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This weekend was spent doing the best work I've completed on my car yet. New H&R coilovers.
It was a real pain sometimes, and being the first time I did anything like this, I made some errors and had to figure out some issues. But it was all worth it. I also redid all the brakes, new brembo blanks and new pads all around. The fronts had warped rotors (measured) and the rears were quite worn. The inner rear pads were worn very strangely, worn down on the inside edge, way less toward the outside edge. Fixed the stuck driver rear caliper, it only needed some lube and some gentle vibration with the 'ol hammer. The alignment "dots" on the back of pads were worn clean off, so that was also weird. Anyway, they work great now, and I'm bleeding the old fluid out later this week.
Back to the suspension. The front was simple, progress was steady on those two corners. The rears were a big pain. Kept taking more bolts out to get the arm to droop enough to pull the suspension assembly out from the car. Checked out the big trailing arm bushing, yikes. Mine are pretty cracked up. I'd guess it didn't help flexing the bushing big time when pulling the arm down to get the stock shock assembly out. :shock:
The top mount bushings looked great, though way up high and hidden by a washer, they probably don't see much of the elements. Most of the other suspension bushings didn't look too bad, I looked for cracks or tears and did not see many. Definitely want to change those trailing arm bushings this year though. Anyone know where to get them, I looked on hondapartsdeals.com and see the reference for the whole arm, but not the bushing by itself. :?:
My lazy pace plus the fact my helper was working on his Jeep for most of the later part of the day clocked the job at 21 hours. :shock: Yeah, I'm not winning any speed awards. It didn't help when I somehow jammed the bolts for the driver's rear upper arm in their holes. Damage! This caused me to have to back them out and tap the threads in the body of the car, which took half of forever to do. Not exactly an easy spot to get to with all the suspension there. On the other side I took the upper arm out so I could position it better, this ensured I could thread the bolts in all the way by hand, no more sheared threads!
Total time on the upper arm on the passenger side: 5 minutes.
Total time on the driver's side upper arm: probably more than two hours.
Learning you're a dumbass fool all over again: priceless!
Most of Saturday was spent swaping components on the car. Sunday was setting the ride height, evening out the drop, and doing the brakes. Oh yeah, and road testing the car and loooooving it.
The car handles so much better, and I love how tight the rebound is versus the stock ancient shocks. It is a tad harsher, but I of course expected that with the higher rear spring rate. Although H&R coilover rates are somewhat of a mystery, I believe the fronts are equal to stock at 250 lb/in, and the rears go up one hundred to 250 lb/in as well. (Springs were marked "250-60" for fronts and "250-40" for rear, still don't know what the 60 and 40 mean, I know it's not a part number.) The car has less wander on the road, less lean in turns, and feels more connected to the road. I would describe my previous stock suspension feeling like "floating" across the road surface, while still feeling the bumps (and accompanying squeaks). These new coilovers have planted the car on the ground and the jarring from bumps is just a tad more punishing. And no squeaks. The bounce over a concrete bridge near my place is more pronounced than stock, but I'm not popping out of my seat at all, it handles the uneven concrete surface decent.
Long story short I'm very pleased so far and learned a ton about my car's inner workings. I dropped the car 1.75" in the front and 2.75" in the rear. This equates to a one finger gap tire to fender lip. I can also chirp the tire in second gear without the horrible driveline noise from before, probably due to the front lifting less now that the rear springs are controlling the squat of the car on hard acceleration. I'm pumped to do more mods in the future. Here's a couple pictures:
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So what do you guys/girls think? (try not to rip me too hard for taking all weekend to do this)
It was a real pain sometimes, and being the first time I did anything like this, I made some errors and had to figure out some issues. But it was all worth it. I also redid all the brakes, new brembo blanks and new pads all around. The fronts had warped rotors (measured) and the rears were quite worn. The inner rear pads were worn very strangely, worn down on the inside edge, way less toward the outside edge. Fixed the stuck driver rear caliper, it only needed some lube and some gentle vibration with the 'ol hammer. The alignment "dots" on the back of pads were worn clean off, so that was also weird. Anyway, they work great now, and I'm bleeding the old fluid out later this week.
Back to the suspension. The front was simple, progress was steady on those two corners. The rears were a big pain. Kept taking more bolts out to get the arm to droop enough to pull the suspension assembly out from the car. Checked out the big trailing arm bushing, yikes. Mine are pretty cracked up. I'd guess it didn't help flexing the bushing big time when pulling the arm down to get the stock shock assembly out. :shock:
The top mount bushings looked great, though way up high and hidden by a washer, they probably don't see much of the elements. Most of the other suspension bushings didn't look too bad, I looked for cracks or tears and did not see many. Definitely want to change those trailing arm bushings this year though. Anyone know where to get them, I looked on hondapartsdeals.com and see the reference for the whole arm, but not the bushing by itself. :?:
My lazy pace plus the fact my helper was working on his Jeep for most of the later part of the day clocked the job at 21 hours. :shock: Yeah, I'm not winning any speed awards. It didn't help when I somehow jammed the bolts for the driver's rear upper arm in their holes. Damage! This caused me to have to back them out and tap the threads in the body of the car, which took half of forever to do. Not exactly an easy spot to get to with all the suspension there. On the other side I took the upper arm out so I could position it better, this ensured I could thread the bolts in all the way by hand, no more sheared threads!
Total time on the upper arm on the passenger side: 5 minutes.
Total time on the driver's side upper arm: probably more than two hours.
Learning you're a dumbass fool all over again: priceless!
Most of Saturday was spent swaping components on the car. Sunday was setting the ride height, evening out the drop, and doing the brakes. Oh yeah, and road testing the car and loooooving it.
The car handles so much better, and I love how tight the rebound is versus the stock ancient shocks. It is a tad harsher, but I of course expected that with the higher rear spring rate. Although H&R coilover rates are somewhat of a mystery, I believe the fronts are equal to stock at 250 lb/in, and the rears go up one hundred to 250 lb/in as well. (Springs were marked "250-60" for fronts and "250-40" for rear, still don't know what the 60 and 40 mean, I know it's not a part number.) The car has less wander on the road, less lean in turns, and feels more connected to the road. I would describe my previous stock suspension feeling like "floating" across the road surface, while still feeling the bumps (and accompanying squeaks). These new coilovers have planted the car on the ground and the jarring from bumps is just a tad more punishing. And no squeaks. The bounce over a concrete bridge near my place is more pronounced than stock, but I'm not popping out of my seat at all, it handles the uneven concrete surface decent.
Long story short I'm very pleased so far and learned a ton about my car's inner workings. I dropped the car 1.75" in the front and 2.75" in the rear. This equates to a one finger gap tire to fender lip. I can also chirp the tire in second gear without the horrible driveline noise from before, probably due to the front lifting less now that the rear springs are controlling the squat of the car on hard acceleration. I'm pumped to do more mods in the future. Here's a couple pictures:
So what do you guys/girls think? (try not to rip me too hard for taking all weekend to do this)
