36 replies to this topic

[Adz--]

seeing a red one in such a clean manner always reminds me of EA_Hatch's beautiful red one, may it rest in peace in car heaven... :'(

 

i just saw his car on another forum, she looked like a beauty! she was so clean! and had a spoiler! what happened to her? shame it had to rest in peace!

 

 

YES!

Nice that it has such a history for you, & looks spectacular. Best wishes for it living up to them again soon.

 

Thank you 79 cord! thanks i appreciate it!

[azz187]

I was going to buy this at one point

[Adz--]

What parts do I need to upgrade my shocks and springs? Like panhard bars torsion bars etc? And what do they do?
Thanks adam

[PowerWheels86]

The adjustable panhard bar is to shift the rear axle back to Center... It pulls to the left when you lower the car... Your torsion bars are essentially your front springs, so thicker bars higher spring rate... 24mm is the recommended max for street use ~240 lbs... I couldn't tell you much on rear springs like using the ground control kit as i have the Tein setup...

[spuker1]

shock and spring setup is only on the rear. the whole trick is to have enough shock travel when the car is dropped so you still have some performance left without bottoming out and blowing your shocks up eventually. torsion bars are equivalent of springs and they are used at the front of your civic, just instead of coil spring that compresses under the load, this is a bar that twists in and out... panhard rod on the other hand is a metal rod with two bushings and eyelets on both ends that connects your rear axle to the body and stiffens the entire thing up and prevents it from moving side to side. only problem with that is when you lower your car it pushes your rear axle with your wheels on to the left of the car so the wheels are located uneven and rub on the arches and sometimes don't even fit under anymore... you need to change it's length to align it properly, usually by cutting it and welding up for your spec or having an adjustable one installed so you can dial it in whenever you change your car's ride height.

i'm looking into dropping my car down and all the people that had it done don't even talk about it like it would be so easy, but the easiest way to do it that i found is re-indexing the front torsion bars and turning them by two splines and then having topmounts custom made a bit taller (chedda_j makes them in usa) so you can gain some shock travel, then probably cut shock's bump stops in half. i don't think we could get away with filing the brake line off in uk because of our MOT restrictions.... rear is a bit simplier, we just need shorter and harder springs that fit. aparently 7th generation Civic Type-R springs are a perfect fit... but there's that panhard rod that needs shortening (i think).... i'm also thinking if it's possible to adapt coliovers from different car make... polo 6n ones look like they might go on....

anyway. everyone's makeing it so easy while it really isn't as easy as it is on most cars... :/

Edited by spuker1, 04 June 2013 - 11:18 AM.

[Adz--]

The adjustable panhard bar is to shift the rear axle back to Center... It pulls to the left when you lower the car... Your torsion bars are essentially your front springs, so thicker bars higher spring rate... 24mm is the recommended max for street use ~240 lbs... I couldn't tell you much on rear springs like using the ground control kit as i have the Tein setup...

Thank you, so I would need an adjustable pahard bar and a torsion bar 24mm thick,. Your ground control kit is that coilovers?
Thank you and regards Adam

shock and spring setup is only on the rear. the whole trick is to have enough shock travel when the car is dropped so you still have some performance left without bottoming out and blowing your shocks up eventually. torsion bars are equivalent of springs and they are used at the front of your civic, just instead of coil spring that compresses under the load, this is a bar that twists in and out... panhard rod on the other hand is a metal rod with two bushings and eyelets on both ends that connects your rear axle to the body and stiffens the entire thing up and prevents it from moving side to side. only problem with that is when you lower your car it pushes your rear axle with your wheels on to the left of the car so the wheels are located uneven and rub on the arches and sometimes don't even fit under anymore... you need to change it's length to align it properly, usually by cutting it and welding up for your spec or having an adjustable one installed so you can dial it in whenever you change your car's ride height.
i'm looking into dropping my car down and all the people that had it done don't even talk about it like it would be so easy, but the easiest way to do it that i found is re-indexing the front torsion bars and turning them by two splines and then having topmounts custom made a bit taller (chedda_j makes them in usa) so you can gain some shock travel, then probably cut shock's bump stops in half. i don't think we could get away with filing the brake line off in uk because of our MOT restrictions.... rear is a bit simplier, we just need shorter and harder springs that fit. aparently 7th generation Civic Type-R springs are a perfect fit... but there's that panhard rod that needs shortening (i think).... i'm also thinking if it's possible to adapt coliovers from different car make... polo 6n ones look like they might go on....
anyway. everyone's makeing it so easy while it really isn't as easy as it is on most cars... :/

