I ran H&R Sport springs on my EG for a while without extended top hats on Tokico HP's and never saw any shock issues, but I just picked up a set of Koni Yellows and I'd like them to last me a while. For those of you who don't know, these springs are around 1.75f/1.5r drop and *apparently* 276f/276r progressive rates. Would you guys say I should fab up some extended top hats for it or would it not be worth it? It's not too big of a drop but I'd like to know that this is going to be reliable for a fun DD.

 

H&R and koni will be fine.

nothing to worry about.

just get an alignment.

 

Thank you sir! I'll be doing the alignment myself. Job at a Honda dealership FTW.

 

I had that same setup when I first got my Koni shocks and lowered my car in Feb. 2002. Rode on those springs for over 2 years and thought they were crap. They lowered my car way too much for the spring's rate.

The H&R Sports are long gone, but my Koni Sports are still on my car and going strong 8 years and 180K+ miles later. You will NOT be disappointed with the Konis. But you might with the H&R's.

Been running stock upper control arms and stock top hats the whole time, never had any problems.

*edit* forgot this is the suspension forum and not the Integra forum. I thought they H&R Sports were crap on my Integra, but they might be okay on Civics.

My buddy put H&R Race on Neuspeed Koni SP3 shocks on his 95 coupe, and he had to raise the perch up one notch on the shock body to keep his 205/50 OG Azenis tires from rubbing like crazy.

 

yeah but would top hats make it any better? i dont think so. H&R race springs might just be too low and too stiff as they are, but its not a matter of top hats or not.

besides, top hats arent made for anything but sleeve over type coilovers with lots of play between the top of the spring and top hat at full droop.

 

Believe it or not, the Integra springs are the ones I'm actually using. like I said though, i had them on with Tokico HPs before and I liked them. but maybe the difference between us is that your car is 400lbs heavier than mine haha. Did you have them set on the lowest perch or something? i saw a picture of your car in previous posts and it looks a bit lower than mine did on the tokicos. either way, mine will be going on the middle perch. I'm glad to hear that the Konis will last too.

 

I also have one more question... is the perch ring necessary on the front? Koni's instructions are wierd... there arent any words, its all pictures, but it looks to me like the ring is optional on the front because of the perch style, and then on the rear i can use the front perch ring. only reason i'm asking is because i wouldn't mind having the car sit just a hair lower than it did with the tokicos. BUT the thing is.... i've read somewhere that the ring is needed to keep the circlip in place. seems to me like that contradicts instructions. thanks for any help.

 

Post pics of your instructions if you can. If I recall, my Koni shocks have the front spring perch on an additional ring that captures the circlip, while the rear perches sit directly on and capture the circlip.

To be sure, examine the perches to see if there's a notch machined out that is the exact size of the circlip. If there is not, then the perch should sit on that additional ring.

DO NOT install the perch directly on the circlip if it doesn't fully capture it. Otherwise the clip could come out of the groove and cause the suspension to collapse on that corner.

*edit* here's a pic of parts for my front shocks, and you can see the front spring perch and the ring that the perch sits on. The ring captures the circlip, and the perch sits on that ring. The rear spring perches themselves capture the circlip with no additional rings.

 

Awesome. exactly what i was looking for. i'll check mine for that groove. thanks.

 

alright, i'd take pictures but i can't find my camera. BUT i took a closer look at the perches themselves and i don't see any grooves for the circlips to sit in and i asked some people at work about it, and i think the unanimous decision was to use the rings. can't wait to install these suckers on wednesday :D thanks for your help patrick.

 

Koni Yellow front for EG/EK/... is always with a ring over the circlip and the spring perch on top of that (with the actual perch facing down, so as it lays on the pic from Patrick).

Koni Yellow rear for these cars used to come also with a ring and the perch then over it, but in recent years the perch got a (thin) groove machined and the ring was dropped.

So you have to check the rear perch whether it has such a groove, the shape of the bottom of the grooveless perch is also different, not something you'd mount directly on a circlip.

In any case you can get such rings, perches, ... directly from Koni.

 

Yeah make sure you install that front perch correctly. LOTS of people put them on upside down (oriented similar to the rear perch "cup") and it makes the car ~1" higher up front. It's also dangerous because the spring isn't centered correctly if the perch is upside down.