I can has suspensions

Matt D. · 08-17-2008

Just like Scheides did recently, I suffered from holes in my engine bay today.

But luckily I had these on hand!

Might as well do the rear swaybar while we're at it.

Had the JDM slam going on at first... Ooops.

But we got it figured out, 1.25" drop in the front, 1" in the rear. Sitting next to Kracka's car.

Thanks to Scheides for use of his garage and tools, thanks to Kracka for helping turn wrenches, and for keeping me cool when one bolt was about to make me cry.

Last but not least, thanks to Anna for letting me occupy her husband for the afternoon.

**scheides** · 08-17-2008

Suspensions make me cry but the end result is always worth it! Nice day to be turning wrenches (or grunting and *trying* to turn them until our hands bled).

The scene:

Impact wrench:

insert ksport here:

3 dropped evos....its a beautiful thing!

I must say, they are a bit stiff, but dang the car handles awesome! The ride is not a kidney killer by any means, definitly liveable on a DD with the intent of a weekend warrior! Now let's see that thing tear it up mattD!

FattyBoomBatty · 08-17-2008

Should have left it low in the front like at first. That's hotter than a hot tamale.

blageo23 · 08-17-2008

Looks good! I like the pic of the 3 evos.

brando · 08-18-2008

why was it so low at first?

**scheides** · 08-18-2008

With these coilovers, we had no way of knowing how they were set out of the box. In fact, they were not set *at all* out of the box, but merely basically assembled, not tightened or pre-set in any way.

We made a guess as to where they would be, and were way wrong. The car was so low, we could hardly get jacks back under the car to lift it back up!

Too low :P

**Kracka** · 08-18-2008

Nice setup, glad we got it installed!

polishmafia · 08-18-2008

You had me at "I can has" LOL

Looks really good. That pic without setting the coilovers makes your car look like its on bags!

Matt D. · 08-18-2008

These are the Ksport Kontrol Pro coilovers. Some basic car-specific installation instructions for the coilovers would have been nice, the 4 pages of paper that obviously came from a copy machine instead of a printer did nothing but say what would void the warranty, what each part of the unit does and how to adjust it all.

Overall the parts are good quality and I'm happy with the purchase, seems that you get a lot of bang for your buck considering there are coilover systems out there that cost $2000-5000 and these were under $1000.

The swaybar is Whiteline's 24mm adjustable. I put it on the middle setting for now so I do have some adjustment either way depending on how the car feels. Swaybars make more of a difference in longer corners where there is sustained load so I may have to put it to the next highest setting to get what I want out of it for autocross. Installing the swaybar seemed like it was going good until it came to remounting it. This unit reuses the stock brackets and replaces the bushings with harder ones. The way the stock brackets work is just fine, but the aftermarket bushings just mess that all up. If you do get this swaybar I suggest looking into a different mounting bracket as well.

The car was extremely planted this morning going around the cloverleaf from 694 west to 35W south. The shocks are set to 24 out of 36 stiffness settings (36 being the stiffest), the springs were hand tightened for preload just so there was no slack in them.

I have a Whiteline 26mm front swaybar as well but I may not end up installing it after feeling how it is already. There are two autocrosses this coming weekend, a short tight course at Midway Stadium and then a rather wide open course at DCTC with Corvettes of Minnesota, so that will definitely give me a good read across the board.

Big thanks to Chris at Modern Automotive Performance for getting me these parts in good time and at a great price!

A//// Guy · 08-18-2008

Looks good! Id say drop it a little bit lower, especially in the front.

**Kracka** · 08-18-2008

Matt, I was wrong yesterday, they are actually 36-way adjustable so they are set at 24 right now.

Matt D. · 08-18-2008

Quote:

Originally Posted by M/// Guy

Looks good! Id say drop it a little bit lower, especially in the front.

I have no intention to run 18s in the foreseeable future, and dropping it much lower will begin to mess with the suspension geometry. Function is greater than form.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kracka

Matt, I was wrong yesterday, they are actually 36-way adjustable so they are set at 24 right now.

Both of us fail at reading.

Andres06SE · 08-18-2008

Quote:

Originally Posted by Matt D.

Installing the swaybar seemed like it was going good until it came to remounting it. This unit reuses the stock brackets and replaces the bushings with harder ones. The way the stock brackets work is just fine, but the aftermarket bushings just mess that all up. If you do get this swaybar I suggest looking into a different mounting bracket as well.

So what did you end up doing? using the stock bushings?.Looks great

Andres

Matt D. · 08-18-2008

Quote:

Originally Posted by Andres06SE

So what did you end up doing? using the stock bushings?.Looks great

Andres

We got it to work after a bunch of swearing and tweaking things, but definitely not the way I wish it would have went.

Now that I think more about it the bushing supplied with the swaybar is simply a little too big. I think if we shaved a little off to make it fit better it would have went together smoothly.

**scheides** · 08-18-2008

Ya you'd almost need to take off 1/8" at a time from that bushing, but still the other side we got in just fine, so who knows. These whiteline bars seem to perform well once installed, but damn they have been a b*tch every time.

Someone order a progress bar for their evo and lets install it, I wanna see if mine was just dumb luck or if they actually go in easier.

MattD, I TOLD you to put the sway on full stiff right away