Ah okay, what do you mean by splining down the torsion bars and cutting the bump stops? Wouldn't it be easier just to get new shocks that are height adjustable? ( sorry if the shock but is irrelevant I'm still quite a bit or a noob on suspension bits)
Oh right so type r springs too okay. Yeah that would be great if 6n coilovers fitted as there's so much variety on coilover for 6n's
Thanks and regards
Adam

[spuker1]

Ah okay, what do you mean by splining down the torsion bars and cutting the bump stops? Wouldn't it be easier just to get new shocks that are height adjustable? ( sorry if the shock but is irrelevant I'm still quite a bit or a noob on suspension bits)
Oh right so type r springs too okay. Yeah that would be great if 6n coilovers fitted as there's so much variety on coilover for 6n's
Thanks and regards
Adam

Yea EP3 Type-R springs fit and people on here did that before but I don't know if they just fitted stock ones OR had stock ones and cut them, OR had the lowering sporty ones OR had the sporty ones and cut those down even more.... You have to do more research on that.

Shocks aren't height adjustable mate, shocks are just struts filled with pressurized gas or oil and they just absorb bumps and prevent springs from decompressing too quickly making the ride bouncy and getting wheels off the ground when you drive over something Springs are responsible for ride stiffness and height of the car. Height adjustability is only possible if you have got a coilover set where you have a threaded tube with two rings which springs sit on and you can move those rings up or down increasing or decreasing spring length (there's probably more scientific name for that) and pre load.

The whole trick when you lower a 3rd generation civic is to get as much shock travel as possible because they are quite short to begin with and when you drop the car the shock travel decreases even more. Bump stops are rubber or poly bits that sit on the shock body that prevent top mounts smashing the shocks up when you bottom out. obviously they take up a bit of travel so when you cut them in half you gain some of it back. You have to sacrifice some protection though. There are other ways to get some shock travel back when you deck the car. You can order extended top mounts from Chedda_j which make the shock leg start a bit higher up then stock which free's up some more travel. Other way is to drop the bottom of the shock lower in the knuckle, but to do so you have to get rid of brake line bracket, which you probably won't get away with on British MOT.

About the torsion bars, there's a write up about it somewhere but basically torsion bar is a kind of ermm... bar which works like a normal coil spring but instead compress down and go back up it twists in and out under load. You can lower your car with them by taking them out of their tubes which they lock into by little splines on both ends and then rotating them inwards and putting them back in. The only problem is that one of the splines is taller and slots into a deeper slot so you know which way around is it for stock height. You have to file the taller one off so it will go in after you have them rotated. Most people say that two splines down towards the center of the car on both sides and torsion bar nut all the way up is the best

I hope I've managed to explain that properly, sorry English isn't my first language

Tom

[Adz--]

Thank you spuker and powerwheels for clearing that up for me!

Just a quick update, the car has been put on hold for a while.

[Adz--]

Just stripped all of the interior out, left front two seats

[spuker1]

Photos!!! I was so tempted to do that too, but I've decided to leave it as it is

[Adz--]

Photos!!! I was so tempted to do that too, but I've decided to leave it as it is

 

The photos will be up soon!, its straight forward to take apart to be honest but the hardest part was the roof lining i found 

[spuker1]

I know it's not difficult, I just decided that I want my interior in

[TheDoughboy]

Looks good. I love the wheels and the stance in the pics! Do you have the wheel/tires sizes and offset? 

[spuker1]

[Adz--]

Looks good. I love the wheels and the stance in the pics! Do you have the wheel/tires sizes and offset? 

Thank you, they are 4x100, 6.5j/ 7j i think, 15 inch, on stretched rubber

 

 

 

hahahaaha, too right spuker! the pics shall be up soon!