Hey guy's,

I've recently aquired an Acura Integra 89 LS Coupe... 1 of 3 in Portugal. When I brought home, I made 400km with it and one of the things that I detected was that the suspension was very "sloppy?". The car was very jumpy, turns were very weird since the car would go sideways easily and I even managed to scrap the car below going on a depression at 70km/h. Could the torsion bars be completly dead or were they like this before?
How can I make the suspension way harder and a little lower (3cm maybe) to make it stickier to the ground? Is it the same as older cars that we have a dented gear and we increase by multiple teeths until we get what we desire?

Thanks!

 

Maybe the shocks are blown. But then again...the old torsion bar cars didn't ride all that well.

Try a set of shocks first, though. See if that helps.

 

Do DA's have torsion bars?

I had a Nissan XTerra with torsion bar front suspension. By 150K, the front really began to droop and feel soft. They definitely do lose tension, but this junker had an adjuster. See if you can spot a long bolt on the end of the bar that would allow you to crank on some more tension, then see what kind of effect it has on handling.

 

DA9's (the ones with the fixed headlights) had double wishbones...but IIRC, came around in 1990, no?

 

First gen really had torsion bars. I know that someone tuned to lower it down and it was giving awesome responses on curves but I cant find that anymore around the Web. I still havent looked properly under the car too. Been working over time and trying to find an onwers manual to find everything about the car.
I know there are People that change the bars size and such but I cant properly learn what they do when changing. There are 3 main components right? Bushings, torsion bars and shocks? Is there anything else that I need to give attention too?
And what is the purpose of each one?
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Sorry for all this questions but I never worked around torsion bars at all.

 

There's a vertical bolt that goes through the little outcropping on the torque tube for adjusting ride height on these cars. Here's the front suspension diagram for an 89 Integra LS:


Loosen #32 and turn #26 to adjust the ride height.

With a car that old though, you're just going to have to assume that all of the wear parts in the suspension and steering are worn out. I would anticipate having to replace all of the bushings, tie rod ends, ball joints, and dampers just to get all of the slop out of your suspension.

The good news is that like most metal springs, torsion bars don't lose spring rate. So as long as there's room on the adjusters and the bars aren't cracked, bent, or otherwise physically damaged, you won't need to replace them as a wear item.

 

So, If I wanted to match the ride height of both sides, isn't that hard since both can have different strenghts on the torsion bar?
What about the rear one?
And is all this information on the car's service manual? Wondering If I shouldnt buy one..

 

There is an element of guessing and checking to make sure both sides match. That said, each turn of the front height adjuster nut raises or lowers the car by 5mm, so if you know roughly where things need to sit, so if you take some measurements beforehand it's very easy to get a target ride height.

The details and the factory specs are in this electronic copy of the 89 Integra FSM here:
http://www.g1teg.org/Acura/88-89IntegraFSM.pdf

Not sure how hard it is to find a paper copy of the FSM but if you can find one, I'd get one. They're cool pieces of memorabilia to have, even if you don't use it all that much.

The rears on your car are coil springs, however, so they are not adjustable. You can inspect them to see if they are still in good shape (no cracks, no broken coils) and you can put one of those spring spacers on the ends if you need to raise it up a little bit to get it up to stock ride height. But if they're broken, cracked, or sagging badly you will just have to get new ones.