51 replies to this topic

[TribalHatch]

well i was mainly wondering if any car not even a honda has the same type single strut setup as in our 3G civic / 1G crx?

idk if also if this is what i read from RPR or not but i remember someone measureing the shafts width of a stock 3G civic strut and compairing it with like a 88+ civic and noticing that the 3 Gen was thicker. and was said that the thickness was needed hold the weight and travel pressure of the car.

i was wondering a set up for my car since i have 27mm torsion bars from Upgrade motoring and really require some stiffer cheaper dampening, my car is fairly lowered and would like to go lower. so i was thinkin 88-91 crx adjustables tokico struts or 93 Eg adjustables tokico struts either or without the coil spring set up jus the strut only replaceing the stock 3G strut.

would this work?
why not?

[DEIVIONCRX]

Our cars use a Machpherson Strut, in the front. Lots of other cars use this type of suspension setup including BMW and Mercades, along with the new 01+ Civics, Fords, Chevys ect.. Just about everybody uses Mac Struts nowdays. Their cheeper to make.

No it will not work.

88-00 Civic's dont use Struts, they use Shocks. Not the same at all.

A strut is a structrual member, our strut takes the place as a Upper Control Arm.

A shock mearly is just their to dampen the spring movement.

The cheepest stiffer strut is going to be a Tokico Illumina.

[zackspeed]

There is not allot of options out there other then whats still available. Now one thing I thought about was getting rid of the torsion bars and use coil overs. Porsche did this in the early days of the 934/935. It made a huge improvement in handling and they won almost everything in sight.

Now after putting a set of Omni Power coil overs on my friends EK I was super impressed with their quality and how well they worked. I talked to one of the guys at Omni and he said he thought that the 48mm piston would stand the abuse but they would not warranty that application. There was one Civic from Austrailia that was useing 88-91 coil overs that showed up on here years ago.

One thing I picked up on recently is the 06 and up SI has a new front hub with the steering arm on it and it is mounted quite low. I'm almost sure it could be used on our cars and may very well give little to no bump steer. You would need to convert the rear to a 5 lug though. Some crazy ideas I know

Edited by zackspeed, 04 August 2009 - 02:03 PM.

[TribalHatch]

Our cars use a Machpherson Strut, in the front. Lots of other cars use this type of suspension setup including BMW and Mercades, along with the new 01+ Civics, Fords, Chevys ect.. Just about everybody uses Mac Struts nowdays. Their cheeper to make.

No it will not work.

88-00 Civic's dont use Struts, they use Shocks. Not the same at all.

A strut is a structrual member, our strut takes the place as a Upper Control Arm.

A shock mearly is just their to dampen the spring movement.

The cheepest stiffer strut is going to be a Tokico Illumina.

yeah that was my main concern on replacing our struts with shocks cuz like u sait they are their just to withsthand the bump not work like a upper control arm as well which will mean its not so strong.

Tokico illuminas would the cheapest but now they dont make it for our cars now i gotta hit up the juck yard and see which cars have a strut assemply (Machpherson) style and maybe we can use a after market struts form that fitting car.

[TribalHatch]

There is not allot of options out there other then whats still available. Now one thing I thought about was getting rid of the torsion bars and use coil overs. Porsche did this in the early days of the 934/935. It made a huge improvement in handling and they won almost everything in sight.

Now after putting a set of Omni Power coil overs on my friends EK I was super impressed with their quality and how well they worked. I talked to one of the guys at Omni and he said he thought that the 48mm piston would stand the abuse but they would not warranty that application. There was one Civic from Austrailia that was useing 88-91 coil overs that showed up on here years ago.

One thing I picked up on recently is the 06 and up SI has a new front hub with the steering arm on it and it is mounted quite low. I'm almost sure it could be used on our cars and may very well give little to no bump steer. You would need to convert the rear to a 5 lug though. Some crazy ideas I know

well see this is very interestin to me. this is jus like the guys in Florida/ Purto Rico that are currently converting their front struts with full body coilovers like omni style. but like couple of the guys was sayin on their thread that the top hats would need to flex when turning cuz of no A-Arm. so yeah very interesthing. if its doable wit out mods ill do it but how?

so you will be doin this front end 06 si set up on ur car? wouldnt be so bad converting to 5 lug either since it opens a wider viriaty of wheels to pick from. and if u do, do this please let us know how it works out im sure others are interested

[SHOGUNOVDDRK]

Honda Jazz's have similar suspension systems/brake set ups

p.s Converting to 5 stud isn't such a bad thing

[zackspeed]

Yes I am thinking about it but first things first I have to get the damn car. My plan of attack is to use 06+ si front knuckles on the front with a good set of coil overs and Type R rear coil overs that we already know work. For the the 5 lug hubs on the rear it should be fairly strait forward seeing as the bearing's seem to be the same from 84-2000 but not 100% sure the brakes will line up but they might. Another thing that bothers me is all the newer Honda's are using 45 and 50 offset wheels which may pose an issue and you would have to run 16's or bigger as there is not allot of choices in 15's in 5x100.

Now one thing that just hit me as I am writing this is you may be able to keep the 4x100 by using the hubs from a EP3 as the US versions where still 4x100.

I may just buy some Omni's for a Type R and try them and see what happens and I don't see any issue with the top needing to move. Its so minimal that cant see it being a real issue. Finding camber plates that will work could be though.

