Hey guys, I've been a lurker here for years but I finally have a question about modifying my daily driver. I'm looking to upgrade the suspension on my 100% stock 04 civic lx sedan m/t. This car is a daily driver and thats it, I want to improve the handling to something equal to or better than a stock RSX type S. I don't want a harsh ride, and i don't want to lower the car. I'm willing to spend money of quality parts but i don't want to spend a fortune. The first upgrade I have coming is a new stock type S rear sway bar. This car understeers big time so I'm hoping the sway bar will stiffen up the rear a bit and help reduce the understeer.

Next up I'm looking to upgrade the struts, which is my real question. I plan on keeping the springs stock since I don't want to go lower, and don't want a super stiff ride. So I need suggestions on a good stock replacement sport strut. From the research I've done bilsteins (B8) and koni's (yellow's) seem to come out on top. I dont see a lot of honda's running bilsteins, but they are available for my car and people using them on other cars seem to rave about them. The downside is they aren't adjustable which is a feature I would like, and they're more expensive than the koni's. A ton of honda's out there seem to run koni's, and honda owners seem to really like the koni yellow setup. The downside is the fronts for my car are inserts only (which doesn't really bother me). Does anyone here have personal experience with bilsteins? I'm assuming the added cost of the bilstein is in having an actual strut housing rather than an insert on the koni, but research has told me that the bilsteins are also built a lot beefier than both the stock strut and the koni.

This car is 10 years old and my stock struts are fine, so I want to go another 10 years on the next set of struts, reliability is king to me. Has anyone here ever had an issue with koni struts leaking or having other problems? If reliability isn't an issue I'll probably go with the koni yellows (cheaper/adjustable), but if the bilsteins are significantly stronger and better built I'd be willing to overlook the the non adjustable part as long as these struts aren't too harsh.

The ultimate goal is to have a car thats fun to drive on my daily city commute by reducing the understeer, and tightening up the handling without giving the car a harsh ride. I like to take my turns hard and my on ramps fast, to give you an idea of how I drive I go through brake pads every 15-20k miles. My stock suspension is way too overloaded and its come time to finally upgrade. So koni yellows, or bilstein B8's? Or something else that meets my requirements?

 

I've had both but on different chassis. I would buy the cheaper of the 2. Both ride great, life time warranty. Can't go wrong with either.