I have JDM 96 Spec ITR Suspension setup and I just bought Bilstein SP shocks.

The rears installed without any problems, but the front, for the life of me, I can't get the Bilstein shox to go in the horseshoe/pinch fork/strut fork hole no matter what I do.

I took the whole assembly out and try to shove the horseshoe in by itself, no go, put it onto the car and use a jack to push up on the LCA and it simply jacks up the whole front end of the car.

When i took off the assembly again and measured it to the width of the stock 96 ITR shox, there was quite a difference in diameter. I started dremeling the shox on the bottom, dremeled the shock fork itself, lubed it up like it was KY lube, but no love. Took a hammer and tried pounding it in, but still no go.

Borrowed from a friend his 94 civic SI's strut fork and tried that, and still same.

Anyone else ran into such issue?? is there a difference between JDM 96 spec ITR fork and USDM or 98 jdm spec fork??

 

They should be exactly the same. Did your car have stock 96spec suspension in it? If it had aftermarket shocks then its quite possible they were originally intended for an EG6 SiR which had narrower shocks and so the last owner would have also used SiR lower forks, but 96spec and 98spec are definitely the same.

 

i was under the impression from reading the forum that EG/DC all shared the same shock fork. is that wrong?