Coilover
Installation Cont...
8:00 A.M. rolled around and I jumped out
of bed, threw on some grubbies, and got rolling. I jacked up
the car, took off the tire, and began trying to remove the
shock-to-lower arm bolt...and there, in that state, the car sat
for over 2 hours without progress. That bolt was on there
good and it was not coming off no matter how long a cheater bar I
had on it. I was jumping up and down on a two-foot long pipe
sticking out of my socket wrench hooked onto that bolt and it
wasn't budging. So I tried the lower arm-to-trailing arm
bolt that also needs to be removed and it wasn't moving
either. I knew I wouldn't succeed with my archaic tools, I
needed an impact wrench, I needed air.
| So I jumped into my new "hot
rod" (front end scraping, rear end wide to receive) and drove
to any auto shop that might offer me some assistance in my time of
need. I hit 4 shops and none would do it. One guy said
he |
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| didn't have time, the other guy said he'd do it for 20 bucks
(yeah right), another guy said he didn't want to risk it in case
he broke the bolt off. Well persistence pays off, and it
helps to have like a million auto shops in town. Finally
some guy at a Midas said he'd do it. We put the car on a
lift and he started cranking away at it with his impact wrench and
would you believe the thing didn't move for like 5 minutes?
He about gave up when finally, by some miracle, it broke
lose. One down four to go. That second bolt, the lower
arm-to-trailing arm didn't come off, in fact it never came
off. So instead of removing it, we decided to just take off
the lower arm-to-boy pivot bolt instead. That way I could
still drop the lower arm down to get the strut out. So both
those bolts came lose just fine with the impact. Then he tightened
them all back up a little bit, he lowered my car off the lift, and
said Have a nice day! I thanked him generously and drove on
home. I still think to myself to this day, What a nice Midas
guy . |
Back home 25 minutes after pulling in my
driveway I had that strut sitting in my hands. It was now
nearly noon. So everything else went pretty much as
expected. I got both new coilovers on and cranked down to
height and by 3:00 P.M. on Saturday. I was finally ready to
go for my first test drive. This was it. This is where
it would either totally suck or it would totally rock. The
anticipation was killing me. I forced myself to clean up a
bit and change clothes at least so I didn't ruin the interior of
my car as well.
I backed slowly off the driveway, hoping
that my brand new OEM Honda front chin spoiler wouldn't
scrape. But it did, just barely. I sped up down the
street and didn't notice any immediate change right off, just
going straight. I did notice much less rock between
gears. When I shift from 1st to 2nd, the car doesn't rock
forward and back hardly at all anymore. It stays parallel to
the road. So I hit my first corner at about 35 mph just down
the street, dropped it to 2nd, and gunned it around the 90 degree
turn. Holy crap, oh my gosh, holy frick, noooooooo
waaaaaaaaaaay, bernanernanuh and other words were expressed.
Dude, words can't describe what it feels like to have your car
ride on rails. The car didn't quiver. The car didn't
bounce. The car didn't hop. The car didn't
slide. The car didn't even tilt. I hit that corner and
flew around it completely horizontal. That's when I knew...I
was going to love my new ride.
Let me just say, that if you've got stock
springs, get rid of them now. I've only scraped the tip of
the iceberg with these new coilovers as far as performance
goes. I still need some new rims, new low profile tires, and
new struts, not to mention a strut bar and lower tie rods.
There are a lot of things still to be done, but all in due
time. For now, I am loving my new ride. It looks
better, it handles better, it drives better. I definitely
can feel the road when I drive now. Bumps and humps and
hills and whatever are much more apparent in my drive but I wouldn't
have it any other way. And yes this car is my daily
driver. I put almost 80 miles on it a day just driving to
and from work. Now that drive is going to be about 10 times
more fun than it used to be.
So I hope that covered enough information
for you. I didn't take any pictures of the
installation process. My car looks like most of the rest,
just look at theirs. I'll have pics of my car with the new
drop as soon as I get that roll of film in my camera
developed. Until then, stop by these sites for more
information on dropping your car!
Useful How-to Drop Links
http://www.jdmfan.com/technical/suspension/maxspeed_coilovers/
http://www.jdmfan.com/technical/suspension/eibach_springs/
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