I've heard it rumored that lowering the Stock suspenion, through springs, coilovers, etc., can put excessive pressure on the drive axle joints to the point that some race teams are having drive axle joints shattering. The explanation given to me was that, by lowering the car the effective distance from the diff. to the control arm was shortened, thereby exering inward pressure onto the joints during cornering. Failure was reported on race prepared RSX's not street cars, but the concern is longevity of the joints.

The countermeasure is shortening of the drive shaft. This does not sound fun to me.

If Honda is truly offering the FP package this must not be a concern or there is a special drive shaft installed.

Can anyone confirm deny or logically negate this concern?

 

Hasn't been an issue on any Honda I have seen other than a Civic with a H22.

 

I haven't heard about this myself, but I wouldn't be totally surprised either.

For the street, I can't forsee any issues since a properly designed geometry for the suspension should never place an inward force on the CV shafts throughout the entire travel. If this were the case, I would expect more RSXs in the shop with blown CV joints when you hit a bump (if the wheel travels into the range to cause the interference like this suddenly, it would give the CV shaft a nice "pop" like a hammer and should bend the shaft pretty nicely after a few bumps). Personally, I've seen an RSX built by Mugen that uses a 1.5" lower stance. This company and their distributor put a lot of effort into their cars, and they mentioned having no such problems.

In a high g-force environment, it may be a different ballgame. Since the RSX uses a Macpherson strut, it may be possible that a few thousand pounds of lateral force on the suspension assembly will cause it to deform enough that the CVs start binding in the joints. Most racers that I know of use specially built CV shafts because of higher power outputs and fatigue reasons...maybe going to these stronger shafts also saves them from this problem.

I dunno, maybe someone has some better insight??

 

I wouldnt doubt it.
On a side note, I've gotta friend who lowered his RSX using GC coilovers, and for some reason it rides like total ****. More than likely its due to the McPherson suspension, but he says there's this real annoying bottoming out effect it has, even though the car isn't even lowered that much. He also said there's a knocking sound....which I found out... is the steering rod banging against the firewall or something else, when going over bumps in the road.

Any other RSX owners have this problem with their lowered RSX's?

 

how bumpy can your ride get with stock shocks and lowering springs