Hey everyone so, Me and a buddie were trying to lower my honda civic. We are putting in Dropzones Coilovers w/stuts and shocks.

We started the rear, and had some trouble unbolting. But we got through that. After we unbolted everything and removed the stock struts on the left side of the car, we ran into the problem of installing the new set. The problem is:

As we started to put in the dropzones we couldn't bolt it in toward the top (where there's supposed 3 bolts connect to the trunk) because that piece either didnt come in the order, or we had to take it off of the old set. We called a couple of friends and they said that we needed to take this "3 bolt" connector from the stock struts and that we needed a decompressor ... which we didnt have...

Does anyone here know of a "how to" link on this or does anyone know if we did anything wrong?

PLEASE HELP THANKS - sorry I didn't take pictures...=/

 

Yes, the piece you need is call "damper mounting plate" When you install coilovers using stock shock/strut you will reused everything. Only thing you are switching is the spring component. Other than that, everything from the stock set should be reused and in the same original order. You don't really need a spring compressor for your installation. I am assuming the aftermarket springs is a lot shorter in length so it wont be too hard to put the mounting plate on. You might need it when removing the mounting plate WITH the stock springs on, it's possible to remove it without the compressor but it can get dangerous because the cap can pop out with force. Using a little common sense you can figure it out but I am not responsible if you guys get hurt doing this.

There used to be a link to how to install this but the pictures does not work anymore. If you can take some pictures of what you are unsure of or just your suspension I can help guide you through this.

 

Here, I just found a site that might help you.

http://www.jdmuniverse.com/for....html

Some of the pictures shows you things that you need to do, but seems like he does not spend much effort explaining everything clearly. So here is my directions for you guys. Use the pictures from the site to help you understand things a bit better. He cut a few things and didn't reused everything. I recommend you to only cut what I will mention and reused EVERYTHING.

Remove the nut located on the top of the suspension unit using an allan wrench and a regular wrench. (be careful if you don't have a spring compressor because this is where the cap can pop out at you.) again, I am not responsible if you guys get hurt doing this.

After the nut is remove the cap should come right off. Now, CAREFULLY remember all the orders of all the washers and pieces that comes off because you will need to put it back in the same order or your suspension will not work properly.

After taking all the parts out and remember in the order they went out.

Get the orange hard foam piece and cut it in half.

Now, slide on the aluminum cylinder that came with the kit from your Dropzone springs, you should lube the inside of the cylinder and slide on some rubber o-rings onto the strut/shock if the kit has any. The purpose is so the cylinder fits snugly over the strut/shock.

Now, turn the two rings around the aluminum cylinder to adjust your height. You might have to do this many times after the installation until the desire height is achieve. I like using a socket to measure how much I'm moving the rings to make sure it's even left to right, front and back.

Now, you can slide on the new springs and reinstall ALL the stock parts in the right order. You might not need to use the stock dust cover, it might get in the way, I forgot but you can figure it out if it gets in the way. The dust cover looks like a black long cylinder shape part with a small hole at one end and a big hole-opening at the other end.

Reinstall the suspension back onto your car and you should be good to go. Let me know if you run into any problems.


Modified by lv6l at 2:28 AM 11/16/2008

 

Quick question, does your Dropzone look like this?

http://www.autosportz.com/susp...e.jpg

 

those sleeve type coilovers is gonna cause pain to your shocks and car.

 

Thanks so much. Yeah that's basically what I have according to your picture. I got the dropzone struts and shocks too along with the coils. So with that said, i won't be needing to reuse ALL of the stock strut. I just need to take the top mount out from the stock. Thats why we thought we needed a spring compressor. That Forum that you gave me from JDMuniverse also help too. I'm gonna try to do all this again in a couple of day. Thanks so much for taking time and helping me with this =]

 

No problem. Good luck on everything.


If he does not drop it so much where the strut/shock bottoms out it should be fine.

 

Im suprised it didnt come with a new mount for each one most of them do

 

Yeah, I'm surprised that they didnt come with the new mounts. We totally for got about the mounts until we took everything out -.- So gay haha.

It's my first project anyways so its better to make mistakes in the early stages right?!

I never thought taking everything apart was pretty easy. It was just a bunch of nuts and bolts. Haha

 

I wouldn't install dropzone. I had dropzone springs and three months later had to replace struts and springs not to mention 2 sets of tires after the car kept bottoming out.

 

How low did you drop it?
I had cheap 40.00 ebay ones on my car for 3 years with no problem. I would think the cheap ebay ones are same quality if not far more inferior than the Dropzone brand.

With the right proper installation and useage I see no problem using these springs. It's a bit bumpy for my liking and I would not recommend using them for high performance. But for daily driving, I don't see why not.

 

I had a 2" drop in front and a 1.5" in the back. I got them off ebay because I didn't want to spend $100 more at the time. I didn't race much and just wanted my civic to be a little lower. it was worse than the time I cut my springs or heated my springs. never do any of it again. didn't spend a little more money at the beginning and spent close to $800 after trial and error. maybe more. I'm actually looking at an exedy clutch on ebay right now and I'm really iffy about it.

 

It suprizes me that I keep hearing people getting horrible stories about ebay automotive products. Either something is not right here or I'm just getting really luck each time. I been using generic brand (ebay) for not only my car but many of the other cars on the lot and I never had a single problem with them. But anyways, good luck to all you guys. Keep it safe.