So getting these installed, fronts seem pretty straightforward. I get to the rears, and when I'm putting the tophats back on, the springs are still lose where they sit in the spring cup? There is space between the top of the spring and the bottom of the tophat when it is tightened up. Is this normal? Will put pic later if no response before then.

Thanks fellas.

 

Shouldn't be a big deal. Its not an uncommon situation, even though its technically not correct. If you get it all put back together and the back is overly slammed, you can always move the ring that holds the lower perch up a notch.

If you were using an extended top hat or a shock with a shortened stroke then the spring would be tighter in there. Doubtful that you'll be three-wheeling around corners and dropping the spring out of the perch though.

 

Totally normal. It'll never be that way unless the car is jacked up, especially if you have a rear sway bar installed.

I have stock ITR rear springs on my Koni shocks with the perch on the lowest setting, and even it has a slight gap (spring slightly loose) when the rear of the car is off the ground.

 

Interesting. I've never installed a set of koni's with lowering springs (as opposed to coilover sleeves). Didn't realize they had quite so much droop travel.

 

My friends dad's did this, totaly normal.
Sportlines on konis btw.

 

pretty sure regular Koni Sports (not SP3's) have the same droop travel as stock shocks.

 

So far installing suspension has been a nightmare. I have the back completely done, wheels back on.

I get to the front passenger side, start putting shock fork on koni, im kinda hammering the bottom of the fork into the ground to push it up the shock until it gets to just under the bump that prevents it from riding up any further. I get it there, put the bolt in, and start it with a wrench. Then I get impact on it and start tightening. I don't notice that its actually grabbed the other side of the fork, and rather than tightening itself, it is pushing the 2 pieces of the "C" apart. It also messed up the threads inside the fork at the same time. We use some clamps and try to get it back into position, and restart it. It gets crossthreaded during this, but we're only maybe 5 turns from it being done. I bust out the torque wrench. The bolt breaks in half in the center. I go and buy a tap, an easyout, and a drill bit to start the easyout. I didn't start the hole with a punch(which turns out is a good idea). and the bit ends up grabbing and going in at a diagonal. I end up getting frustrated and go buy a used fork at fosters. Get back home, switch out fork, no problem this time, put fork back in. Had put the shock fork in backwards, but noticed fork binding on axle, and so had to remove and spin around and put it back in.

On the front I have the passenger side done with wheel back on I get to driver side, and the bolt coming out of ball joint that goes through lower spindle constantly spins. I read a bit and find people saying you can move suspension through its travel range and try hoping that the bolt will bind on the sides of the spindle. This doesn't help, and impact won't tighten it either. Rather than spend to much time, I order a new ball joint.


Sorry for wall of text, good times. More updates coming, with pics when its done.

 

Did you install the brake line bracket off the old shocks onto the Konis? The forks shouldn't go all the way up to the bump on the shock body. That's where the brake line bracket is supposed to go.

Moving the fork higher without the brake line bracket is called the "shock fork trick" to get either additional drop, or additional shock bump travel (if you have coilover springs installed). But with H&R Race springs I think the car will be darn near impossible to drive.

 

Hm. (this is still John, not sure why it switched my login. No I didn't move over the brake line brackets. going to remove ball joint and put new one in today so I'll be able to see if it will work or not. Curious as to why its called the brake line bracket though? My brake lines weren't connected to it in any way when I first removed wheels.

I guess worse case I have to redo the bottoms of the front, which is I guess not so bad. Best case its a little lower and still driveable. Thanks for all your help man, I'll update you later tonight.

 

Should be like this:



Brake line bracket goes up to the "bumps" on the shock body, and has a tab that should align with the "dent" below the bracket. The tab helps align the shock fork correctly, and the dent is there for the fork bolt to pass through.

 

So w/ the shock fork mod people remove the bracket entirely though, and move the fork up to the position where the bracket is in that pic? There is no danger of the fork coming lose up there is there? Provided it is properly torqued?

 

96-00 had the shorter brake lines that bolted to the knuckle only, not to the shock like 92-95 and dc's.

Your first mistake was putting the impact on that thing. Next time make sure things go together by hand before putting air tools on them.

 

"Your first mistake was putting the impact on that thing. Next time make sure things go together by hand before putting air tools on them."

No arguments on that at all. Got spindle out going to get new ball joint pressed in this afternoon, then hopefully will reinstall w/o complications.

 

Awesome. Good to hear it all worked out for ya.

 

Got everything reinstalled with no problems, back tires are tucking a little bit. Front is a little bit lower on the passenger than driver( ~.5 inch). I am thinking this is due to having car jacked up on that side and leaving passenger side springs compressed for ~5 days. Thinking(hoping really) that this will settle now. Still haven't driven it, its in a buddies garage until tomorrow. Will get alignment on friday, should have pics tomorrow or next day.

Thanks again for all your help guys
John

 

Hey john, did yout take the preload out of the bushings?

Get the car back up on stands. Working around the car one corner at a time loosen up (enough so that the arms can move freely) all of the control arm bolts, jack that corner up by the suspension nearest to the wheel as you can get. Run the jack up until that corner is just barely on the jackstand and retighten the bolts.

Since your rubber bushings flex under deflection instead of rotating, this will re-clock them to your new height. It might help that un-evenness in the front. It will definitely eliminate some noise and keep your bushings from tearing apart.

 

Yeah I jacked up under LCA on each side until it lifted off the stand on that corner and then tightened to torque specs listed on the guide I was using.

 

Perfect.

 

So I pull car out of garage for the first time yesterday, I notice one of the brake shims(think thats what they are) that goes under the pads is scraping on rotor, but am not feeling like bringing it back in so park it on curb near myb uddies house. I come back from work today, and in the ~14 hours it was out there, someone broke in and jacked all my stereo equip. Pretty f'n frustrating.

 

Got a shitty pic up of car after lowering.

https://honda-tech.com/forums/showth...9#post44013639