I have decided that I want to run my hatch this year in the SCCA. I have all my parts in mind, I would just like some input on what setups others run.

Suspension:
D2 (36) way dampening/adjustable with custom spring rates.
Skunk2 Upper Control Arms
Skunk2 RLCA's
Hardrace Rear Trailing Arm bushings
New OEM Tie Rods
New OEM ball joints
Reinforced shock towers
Hardrace Front sway links
23mm front sway bar (Gs-R)

Brake system:
Front Gs-R disc
Brembo Blanks
New OEM rotors and pads
Gs-R rear disc
DOT4 Brake Fluid?

Future Plans:
Beaks rear X-Brace
ASR Rear Subframe Brace
Eibach Rear Sway bar
ASR Rear endlinks
Beaks lower tie bar
Hardrace Rear Camber Kit
Hardrace Rear Toe Kit
Type R front upper strut tower bar

 

Everything sounds great to me except for the D2 coilovers.

What rates are you running?
First time doing autocross?
Tires? They matter, A LOT.

Lots of quality parts, why cheap out on the coils? I've got a whole collection of bent/broken/blown D2 coilovers I've collected from watching these forums over the years.

If you've never done autocross before, an advanced setup like this might actually be bad. You won't be able to learn your car as quickly and your times will suffer. Your learning curve will be much longer.

 

I had a DB8 that I autocrossed prior to this chassis. I'm no professional, but hold my own. I have been hearing a lot of bad things about D2. I have yet to run them, but my spring rates are 14k and 12k due to me wanting to drive this on the street.

Tyres are Nitto 01's mounted on Kosei K1's and I have Kuhmo Es. Xs's for back ups on order.

Drivetrain is a 97 Spec ITR with 00-01' Cams and a 4.785FD ITR trans with an LSD.

 

Sounds like you should be fine. If your alignment settings are solid, you've had seat time so you've got nothing to worry about in my mind.

I hope you've got a touch of toe in in the rear, and a little toe out in the front.

I'd LOVE to have 3* of camber right now. 1.8* in the front is not enough.

Best of luck on the D2, I'm just surprised you'd go with quality parts every where else, and skimp on the coilovers. For a race car having a damper and coil that are both matched properly and are quality are important.

PIC, AMR, Koni/GC, Illumina/GC, Progress etc could have all made you something for $800-1150

 

I was under the impression these coils were "awesome" when i bought them. I read through your thread in your signature and maybe down the road I will change things up. I have access to a new Hunter alignment machine at my Honda facilty which is helpful. i will play with alignment angles to see what I am most comfortable with.

On a side note, when I had my DB8 I was at roughly -2 degrees camber in the front and it felt great. For a DD I would like to keep my front camber in that area due to tire wear and driveability. I do not expect to take first place in my class I just want to have fun and test the car a bit. Having the Type R drivetrain in it really helps me keep up with some of the big dogs in their $50k+ Vettes, Vipers and other Merican' POS's

 

You would be fine with 2.5* or 3* camber up front. I had 3.5* or 4* for a few years in high school, had even wear on both sets of my tires I went through in those ~25,000 miles.

Camber wear doesn't really start happening until 4*+

 

I had some tire wear issues on my T1r's with 2.5-3 degrees before. I understand my driving habbits are going to destroy my tires (backroads), but I don't want to be buying a new set every couple months. These "slicks" should be pretty fun. It will be my first time running on a Non- Street tyre. Just pulling the car in and out of the garage leads to rocks sticking to the tread.

 

What's junk about the ASR rear subframe brace, ASR endlinks, HardRace alignment kits, or the OE strut bar?

None of them are "junk" per se, just because they aren't particularly useful.

The factory toe arms are indeed adequate unless yours have rusted out or don't have enough adjust-ability.

I'll agree that the skunk2 LCAs are questionable, but the skunk2 UCAs are arguably about as good as it gets since they re-designed them.

However, AMR is now making some that I wouldn't hesitate to use. Hardrace also makes UCAs as well I'd be willing to give a shot.

 

All the parts I mentioned are quality. I understand not a ton of people support D2, but that doesn't mean you need to come into the thread and be an idiot.

 

He's not, he's just saying they won't make any difference.

 

Of course they will?

The rear x brace will stiffen the rear section of the chassis.
The rear subframe brace will support the rear subframe from flexing with the larger rear sway.
The camber and toe kits will help me perfect my alignment.
The rear endlinks are adjustable unlike OEM.
The type r front upper sway will provide a stiffer front end.


I am finding function a function in every peice I mentioned.

 

FWIW, I agree that for racing, geo adjustment is necessary, although there's a general consensus here that it is a bad idea for a road car as they tend to fail.

Subframe brace is needed for the big bars.

Strut bars, X braces and adjustable end links are all pointless though, unless you plan on nothing more than making the car heavier and you wallet lighter.

 

I'm finding a purpose in every part, which is why I am buying them.

 

This is hotly contested and there is rationale on both sides. It's pretty clear that a good upper strut bar tends to be pretty effective. The rest of the bars don't seem to do much.

Though some of the moneybar setups have rave reviews, and those I would tend think actually do something if for the simple reason that they tie so many parts of the car together.

A simple roll cage will trump all of this though.

 

What purpose do adjustable end links serve then? I had some on my EK, they did nothing apart from knock, squeak and eventually fail.

