Ok, the car:

1990 HB w/ B16 swap
Prulude front rotors w/ Type R calipers
GSR rear discs
car weighs 2150 lbs.

The $:

$1,750.... this is my buget....

The use:

Daily driven
Road race
A few passes on the strip

Mainly I want a very well setup suspension system, that will run with the Improved touring cars when I attend a lapping day. I am not concerned with comfort, I build my cars for function. I spoke with Johnathon @ Progress, he suggested a coilover setup with 450lb fronts and 650 lb rears, valved accoringly of course. He also told me they just finished a adjustable rear sway bar for the EF chassis. I have also spoke with Tein and was leaning towards the RA setup which is 671lb. fronts, 559 lb. rears. It will take two months to get the Tein's because they are special order from Japan. I was also concerned with changing the rear LCA's to '88 CRX units, as it would leave me with very few rear sway bar options. The things I liked about Tein was the 16 way adjustability and the aluminum body. The things I don't like about the Progress is they are not adjustable.

I am looking for opinions, experiences, and direction from people who "know" what they are talking about.

Also if anyone can enlighten me as to the differences between a monotube and twin tube shock design. Any imput on piston diameter would be nice also....

Thank you very much!!

 

Is this your daily driver?

If so, I'd stick with off-the-shelf Konis and Ground Control coilovers. 350-400 front and 450-600 rear.

Some of Tein's stuff is good. Does Tein have a US service shop yet? If not, I'd skip them.

I know nothing about Progress.

Any of the 19-21mm rear bars will do. If the car is used on the street a lot, I'd stay near the 19mm end of the spectrum.

 

Exactly how hardcore are you looking to have the car? A 450f/600r sounds like it would be the ticket while you still need it streetable. Progress is pretty close to the mark telling you to get a full coilover kit instead of picking and choosing. I went that route, and though it was not adjustable, I was very happy with it.

Bottom line, though, is that if you want to run with the IT cars, ask them what they are using. Most are very forthcoming, and will even give you tips or leads on where to find parts. IT rules do not allow threaded body shocks, so you will find that a large percentage are running custom valved Koni's with a coilover perch.

 

Tein has a US service department now...Progress has setup alot of 4 gen IT HB's. I know I want a full coilover system, not mismatched parts from various manufactures...not to knock Koni or GC, they are both great companies...just not for me...The rear sway bar progress just came out with is a 24mm adjustable unit. I like that....MORE imput please!!

 

"if some is good, more is not always better"

nate-who daily drives 800lb springs on revalved koni's and like's the tried and tested over the unknown quantity...

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by jisu009 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">The things I liked about Tein was the 16 way adjustability and the aluminum body.</TD></TR></TABLE>

What are you gonna do with 16 way adjustable shocks?

Hell, I have enough trouble adjusting my tire pressures. 16 way adjustable!? Jesus.

 

16-way adjustment means there's 16 settings on the shock.

You'd probably only use 4 of them the same way you'd use only a few settings on a Koni (full soft, half way, full stiff and maybe one or two in between).

I'd be hard pressed to find a difference between each 'click' of adjustment.

 

How is anybody with our level of experience gonna be able to tune a single shock absorber in 16 different ways. That's a total of 64 adjustments.

It just boggles my mind.

aj

 

No, the 16-way adjusts probably bump and rebound at the same time.

So there's 16 levels of adjustment. Koni's are adjustable from point to point without set 'clicks' in between. Its the same concept. They could have made each shock 4-way adjustable (i.e. 4 settings on each shock) but "16-way" sounds more bling bling.

I havent heard much about the progress setup - they offer a kit for for saturns that i looked at but the shock had to be dissasembled to adjust it. What a pain.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by jisu009 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">.not to knock Koni or GC, they are both great companies...just not for me...</TD></TR></TABLE> wow, you are crazy to discount the potential of a Koni and GroundControl setup. You can get exactly the same springrates and shock build quality as other companies, yet you will have easier servicing and replacement if any problems ever do happen. Of course the Konis are not aluminum bodied units, but their lower cost of an OTS Koni yellow paired with GC sleeves with the rates you specified may be the best choice for you.

 

From the IT world-you cannot run with us using a swap and brake configuration other than parts as listed on the "spec line" in the ITCS section of the GCR. For an open lapping day in any of the various non-competition events that are held around the country (HPDE by NASA and PDA for example) you can bring most anything that is either a real race car or is street legal. We have people come to PDA events with everything from C5-Rs to box stock Preludes (me-suspension chages only) and a whole lot of race/non-race ready things as well (my IT CRX is one).

As for the spring rates and shocks-there are a lot of opinions. May I suggest that if this is a first time out or you have very limited seat time on track-do not do anything aggressive until you become comfortable with the track environment. Another thing-the higher rear spring rate will cause the car to rotate differently from one that has the higher rate up front.

As to brand of product, rest assured that Koni, Ground Control and Skunk2 provide very high quality items. Other brands may be as good, but there are those of us that prefer a set of Koni shocks mated to either the GC or Skunk sleeves and a set of springs that meet our needs. That means you will need to chat with GC and or Skunk to determine the best spring rate for your car. They both have experience in doing setups that work; they both use Eibach springs, btw.

