For all you current and future Civic drivers in ST, I've put up a
fairly exhaustive page with 88-91 Civic setup information. I
imagine I'll be improving it because it's currently the result of
about 1.5 hours of me just sitting down to write. If you have any
thoughts, please let me know. I'm sure it'll get revised for
clarity from time to time. Hope it helps! The link to the info
is in the upper right corner of the home page below.
Chris Shenefield
http://www.redshiftmotorsports.com

 

EXCELLENT!

very interesting comments on Falkens on ice, pulleys and front upper "tie bars" (i think most just call those "strut bars", and say the lower braces as "tie bars"). really nice to see winners publish their setups online, especially so specifically and not holding back any opinions.

 

Added to my "favorites" folder!!

Just out of curiosity, any thoughts on progressive rate springs? (Suspension Techniques) I put them on the car before I got into auto crossing and haven't had the $$ for Ground Control's yet. They seem to work ok, but I'm always wondering how much better my setup would be with the GC's (view my profile to see the rest of my setup if you'd like.)

 

posted this on the yahoo groups street touring too


Chris,
As for the brakes I just put on that I told you I'd update you on
here is my thoughts.

I have hawk hp+ on the front of my car. I had problems locking up
the fronts when I had the rear stock shoes. Partially responsibly by
the flat spotted mx's I'm running for now. Well I did some searching
and found cobalt and carbotech makes rear shoes for our cars. I
found somebody selling a set they never used and picked them up
somewhat cheap. I bought the carbotech shoes with the 912 pad
compound. I think retail they are about 95 but thats just going from
what the guy I bought them from told me. I put them on and broke
them in about 5 hours before the auto-x in the middle of the night.
When I drove the car I was amazed of the difference. The car feels
much better and doesn't even dive as much. I never even locked them
up once and felt it even decreased my braking distance alot. I would
highly recomend them.

Also wanted to see if you had any pictures of mounting the rear
swaybar to the original holes. I never even thought about doing
that. What kind of a difference does it make?

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by thumpu77 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Added to my "favorites" folder!!

Just out of curiosity, any thoughts on progressive rate springs? (Suspension Techniques) I put them on the car before I got into auto crossing and haven't had the $$ for Ground Control's yet. They seem to work ok, but I'm always wondering how much better my setup would be with the GC's (view my profile to see the rest of my setup if you'd like.)</TD></TR></TABLE>

I think non - progressive rates are much better. On my old 00 si which I ran in STS switching from eibach springs to GC coilovers with 350/400 rates I dropped a lot of time and was more fun to drive.

If you don't drive the car on the street much you can always get stiff rates. those kinda rates on the 88-91 civics feel very stiff to me but on my 00 si it wasn't that bad.

For my 89 si I got a set of dropzone coilovers that come with 350/450 rates. I'm a cheap college student and got them for free. I know they aren't GC quality but they give you the same performance basically. You can get them on ebay for about $80.

I'm sure I'll show up to topeka next year with the cheapest built 89 sts car at the rate I'm going with parts.

 

btw, stock timing is specified 18, not 16 BTDC.

 

Of course you realize Chris has gone over to the other side and is building a SM Nissan 240SX with a SR20DET and is also talking about drifting.

What he said about Azenis versus MX in cold weather is also true for the V700. I ran last weekend in 30 ish weather and the V700's were absolute stones. The STS Impreza on Azenis was 2 sec faster than the EP car on slicks and 3 faster than me on the V700. I think I should have put on the snow tires instead.

 

you run quite a bit of pressure up front. 40 psi is a lot, and I've never been faster with that much air up front. i've found that ultimate grip, and consistency (when the tires are kept cool) has come to me with pressures in the 29-32 psi range up front. my car isn't too much different then yours. different driving styles i guess *shrugs*

 

Progressive rate springs aren't the worst thing in the world, but you generally will have a fairly soft spring overall. I think you will be surprised how good the car gets with proper rates.

 

That's great info on the rear brake shoes for the Civic. I didn't know that. I'll have to look into it. We just completely changed out the brakes on Tad's Civic. The brakes were aweful, and now they are really good. We changed everything on front and back except for the front calipers. Using Hawk HPS front and stock rear shoes, the car stops really well. I'm completely happy with it like that. But I'd like to drive a car with the better brakes in the back. Maybe one of my customers will want to do that too. Like I said, I'll have to look into it.

As for the rear swaybar mounting location, the 88 Civic I have requires an additional hardward kit to mount the swaybar, and it's a more secure setup than mounting it to the lower shock mount on the 89-91 I think. And the 89-91 has the same mounting point inboard on the lower control arm; so it's not that much different from the 88 swaybar i have now. Only difference is that it's motion ration as compared to the wheel is relatively less; so the bar at full stiff and connected inboard is similar to the bar at full soft and connected to the lower shock bolt. .....I just like the secure mounting of the inboard location better.
Thanks,
Chris

 

29-32 up front?? That seems low to me. I can start to induce some oversteer in the rear of the car going from 32 to 29, and that's the much lighter end of the car by almost 40% where you don't need as much pressure for the same contact patch. The Azenis is stiff, but I imagine there is something fundamentally different about your setup or what surface you run on.

Perplexed,
Chris
http://www.redshiftmotorsports.com

 

koni's and 380/450 springs with ST 25mm front and 19mm rear sway bar. the car has seen mostly asphalt.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Mohudsolo &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">What he said about Azenis versus MX in cold weather is also true for the V700. I ran last weekend in 30 ish weather and the V700's were absolute stones. The STS Impreza on Azenis was 2 sec faster than the EP car on slicks and 3 faster than me on the V700. I think I should have put on the snow tires instead.</TD></TR></TABLE>
I ran my first autocross last weekend on Azenis (too poor for another set of R tires) and in the 20-30 degree temps, they felt wicked! Everyone on R tires was complaining about no grip Definitely recommended for cool weather!

 

&gt;&gt;&gt;koni's and 380/450 springs with ST 25mm front and
&gt;&gt;&gt;19mm rear sway bar. the car has seen mostly asphalt.

Wow, I'm still very perplexed. I know that many different configurations seem to work well, but that seems like it'd understeer with that front/rear bar setup and those front pressures. What shocks do you run??
Chris

 

actually, the 19mm rear bar has slightly different geometry, so it probably acts like a larger bar. it doesn't attach in the middle of the control arm.

i've got your basic off the shelf koni sports. i've never had the car on concrete, but on asphalt it's pretty neutral to slightly loose.

we'll see how this set-up fairs against the big guns, as I'm planning a full ProSolo assault for the 2004 season.

for sure a shock re-valve and stiffer springs are in the pipes though

 

Good stuff Chris! I agree about tire temps. It was a funny juxtaposition at Nats - Ken and I were spraying everything short of liquid nitrogen on our Falkens, while next door Kevin was positioning soalr deflectors to try and keep every joule of heat he could in his Kumhos.

And oh man, there's at least 10 things on your page I still need to do to Ken's car!

Good luck next year!