I run no strut bars either, not even the stock front upper, and it feels just fine. Sure I might feel that it's a bit stiffer with them, but in terms of speed (i.e. your primary concern at an AutoX event), they make no difference what so ever. Less money spent on these bits could be put towards better dampers which will make a difference.

 

I need adjustable endlinks for my setup. the stock ones don't reach to the correct place and flex too much.

 

In which case you have a valid point.

 

Cheya

 

I'm assuming you've already realized you're put in SMF right? If there's serious competition in your region and want to hang with them or beat them, you need to do a lot more research. What you have listed won't cut it. I know what it takes for an SMF car to win, my sponsor is Karcepts, he won SMF class the first year it was introduced at Nationals (2010) and again last year (2011).


The D2 coilovers are not worth the money and many have seem to complain about them. I'm sure you've heard it before...Koni Yellows and Ground Controls... There are NUMEROUS National level drivers using this suspension, including Karcepts. Why? Because it works! And it's not expensive at all. Anything less is a waste of money. Anything more and well, you better know what you're doing if you're spending $1k per corner on shocks alone...

Larger front swaybar generally isn't popular. Maintaining the fairly small front bar, or removing it completely, is what most go for. Along with a large rear bar and some tinkering with spring rates.

OEM pads is not a good idea. You can drop a significant amount of time with a good set of pads. If you want something decent, Hawk HPS. For something with a lot of bite, Hawk HP+. DOT3/4 brake fluid will be fine. You really don't need super high performance fluid, you won't boil your fluid AutoXing...

The X brace and the tower/tie bars really aren't necessary. Especially for the price of some of those fancy X brace's, the affect (IF ANY) is so minimal it's not worth it. The weight you're adding with those bars probably has a larger negative impact than any positive handling impact they MAY make. I've seen, personally, quite a few Nationally competitive Civic's/CRX's and VERY few have ANY of those bars. I don't run any of those in my '91 Si I race in ST and the car handles amazingly well without them. I am not itching to go out and spend a couple hundred bucks on them and add weight..

I would suggest swapping the rates. Sure your ride will suffer, but the handling characteristics for AutoX will be far better. To be competitive in SMF, you'll NEED r-compound tires, and big ones. Kumho XS's will not do well, they suck even in comparison to the other street tires out there (Toyo R1R, Dunlop Star Specs). I've driven on XS's in a friends ST RSX-S and they just couldn't grip at all compared to the BStone RE-11's and Toyo R1R's I've been using.

Meh, either courses favor your car better or the people who drive those cars aren't very good. The Super Stock Vettes and F-Stock Mustangs in my region destroy, Multi-Time National champ Sam Strano has something to do with that though... Just saying, those big American Muscle cars are nothing to mess with even at AutoX events in the right hands.

X-Brace, like I said, will not do enough to really be worth it. Not many people who are serious about AutoX run them.

You don't really want a stiffer front end. That usually promotes more understeer which = bad. Especially if you are considering 14k/12k spring rates, even worse.

 

He has intelligence to back up what he is saying. You just started ranting on about what you wouldn't use and had no idea why.

On a side note I have Nitto 01's. Not sure if I mentioned that earlier.

 

Maybe I missed it, but when endlinks are you planning to run?

For the brakes, I think you will end up suffering runing the OEM stuff. I'm not saying it isn't good, but, you would be much better off with something better, that was made to handle what your going to throw at it. Hawk HPS pads, and Brembo blanks rotors should do nicely.

In the past, I would have agreed that strut bars do noithing, that was until I put my nuespeed bar in front.
It isn't a night and day diference, and I'm not saying jump up and go buy one. But, I did feel a difference. The front end feels a little tigher.

I will say this, I hate that Beaks stuff. Why? it's for noithing but show.
The lower tie bar, will do noithing, but sit there. With you planning to run a ASR brace for the sway bar, anything else would be pointless and just another added expense.
The X brace, will it do something? MAYBE, but I highly doubt it would be enought to justify spending the money on them.... Go a autox event, tell me how many people run that stuff.



My opinon of your suspension.

Toss the Skunk2 lower control arms. Why? Becuase they don't offer anything that OEM can't do with better bushings. Other then look better.

Swap the front Skunk2 camber kit for Hardrace. Skunk2 has many well known issues with them, and I haven't really seen anything bad about the hardrace peices.

Loose the Beaks X brace, and the lower brace.

If you are hell bent on runing a front strut bar, get a Neuspeed bar.

If you loose the x brace/lower bar, and swap the Skunk2 camber kit for the hardrace you could save ~$500.

Take that money and replace the old stock bushings. PIC/Hardrace is great!
That would leave you will about $200 left that you could throw at the brakes.

I would also recomend you consider dumping the Eibach bar, and go with a CTR/ITR. I think they are bigger, and may even be cheaper. lol

 

I could careless what your putting on your car lol.

 

You're.

 

Adjustable endlinks are useful, sometimes necessary, if you have an adjustable swaybar and also multiple mounting locations on your LCA's(such as with Function7 and Skunk2 LCA's).




And if you had spherical adjustable endlinks, that's why they knocked, squeaked and failed. Spherical bushings are more suited for track use as they are high wear items and need to be kept clean and lubricated often. They will wear faster than other bushing materials so they are not best on a daily driven car that see all kinds of weather and road debris. The performance benefits are great, but it does come at a high cost.

 

Good to know^^