hey as the topic says, im thinking about getting ground control coils and have never heard anyone say anything negative about GC, but for now im gonna have to use them with stock ITR shocks, what are you guys opinions on ride feel with them? btw i did search.

 

I have them on my EG for 3 years, never had a problem with them. As long as you give the apporiate spring rate, you shouldn't have no problems. However, a buddy of mine owns a "R" and is running some GC's for sometime. I'm sure he's using the stock shocks. He loves them. His screen names is Scooter, IM.

 

GC on stock shocks, dunno, but you might blow them quick. I have them on Tokico Illuminas.

 

Personally, I'd save the money and do it right the first time. Buy shocks, it'll be worth the wait.

The R suspension is more than ample to begin with, and it takes one hell of a driver to take full advantage of it, so the wait for shocks shouldn't be too bad.

 

I did it and used it for about 11 months.

There is a level of tolerance that the shocks can handle. As long as you stay with in the limits you should be fine. Don't let anyone deter you from doing this. Its your descision. Thats why I went ahead and did it myself. For $299.00 at the time, I could afford to play around.

I used stock ITR shocks with GC's 400lbs in the front and 325lbs in the back.
After doing my reserach and taking GC's recomendation into account, I settled on those numbers. Ride quality good but I never felt comfortable using this setup on the track. For the street, it was just fine.

First thing i noticed was that there was an initial lean-in when taking an aggressive turn. Once you get past that stage, it hugged very well. This was NOT there with the stock setup. I put them on shocks that had 20k miles and put close to another 20k on them. I inspected the shocks when I removed them and they were in excelent working order. Unfortunately I had to throw them away because the top threads rusted onto the nut and I was forced to hacksaw it off.

One thing i didn't like about this setup is that I had to cut/shorted the sleeve which protects the shock rod. Although I live in an area that experiences snow, I had no problems whatsoever with leakage, but I suspect this can't be good on the seals.

What did I learn from that experience? The GC's made my car look awesome. Slightly rougher ride on the street. Easy 20 minute job to adjust ride height. High speed sweepers on the street were tolerable once I got used to that "initial lean-in".
Uncomfortable on the track (road course obviously)
Not expensive

My Application: 1998 ITR

Also one more tid bit of information. A few years ago some one did a dyno comparison of the ITR shock versus, tokico illuminas, KYB agx's and some other.
I know alot of people will defend their product and will start flaming ( I wish I had the dyno chart just to shut them up) but the ITR shocks came above all. Some may find it hard to believe but it is true. Showa kicks!!

Thats all!


Let us know what you do.

-Nick



[Modified by Nick248, 9:01 AM 10/16/2002]

 

Yeah, I'd go with shocks..then springs.......the ride sucks when the springs go out. However, we are talking about Type R shocks. I think you would be fine with just springs for awhile.

 

yeah see i have neuspeed race springs now on my civic shocks, which i hear i can just swap em over to the ITR shocks (btw im getting jdm 5 lug conversion) but what i actually was thinking was that i wanted to drop the car just a tad more and since ground control makes excellent coilovers i just cant go wrong with them. and for now use them with the ITR shocks until i can get some kyb's or something later down the road.