So I recently bought an EM1 and among the list of problems was blown out struts and stock springs that had seen better days. I bought Koni STR.T struts and Tein H tech springs that should drop the car slightly but nothing big. Now I'm not a noob and know you don't need exteneded top hats for this amount of lowering (1 in.) or need then for much of anything short of scraping the ground. Either way I bought some MPC top hats because the stock ones were pretty jenky and it is easier to just swap the whole assembly as opposed to compressing them and swapping all the crap over. Now comes the question. These MPC tophats raise the valve body by 25mm or aprox. 1 inch. This reduces the chances of bottoming out and also increases strut life (supposedly). Does anyone have experience with extended top hats or can verify they increase life of the struts? My feelings on going with these is that they will return the valve of the Koni struts to the original point before the lowering springs were added.... but still get the one inch lowering that the Tein H techs have.

Also if your gonna just ask why not go with these coilovers or that strut or bash my choice in suspension... kick rocks and move on. I'm looking for constructive thoughts or people with experience using extended top hats.

 

Common sense tells you that you're right on in terms of returning the attachment point of the shaft/top hat back to a near stock position. What should affect the life of the strut with all else now being as close to stock is the dampening vs spring rate. I couldn't tell you about that specifically but I have the same struts with Tanabe DF210 springs which I believe is 1.8in drop and those shocks didn't last more than about 6 months before there was visible leakage on the rear left strut. Ride quality itself dropped back to bumpy/bouncy within 2 months.

 

Thanks for the response. I'm hoping that keeping the shaft near the stock position will extend the life. If these STR.T struts end up being sh#t for me too I guess I will just throw down the 550+ for the Koni adjustables!?!?

 

That's exactly the route I'm going. But at that point you have to consider full body coilovers because the price starts to get close. Also, not sure if you're aware but a trick to lower the front a bit on our cars is to use the EF front forks. I believe the diameter needs to be opened up a bit to work.

 

You wanna protect your investment? Dropping your car lower than stock height? You know what you need to do.

 

Looks like MPC is releasing EG/DC drop forks soon.

 

The extended top hats allow a car to sit lower by a certain amount without losing that amount of stroke. Thats why they "make dampers last longer". They do not lower the car, though.

They allow the shock to sit in a more extended position at a given ride height. They're not only for getting the car to scrape the ground. A civic/integra lowered 2.5" or more with stock length shocks should have extended hats....even cars with performance shocks like Koni orange/yellow, Tokico Illumina, KYB AGX, etc.

It doesn't additonally lower the car. If you wanted to lower a car and keep the same amount of suspension stroke, you'd need something like an extended ball joint or shorter forks or full body coilovers allowing you to shorten the shell.

 

"Bently Coop" - Thank for the tip!

 

 

Thanks for the replies fellas. I know they won't lower the car at all I was just using them to return the valve body to a stock height and using the springs to get the slightly lower postition. I will monitor them as the months go on and see if the Konis leak at all. Will post an update soon... maybe a review once enough time has passed.

 

I doubt those konis will have trouble with S Techs. S Techs are like...1.5" lower than stock or something?

 

Extended top-hats trade droop-stroke for compression-stroke. The good news is these cars have an overabundance of droop when lowered. Most adjustable height coils (like Ground Control) have so much droop, the springs leave the perches well before the wheels are off the ground. This can even still be true even with extended top hats. I think my front springs still leave the perch at full droop. I know my rears do too, but I don't have GC hats back there.

 

Well I got the front two installed but ran into a big hold up on the rears. Someone in the past put a set of Ebay LCAs on the car and the bushing under the strut is f#cked. The drivers side is the Ebay LCA and the passenger is still the stock one. I'm just gonna surrender and buy F7 LCAs and a ASR subframe brace and sway bar and change out all of it at once! Pic of the Konis all ready to put it.

 

PM function 7 on here and see if they can help you out. They also have some color changes recently.