to do?</TD></TR></TABLE>

Bumpstops only come into play when you nearly bottom out the suspension. If he's low enough to be regularly bottoming out, then the shocks will be dead in nothing flat, and it will ride terrible after they blow. Actually, it will ride terrible before they blow too, since you'll suddenly run out of suspension travel before the spring has stopped the movement.

Its perfectly fine to drive a car without bumpstops, as long as you never bottom out the shock shaft. Ideally, you never want to make use of the bumpstops anyway. However, most Civics are lowered way too far, and need the bumpstops for normal street use.

Heck, my 00 GSR shares the same front suspension as the 92-95 Civic, and lowered to flushed tires, I was compressing the short bumpstops provided with my GC upper mounts at ride height. Without extended upper mounts, the same lowering would have left me with something like 1/2 inch of shock movement before bottoming out.

 

What happens when you bottom-out w/o bumpstops?

His car is pretty much slammed, and he's using stock shocks.

Extended upper mounts, eh? .

 

Stock shocks...lol. they wont last even with bump stops. And if they do last they will not control a spring properly.
When you bottom out without bump stops you put all that energy right into the shock.

 

Stock shocks "can" last when your slammed, but you have to avoid EVERYTHING nasty in the road. I drove about 5 years out of my stock CX shocks on Ground Controls (400f/250r) lowered about 3". I switched them out for Koni Sport shocks last year, and they were still stiffer than the Konis on "full soft". I did keep my bump stops (cut in half), and Vegas roads are quite nice...

As for driving without bump-stops: If the shocks are allowed to bottom out, they would be destroyed. From what Ive been told, the bottoming actually happens internally (inside the shock), and completely destroys the valving & internal cylinder...

If he want to drive around "slammed", then he should get some better/new shocks, and a set of Ground-control upper mounts to keep the shocks from internally bottoming out. The good thing is that the GC upper mounts come with new "soft" bump-stops too....