I have been pooring over the forums for the past week and shopping for the past three for suspension for my 96 EX. I have a nice set of 17's and my suspension is shot. I need to replace the shocks and figured I might as well drop the car down a little and tighten up the suspension. This is a daily driver with no chance of making it to the track or autoxross.

I am looking for ride quality, and lower stance. Should I go with coilovers, or lowering springs? I am steering away from Skunk2 springsas they are going to be stiff and ride hard. I am looking at Dropzone for both the shock and coil or spring combo, or Tokico or KYB shocks with TeinS springs, or other options for springs or coilovers. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Has anyone tried the cheapy coilovers on ebay? I am a little overwhelmed at my options right now and don't want to buy something that is going to ride like a brick.

 

Welcome to the forums!

Anyway, I started typing up a really long thing about coilovers and springs, but then my short attention span got the best of me, so here's the revised version

Coilovers:

Pros
-adjustable
-you can slam the car (we're talking up to 4"+ drops)
-you can raise your car up for the winter and lower it in the summer
-The ability to actually choose how high/low your car sits is nice

Cons
-expensive (sort of)
-You should get an alignment every time you change the ride height
-Alignments could get expensive very quickly
-Rougher ride quality


Springs:

Pros
-Inexpensive
-Better ride quality than coilovers

Cons
-You can't change your ride height



Anyway, I'd generally steer clear of brands that use eBay as their prime marketing technique (*cough* dropzone *cough*). I'm not saying companies like Dropzone aren't decent, but when it comes to the devices that help support a 2500lb car, I'd like to be confident that nothing's going to catostrophically fail.

Anyway, a ton of people around here have Tein S-Techs, and are very pleased with them. Personally, I have Ground Control coilovers and love them. As far as shocks go, KYB, Tokico, and Koni are all absolutely great brands to go with.

And cheap ebay coilovers do the job, but I can't promise you'll be happy with the ride quality.

 

This just isn't true... you can't generalize like that. Some spring/shock setups will be better than some "full coilover" setups and vice versa.


I suggest reading through the stickies at the top of this forum, most of your questions will be answered there...

 

Even on the forums here a lot of people have said that the dropzone was the best bang for the buck. I am looking at the dropzone coilover setup as the cheapest route for suspension with shocks/coilovers for 300, but just over that would be dropzone shocks with teinS springs at just over 300 and for like 30 bucks more I can go for tokico shocks and teinS springs, and the KYB setup isn't that far off that price either.

So my question really is, TeinS with a spring rate of 235 front and 140 rear is that going to be my best ride quality?
Would the dropzone coilover setup be anything comparible to the TeinS spring setup for ride quality?

If you had a choice of KYB shock/springs, Tokico shock spring, or TeinS springs with dropzone shocks which way would you go?

Thanks for the help guys, and thank you for welcoming me to the HCF forum, I am new to Honda, been working on DSM for the past decade.

 

K guys I really need some help here, and I haven't got much back yet for response. I have made up my mind on Tein S springs, but can't figure out which shocks.

Tokico Illumina (is the adjustment really worth it?)
Tokico HP
Skunk2 Sport
KYB GR2 or AGX

I want to get my shocks and springs ordered so any input on what you guys think for an everyday driver shock. Thanks!

 

Tein S-techs and Tokico shocks/struts is a good combo and acamber kit if needed. procivic has a skunk2 one for pretty cheap.
http://www.procivic.com/pages-produc...440/index.html
http://www.procivic.com/pages-produc...617/index.html
and if needed : http://www.procivic.com/pages-produc...323/index.html
http://www.procivic.com/pages-produc...673/index.html

im not an expert on this stuff, but i did about a months worth of research befor i got my springs and im just going on what i learned and heard. of course other people will have there own opiin, like H&R springs are better and what not, it all depends on what you like. but do alot of searching and go to diffrent forums if you have to. Clubcivic is a good one too, and im sure if you search in here you will find plenty of forumes on what is the best combo and what people think is best from acually having them on the car. hope that helps a little.

 

Thanks for the input Vertech0!

Ok I have a urgent question. There has to be a differencebetween shocks for my year (96 EX). I was just looking over ebay and there is two sets of shocks/springs for sale for 96-00 but looking nothing alike:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Civic...QQcmdZViewItem
and:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/96-00...ayphotohosting

Does the larger fork at the basethat goes onto the LCA come off? Does it require any special tool, or just a lot of pounding and PB?

As soon as I get this answer I am going to order my springs and new shocks, along with the full energy suspension bushing kit. I am going to do a detailed DIY to be posted on here, so look for it in a week or two.

 

tell you the truth, i woudlent buy "used" shocks/struts/springs/coilovers..espcally over ebay, some people dont know what things go to and lie about things andsuch. i would go toa well known tuner site (procivic, vivracing) and get them there. ebay sells knock off tein s-techs, people here have go them and its just not worth riskingit. its good to make sure you know what you getting..espcally when it comes to suspension. i belive 96-00 are in the 6th gen catagory, thereforim pretty sure most of the parts will fit throught those years.

 

There is NO WAY that I would by either of those, I am just talking about how they look. One set has forks on all four shocks, and every setup that I have come across on ebay, or vendor sites all have a picture of two with forks, and the other two with out. I looked on my car, and all four have forks. Its ok though, I went out to the car, took off the front wheel and looked at the fork. Its just connected with a bolt around the shock and connected to the FLCA.

Thanks

 

Which larger fork? The big, thin, curved forks? Those are pieces of the front suspension (I'm not sure what they're called), and they aren't actually part of the shocks. The thicker, flat forks on the other two are where the rear shocks mount on the LCA. If you're talking about the big thin curved ones, there's a bolt on them that makes them sort of clamp onto the front shocks. Take the bolt off and you should be able to wiggle the forks off.