Finally...

So...I'm finally venturing into the lowered car world. Puzzlemaster(Evan) was gracious enough to allow me to be the first buyer of his Tein SS coilovers.


In short, I'd like to know thoughts and opinions on what old components I should replace while I'm doing this. I've already got new shock bolts/nuts, the pinch bolts for the front forks, and new Moog sway bar links for the rear.


Should I replace the front sway bar links while I'm at it?


Only reason I'm replacing the rears is because they're seized and I'm going to have to cut them off to remove the strut.


Not messing with tie rods or anything like that as everything else looks to be in pretty good shape. Alignment will be done but probably wont be too far off.


Luckily, I have the GF's car as a back-up because my DD has become my temporary project, lol. We got the LF corner swapped but broke the pinch bolt in the process; RF swapped over easy. As we moved to the rears we got the top and bottom shock bolts loose but couldn't get the strut assembly off the car. Mind you we weren't using spring compressors but a buddy of mine seems to think that'd do the trick and would save me from having to cut off the old links. While he may be right, as rusted and seized as stuff has been, I think its a good idea to replace them nonetheless. So as she sits, the front is lowered and the rear is still stock height. Sadly, its a barely noticeable difference, lol.


So, any other thoughts or opinions on what I should replace or watch out for would be appreciated. I don't think I'm forgetting anything but I might, lol.

I would do the moog endlinks up front as well considering you have it up in the air, the oem ones are junk and I like the how the moogs are beefy and greaseable. I was upset when I lowred my rears and not my front (due to the rain) it didn't look like it did much you gotta drive the car to settle the springs then u will notice more but once you put in your rears it you will be happy. I'm running the same setup and I love it. If I remember correctly the front collars are removed on those already correct? And the rears are down to the max. Once you get it all in and go for a ride it will all settle nicely. Pop up some pics when your done I wanna see how yours sits. I don't have my rears in yet due to my rear wheel offset I still gotta roll my fenders.

Do yourself a solid and buy a 4-5ft steel pipe (got mine from Home Depot), makes it drastically easier to leverage the suspension down and remove the shock/spring assembly. Just put one end under the frame, and the other end under your ass. Also, clean all the hardware and apply some anti-seize to them all when reassembling, makes future suspension work much less of a headache.

Moogs are just okay imo, they're better than OEM but I've stripped several of the nuts (wtf are they not beefier) when changing rear sway bars. So if you plan to swap sway bars or anything, I'd do that now while you have it all apart.

So is the height barely noticeable from stock because you haven't adjusted it yet, or is that as low as you want to go lol?

604ACCORD said:

I would do the moog endlinks up front as well considering you have it up in the air, the oem ones are junk and I like the how the moogs are beefy and greaseable. I was upset when I lowred my rears and not my front (due to the rain) it didn't look like it did much you gotta drive the car to settle the springs then u will notice more but once you put in your rears it you will be happy. I'm running the same setup and I love it. If I remember correctly the front collars are removed on those already correct? And the rears are down to the max. Once you get it all in and go for a ride it will all settle nicely. Pop up some pics when your done I wanna see how yours sits. I don't have my rears in yet due to my rear wheel offset I still gotta roll my fenders.

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I'll look into replacing the fronts. I got the coil overs in but I'm gonna go back and replace the hardware so I might as well do the front links.
Rears were all the way down, as were the fronts. Evan was at the height I wanted so I asked him to keep the same specs on them. I'm sure I'll tweak them over time but probably not much.

RedRyder said:

Do yourself a solid and buy a 4-5ft steel pipe (got mine from Home Depot), makes it drastically easier to leverage the suspension down and remove the shock/spring assembly. Just put one end under the frame, and the other end under your ass. Also, clean all the hardware and apply some anti-seize to them all when reassembling, makes future suspension work much less of a headache.

Moogs are just okay imo, they're better than OEM but I've stripped several of the nuts (wtf are they not beefier) when changing rear sway bars. So if you plan to swap sway bars or anything, I'd do that now while you have it all apart.

So is the height barely noticeable from stock because you haven't adjusted it yet, or is that as low as you want to go lol?

Click to expand...

Pictures will be posted when it's completed. I work in a semi truck shop so giant steel bars are aplenty. We even had air tools and everything and it gave us hell. I'd like to finish it this weekend but it's been hot as hell so that pushes us to work at night which isn't as easy/fun. I don't remember how or where Evan ran them. I don't believe he ran on them all the way down but I could be wrong. He said the fronts were all the way down and I'm at a 1-1.5 finger gap. The rear is still a 2.5-3 finger gap. It's not like hot rod noticeable but if you know what you're looking at you can see it, lol. It has a slight rake, lol.

I'm trying to brush up on utilizing the collars and how to raise/lower correctly and whatnot. It's not my first car but it's the first time I've owned a pair of coil overs so I don't wanna mess anything up, lol.

Ah ok, 1-1.5 finger gap is a noticeable drop then. Cool, lookin forward to pics.

I think Richard had some good info on these coilovers. I'm sure the owners manual must be online somewhere.

For some reason I thought they were, or was expecting them to be, 3-collar but they're only 2. The loose spring makes me uneasy so once I get them on the car I'll measure and make adjustments as needed.

Mine sit loose to I actually had to hold the spring upright as I lowered the car to get them to seat properly. I think I remember him telling me he had the front collars out. I did the same to mine took fronts out and put the rears all the way down.