I recently purchased 1990 civic hatchback dx model. I am interested in making the ride more comfortable. I changed all the shocks KYB and mounts but not the springs. I still don’t have a good ride. I do hear a clunk noise at the back as if the mounting failure but they are brand new. I was thinking that maybe the shocks and original coil springs are mismatched.
I am asking if anyone could help me to make the ride better. Any suggestions? Any idea if I need to buy new coil overs?

or the car never had a good ride quality from the factory at all?

I was hoping to have a good comfortable street ride.

thank you all in advance

 

There's more to a good ride than shocks and springs.

I'm sure your whole front end has a lot of play and specifically the rack end bushing needs attention. It's a $11 part but you need to drop the rack to replace it. You have to anyway to replace torn steering rack boots.

As for rear clunk, bushings need attention surely.

And next time make sure you tightened the bushings loaded so they are clocked correctly, as if they are at neutral when on the ground. Easy to mess up and destroy bushings that way.

 

Thank you very much

 

Update

Even though I put new shock mount, the clunky noise persisted.
I changed the coil springs to achieve a better ride which helped.

clunky noise:

I had installed KYB mounts, however the clunky noise persisted. I was not expecting that the mounts would be problem since they were brand new. despite they were new, I ordered and the installed Dorman ones.
Dorman rubber is 5-6 mm thicker so total maybe 1 cm more rubber. that made a huge difference. if you work on an old civic, I would recommend to use Dorman.

Car drives as expected and no clunky noise.


https://www.rockauto.com/en/moreinfo...t=7600&jsn=329
https://www.rockauto.com/en/moreinfo...t=7600&jsn=330