Good luck

 

AWWW now I see the light! Ok thank you guys very much for the insight...I am starting to see the overall picture now. I will most definatly look into the koni/GC setup now...The 16 way adjustable, now that I think of it, is a little bling bling. I do have about 10 hours seat time in various types of cars...I used to have a very tuned Jetta VR6, supercharged...very well setup suspension. I attended the local BMW club's lapping events for a few years. This is actually my first honda. So your guys insight and expereinces is VERY helpful!!

I will not actually be competing in IT...I will however be on the track with IT car during lapping days...So i just want to run with the big dogs!

 

As mentioned by CRX Lee in another thread, the fact that a shock has 16 way adjustability is not nearly as significant as the range of adjustability within those 16 clicks. The fact that a shock has 69 way adjustability is not a selling point that's going to convince me as much as it's ability to work with the spring that I'm going to put on it on the car that I'm going to put it on. I think the Koni/GC route definitely has your name written all over it.

On another note, I have (as well as many others) witnessed how much faster you can go on the track working on your braking technique. All of that extra horsepower that Z06 in front of you has means squat when you can outbrake the hell out of it and wind up right back on it's rear bumper in a half-second flat. People need to realize that brakes are by far the most efficient system on a car, and when used properly, can take you the longest way. Brakes are cheap, too!Knowing how to carry momentum is a big bonus, as well.

 

Before i completley committed my eg6 to "racing only status" i ran konis yellows all the way around. GC Springs front: 350 rear: 450, with type r sway bars front and rear. worked great on street and very good on track. i raced a couple of times with this set-up. then when i wanted to go "race only" it was easy. changed the front and rear springs and removed the front sway bar. remember a good race set-up is not typicaly a good street set-up. for example having the rear springs 200 lbs heavier then the front is great to bring the backed around so you can hammer the throttle sooner coming out of the corner. on a wet street condition or any condition, this could be unsafe. not to sound like a mother hen. i know from experience.
Racing is fun !

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by ajn &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">How is anybody with our level of experience gonna be able to tune a single shock absorber in 16 different ways. That's a total of 64 adjustments.
</TD></TR></TABLE>

its 16^4 total possible combinations if each are tuned independently

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by illusion &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">its 16^4 total possible combinations if each are tuned independently </TD></TR></TABLE>

I'd break it down like this. 4 adjustments per shock, 2 ends of the vehicle (front and rear).

Not so bad now?

 

But what is a kid who doesn't have any racing experience going to do with those adjustments?

Know a stock car first, be consistent, then upgrade.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by ajn &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">But what is a kid who doesn't have any racing experience going to do with those adjustments?

Know a stock car first, be consistent, then upgrade.</TD></TR></TABLE>

Its not. Not only is a modified car going to be harder to learn on, having a b unch of adjustments to fiddle with is only going to make a novice driver more inconsistant.

I've had my integra on track 3 weekends now. I've changed my tire pressures once (same each time before i head on track) and changed my shock settings by 1/2 turn in the rear. Thats it.

I dont need to continually fvck with the setup to work on driving, unless the car was doing something seriously wrong.

 

Then why are we recommending a suspension setup when we should really be telling him the truth that no modification will help unless he helps himself by getting more seat time.

jisu009 - what kind of racing experience do you have? Is it just HPDE's and track day's? Just curious.

 

I just assumed he had already been to a bunch of track days and wasnt hanging with the IT-prepped cars that run there as well.

 

ITR Springs, shocks, rear sway. Quaife LSD, ITR cams, Hondata S100. and there should be a few bucks left over for tuning and misc work.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by ajn &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Know a stock car first, be consistent, then upgrade.</TD></TR></TABLE>

While I'm going to agree with this principle just about all the time, there ARE cases where a car is in such bad shape that, well, if you've got to buy something to fix it, you may as well buy the good stuff. I know that while I've done countless autocrosses (although none in the last year and a half) and have done some track days, I'm still somewhat of a newbie in playing with tire pressures,shock and alignment settings. However, I've got two blown shocks at the moment, and I'm slapping some Konis on there tomorrow. There is no way in hell I'm going on the track with unpredictable blown-*** shocks. Konis it is, and I promise I won't adjust too awful much while I learn (to drive, not adjust) I don't believe my learning curve is so steep that I shouldn't buy some nice adjustables that I will be able to make some sense of in the [hopefully] near future.

Just had to get that off my chest, because I feel like a person's ability to learn is somewhat discounted frequently. We DO tend to be a halfway intelligent bunch, I hope. Not everyone , but some.

 

My racing experience is: High Performance diving school through Proformance race school. And about 8 lapping days after that.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by jisu009 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">My racing experience is: High Performance diving school through Proformance race school. And about 8 lapping days after that. </TD></TR></TABLE>

I figured something along those lines.

Your post didnt sound like a typical n00b "i wanna go road racing so i need some bling bling JDM suspension y0!" posts at all.

 

So what specificly would you guys suggest for a suspension setup? Koni's with GC's? With what spring rates?