I 'm not surprised that GC didn't put a warning on their web site that these mounts interfere with the Integra upper sturt. They alwasy seem to hide those little details. The bar won't go back on because the GC mounts are too thick. They seem to test all their "Honda" products on Civics.

Anyone running on the GC upper mounts? What strut bar are you using?
The car doesn't feel right and seems to be pushing without the strut bar on. I need to find a bar that fits by the end of next week.
thanks for your help

 

Hey Harry. Hope you've been doing well.

Sorry to hear about the glitch with the shock mounts and strut bar. Keep us posted as you figure out how remedy this problem. And thanks for letting us know.

Casey

 

Hi Casey! It's been a long time.

What's this about "NOS" in your signature? Has it been that long?

Well I did find some archived posts about it. I was only searching on 'recent' posts before I posted this. Seems a few others with GSRs and ITRs have had this problem so they bought a Spoon bar. That's big $$.. I was hoping I could get away with a Neuspeed bar or something cheaper. There has to be another decent bar that would fit besides a Spoon.

I had some other problems with these upper mounts too, in case anyone else is interested in these, and it was primarily of the shocks I 'm using.
I have the GC Advance Design shocks (which have the threads on the shocks - no sleeves). Well the shock shaft is very short. These mounts pull your "shocks" further up and away from the lower shock mount. Also the mounts would not fit all the way down into the shaft because they hit the springs prematurely. In other words the spring now was sitting too high! We had to move the spring seats further down the shock body. By doing this, we knew we 'd lower the car another 3/4-1" (which I didn't want because was too low to begin with and didn't want to go another milimeter lower). Thank god we realized the front shocks have 3 perches at the bottom, so we installed the lower mount to the middle perch (instead of the top one like before), thus pushing the entire shock further up so we can get the mount all the way through the opening for proper installation. So essentially we accomplished pretty much nothing.
Yes, the shaft was extended up higher past its original position and is/was in a better compressing position, avoiding shock damage, BUT we had to push the shock body further up to get the studs all the way through the shock towers (compressing the shock more), NEGATING any gains or positive results that I might 've had. Not only that, I can't raise the car up anymore because the springs are now touching the GC polyurethane hats, when before they weren't, and I could 've raised the car a little more if I wanted to.
So I think because the AD shocks were pretty short to begin with, it was a mistake getting these mounts. I should 've just got the ES or Prothane upper shock bushings, and be done with it. What do you guys think?

 

You mention the same issues that I hadn't thought about until I installed mine on my car. Regardless of the shock that you have, if you are using a fixed or stock spring seat shock, you will need to use a spring compressor to compress the springs an extra inch or so than previously to install them off the car although the ride height of the car on the ground is not changed. If you use a threaded sleeve system, you will need also to compress your spring further but those of us using pretty high spring rates (I was using 400s) and were used to running little to no preload at the max droop length off the car will now have trouble getting the spring compressed.

Moving the sleeve further down on the shock as you did at the time of install will make it easier to install the spring but you have will still need to run the threaded perch back up an extra inch to the same place that it really was before to get your same ride height. In the many years that I have used this racing spring set-up on the car, I have never needed to use a spring compressor but now will with my 8 inch springs or will need to find a way to keep the threaded sleeve from turning on the shock body when I try to adjust the perch which is the one disadvantage to sleeve system vs. threaded body shocks. The other alternative is that you can simply buy new springs of the same rate that are one inch shorter in free length (from 8s to 7s in my case). Of course I was installing them the day before a track event and hadn't taken any of this into account, ran into issues and had to do the best I could with the ride height whacked out and touching the fender into the new tire on a few corners. Poor planning and prep on my part.

Just remember that these mounts have primary advantages like reducing the opportunity to internal and external bottoming but this is not a perfect world and there may be ramifications of working with other parts that need to be considered. If your dampers are already having limited droop travel (short extended length) or if your spring rates to lengths are such that they take little preload or it is hard to get more spring preload, then there will be more issues. If your suspension has full stroke shocks, not super stiff springs, and you run a pretty low ride height, that is when these mounts really are going to help.

 

Yes, I agree.

I do have 7" springs so getting them back up to achieve the same ride height I had before was not an issue. The issue that I have is that I can't turn the spring seat anymore because the springs are all the way at the top already when they weren't before (the GC mounts). The 7" springs would have to be compressed in order to raise the car if I wanted to and that bothers me because they 're 650 lbs/in. and I would need a spring compressor every time.

So like you said (and that's basically what I said too), with my high spring rates and short shocks, these upper mounts were not needed. I have lost the height adjustability I had before, and I accomplished nothing as far as reducing the chances of internal shock bottoming, because I had to mount the shocks on a lower perch which moved the shocks up closer to the shock tower so the distance between the adjusting ***** on the top (top of the shaft) to the top of the shock body remained the same. I definitely had not thought this through, but I also never imagined that the AD shocks were that short that would need to be moved up.
Actually I should have known, because at full droop I could only raise the car another 3/8" (the car still sits too dang low). These ADs are too short for the Integra suspension IMO..

 

I addressed the GC mount/ITR strut bar interference by simply removing about 1/4 of material from the steel strut bar bracket. Problem fixed.

 

Jack up the car and loosen the bolt on top of the mount till it's almost off. This gave me abit more room to turn the perch a few more rotations. then go back and retighten the bolt on top of the mount. I had the same problem and realized the problem was just that. Oh I have Koni/GC

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Track rat &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">I addressed the GC mount/ITR strut bar interference by simply removing about 1/4 of material from the steel strut bar bracket. Problem fixed.</TD></TR></TABLE>

Agreed, took 5 minutes of grinding (if that).

I saw a marked improvement with these on Koni Yellows.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by VTEConly &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Seems a few others with GSRs and ITRs have had this problem so they bought a Spoon bar.</TD></TR></TABLE>

Like some others, I fixed it by buying a bench grinder Well worth the minimal investment.