On your strut issue if you cant find Tokico why not look for some KYB AGX or did they stop making them to?

[DEIVIONCRX]

I dont think they ever made the AGX for our cars.

If you search back theres a thread populated by me, firstgencrx, zackats and sturdle, that goes through the idea and process of making a Universal Koni Machpherson Strut fit in our knuckles. We were only really looking at the "Race" ones but id be willing to bet they make a Red or Orange universal strut insert aswell.

[zackspeed]

Yea your rite they never maid the AGX. So apparently now there is no good option for struts. No Koni or Tokico so the only other real option is the Tein units , Tokico blues, and KYB GR2. If they are even still available. What now??? The 06+ option is looking better and better but trying to get the company's to sell you just the fronts could be an issue and I am not real sure it will work because it may push the front track out some but wont know this till I have a set to play with.

On the coil overs the only difference I can turn up on any of them is the DC5 setup has a 2mm bigger shaft and piston. Which would make sense since the latter cars are so much heavier then the 90's civic and crx. With a 28mm shaft I would think it could handle the abuse and the 48mm piston will be more then adequate for such a light car. Cross your fingers and hope I sell my Corolla this week.

[TribalHatch]

Yea your rite they never maid the AGX. So apparently now there is no good option for struts. No Koni or Tokico so the only other real option is the Tein units , Tokico blues, and KYB GR2. If they are even still available. What now??? The 06+ option is looking better and better but trying to get the company's to sell you just the fronts could be an issue and I am not real sure it will work because it may push the front track out some but wont know this till I have a set to play with.

On the coil overs the only difference I can turn up on any of them is the DC5 setup has a 2mm bigger shaft and piston. Which would make sense since the latter cars are so much heavier then the 90's civic and crx. With a 28mm shaft I would think it could handle the abuse and the 48mm piston will be more then adequate for such a light car. Cross your fingers and hope I sell my Corolla this week.

yeah at one point i was bout to buyt the Teins from Mr.D but family funds took a dump so i had to use that money again. this is my main reason why im lookin for cheaper alternatives.

[zackspeed]

Yea I am not a real fan of Tein and really feel they are over priced for what you are getting. In doing more research I found that the Omni Power coil overs are now no longer available and it looks as if Blox has the rite to make them now. also have been looking at Function & Form as they have some nice looking coil overs and I think I read they are using steel cups on the bottom instead of aluminum. Also looked at K Sport and apparently they where offering contingency money for Honda Challenge this year.

One thing to note is that the 06+ setups are so similar to our cars its kinda funny. Now the rears will work perfect but the latter car has an external spring but don't see why you could not make it a coil over since the body is threaded most the way up but you may need a shorter spring then normal. One other thing to note is the fronts would allow you to adjust camber while still keeping the strut in a more upright manner.

Now spring rates are another issue. With most of the coil overs out there being 10k-8k or 12k-10k it would produce a real stiff setup for how light the car is. 8k-6k would be optimum for a very sporty but livable ride in a daily driven car. My friends EK has the 12k-10k setup and they are very tolerable but on a car that is 200 or more pounds lighter I could see how it would get old since it would be race car stiff.

[DEIVIONCRX]

Stay away from any of the chinese crap, Ksport, Function Form, D2 ect. They are all made at the same factory and are known to last little more than a year.

The Teins are a good little setup but like zackspeed said, they are IMO overpriced for the suspension you are getting. And not just the Medievile, any Teins for any car.

[zackspeed]

You know I don't think I would rule out K Sport since they seem to be so committed to the market and racing. Most of the bad story's where from 4 and 5 years ago and K Sport and D2 have made huge leaps from that time. Also most of the story's out there are complaining about noise and clanking but it seems to me people are not setting the pre load rite. If you set proper pre load it would have no way of moving or making noise. There was alot of the same things being said about Omni Power when they first came out. On my friends EK we went through 2 sets of Tokico's and a set of AGX in 3 years with GC sleeves. None of which lasted more then a year before they would start leaking. Now the omni's have been on for 3 years and still feel as good as day one with no issues, no leaks, and no noise with some where near 60k miles on them and the performance far exceeds any of them including the Koni yellows.

I'm kinda leaning towards talking with K Sport since they did offer up a bunch of contingency money for Honda Challenge and they have been keeping their site up to date more then most.

[DEIVIONCRX]

Ive had 3 personal friends with D2 and Ksports, they all started leaking within a year.

They swear that theyve changed shit in the last few years, but i wouldnt trust them still.

The problem with the omni's is they like to sheer off at the strut fork on the 88+ cars.

Personaly i wouldnt ever bother with anything other than a steel bodied strut and a spring/coilover, untill you get to some penski's or something where your spending $1000 per corner or more.

[glorious 87]

i hope this gibber jabber about k sports is infact false as of now. because about 8 months ago i got a brand new set for my wagovan (ef). people kept telling me how shitty and bouncy they were. they arent. they work great. the adjustable dampening still works great and im sure 60 percent of the trash talkers of k sport are just jumping on the bandwagon. to the op, i had thought about trying en ef strut and cutting off the perch, just to get them shorter so i could get some travel again. but after reading through this i see that they would be too weak. but come on, there has to be SOME car out there somewhere with MFS that would have similar shocks.

ALSO, i dont kno what you guys are talking about with the whole convert to strut thing. if you take out that t bar and run just a strut, what keeps the LCA steady? that wouldnt work withought some major mods.... imo