TeamSwift

as promsied i will provide the info for my suspension, thats what a forums for. (forums are NOT for coming on here, asking questions, then when asked something reply, its a 'secret')

anyway, lets start with the struts, im sure you all are well versed with the whole 'oil' swap for the OEM struts, AKA Foni's. this might be a good idea if your gonna do the coilovers.

for the rear, take out your stock spring and strut. take your stock springs and thow it against the shop wall while cursing it. if you want to use the full adjustability of your new coilovers your gonna run into a problem when you lower it. strut travel. to solve this in the rear its pretty damn easy. take your rear struts and grind off the entire tab where the strut originally sat in the collar. now there is a tab that sticks out perpendicular to the strut itself, and a raised area on the strut, parallel, both have to go, so that the strut is smooth all the way down. now for the coilover kit, i got a kit that was meant for an accord, early 90's i think. Liam might know better, but i think pretty much any honda kit will work. now to create a place for the strut to sit your gonna need another tab, so weld on another one, i sure hope your marked where the original one was. i raised my tab 2 inches (the threaded bodies will sit on this tab) . which in turn will let it sit lower = more travel. now there is a bolt hole indent on the strut for the collar bolt to pass by, however i didnt make another indent, when i was installing the struts that bolt can simply be hammered though and threaded in, your choice. youll find that the threaded body wont fit over the top of the strut becasue of that washer thing at the top of the strut, take a hammer and knock it off. now you will need a spacer that will fit between the threaded body and strut. I got lucky with this and found some aluminum tubing stock that was bang on perfect. so slide on spacer, hammer on threaded body over top for a nice friction fit. make sure the spacer is short enough for the allen key screws on the threaded body to be screwded into the strut itself. and bore the upper spring perch to fit over the strut piston.
now for installing youll notice that theres a piece of metal thats kidna in the way, cut it out. and toss in your coilovers.
now you can set your car crazy low as you want and retain good strut travel. also extra room will be free'd up to pipe exhaust, becasue that spring is gone.



the front is a little different. take your front struts out, toss the springs. now take the grinder again and remove the entire spring perch and brake line holder thingy. make it all smooth, beautiful and perfect. do the same as rear; pound off top strut washer thing, slide on spacer, pound on threaded body (the threaded body and spacer will seat on the flaired section near the bottom of the strut)... the front upper spring perches should be bored out to match the OEM uppers, then you can pop you the stock upper spring perch bushing and toss it in your new ones.

now for the strut travel, in the front i found there to be no really easy way. and it is a problem if you want to go really low. so with the help of some friends, and my ''ya, that should work, ill do it.'' mindset, the idea of raising the upper strut towers came to be. simply finding some beefy 6 1/4 inch pipe with about 1/4 inch wall thinkness. take a small length of pipe, i did about 1.6 inches, and weld the pipe on the strut towers, make sure its as centered as u can be. and weld it damn good, then hack out the OEM strut mounting surface thats left inside the pipe. next you will need to make some replica strut mounting plates, u can use the ones you hacked out for a pattern if you were good. then weld on those, and your done, however i would stongly recomend getting some form of camber/caster adjustment plates, as this method is very prone to toss your alignment out the window. (WARNING, the right side will run into clearance issues with the wiper motor, i havnt fixed this yet, but i have rotated the motor 180 degrees and will rebolt it on, should work)

i cannot vouch for how this setup works performance-wise becasue i have not yet been able to test it. my car is still in the process of being built, feel free to follow the progress in my album, as i update the pictures every so often.

Please ask questions if anything is unclear, thats how we learn.


rear


front


front upper,


with bondo, usanded

_________________
-92 metro, too blue too gay, SOLD
-81 Toyota Corona winter beater, R.I.P.
-85 gsx-r R.I.P. (now in liams hands to revive)
-90 GT in a million pieces.....
-CBR600F2 frankenbike
-70 MBenz 280s pimpstress

g13b_destroyer, have you got to try out your coilover setup yet. I am interested to see how it worked out. I too want to try it on my car. Just not as extreme as that, i do not want to cut the towers out of it. I only want to drop the car about 1.5 inchs. I want the system more for the handling. I wanted to know how it worked, the springs for an accord would be pretty hefty for our little cars. But i can gladly put up with that, the kits for most hondas is a lot cheaper then others. I also wanted to know about the oil swap in the oem struts. Can you please elaborate on that. I tried to search on it but do not get anything back.

sorry but i have not yet had the suspension out for a test yet, due to me being way to busy and not having any spare time my project is still in the works. anyway, about the changing the oil thing, i actually didnt do it myself but its not that difficult. in the picture of the front suspension you can see a small screw in the strut, thats where the hole is. all you do is drill it, tap it, drain oil, measure it, replace it with the same amount of oil. i would reccomend welding the hole shut instead of using a plug, because they can leak a bit.

_________________
-92 metro, too blue too gay, SOLD
-81 Toyota Corona winter beater, R.I.P.
-85 gsx-r R.I.P. (now in liams hands to revive)
-90 GT in a million pieces.....
-CBR600F2 frankenbike
-70 MBenz 280s pimpstress

use motorcycle fork oil.

It is available in various 'weights' so you can set choose your own setup to some degree.

HTH

Julian

I have now installed coilovers on my swift after reading this post by G13B_Destroyer. I used Coilovers from a civic 88 - 95. The install wasn't all that hard and took approx. 5 hours. Since I didnt want to go super low with my car I did not do the strut travel mods that were described. In the rear I had to make spacers above the upper spring perch to get adequate travel out of the coilover's threded body (I'm using hockey pucks temporarily). The ride isnt to bad (for coilovers, it does tend to bounce a little in the front) it goes around corners like a dream and I think it has taken some time off my 1/4 mile. Once I find out how to stop the front end bouncing I will post it here.

I have now discovered why the front end bounces alot when hitting bumps, it turns out I had the car too low as the front struts were bottomed out. I have raised the car about an inch and a half and it now seems to drive fine.

Another note: When lowering, some exhaust work will have to be done so it clears the rear suspension as mine currently rests on the lower tie rod.

how does this affect shock life? and which kit is best to use?

also i've hear some good spring rates for street and track is 400 front and 600 back, but when i see the honda coilovers its like 400 front and 350 back, whats the deal?

if someone were to make me some of these coilovers, as I do not have a welder nor the skill to perform this safely, how much would this run me? Would someone make a set and sell them?

Hello all