I have a 94 Civic EX (new to Honda BTW) and have 17's and the car is lowered. I bought the car lowered but the ride is harsh but I think they used the stock shocks which are bad now, go figure. I have no idea who makes the springs and I have about 1- 1 1/2 finger gap between tire and wheel well. I have no idea how much of a drop the car has. But I am trying to get folks to post pics of the lowered and non lowered cars so I can see what looks the best.

So please post pics of you car lowered and not lowered.

thanks.

 

Lowered on Koni Str.t's and Tein S-techs with a little less than 2 finger gap. wheels are 14''.

before:

after:

 

Stock height on 17s:


Dropped on KYB AGX and Ground Controls, about 3" drop:
Little rubbage on these wheels

 

^^^ Take that fender liner completely out and roll the front fenders by hand (I mean literally by hand. It takes nothing to bend the inner fender lip up in the front) and you'll be in business.


Stock height with 14's:




Stock height with 17's:






Ground Control coilovers and KYB AGX struts (between 3" and 3.5" in front and 3.5" and 4" in back):















*edit: Crap. Now I want to get another civic so I can dump it again.


*edit 2: Scott, just noticed the setup you're running. Have you run into any leaking struts yet? I replaced two within a year and a third was starting to leak when I sold the car.

 

Nice rides. Are your rides rough also when driving? Also do you have droning in the car. What I mean is annoy noise like on highways, etc? How do you roll the fenders?

 

yes the ride quality decreases the lower your car goes, expect to scrape on some stuff and a little rubbing in your fenders, even if you roll it. not a big deal as long as you know they won't catch on anything.

to diy role the fenders, you will need a heat gun, a bar, jack stands and a jack... obviousely... with the car on jack stands up jack the wheels up, put the bar in between the wheels and the fenders, tilt the bar towards the ground. jack the wheels up a little more so the bar is barely applying pressure to the fenders. apply heat to the edges of your fender to soften the metal a little, not too much though or you will ruin the pain. roll the bar along the wheel and inside of the fender as to gently massage the metal to tuck up along the inside of the fender. repeat as necessary and move onto the next wheel. I'm sure this has been touched on before elsewhere.

However, this is going to take a while to set the ride height, unless your going with lowering springs, to make sure everything fits. the wheels im going with are going to have a lower offset and a little wider so mine is going to take longer to get to fit. but shouldn't be too drastic. your wheels make a big difference with fitment.

 

I'd like to add to the rolling fenders thing... the front fenders can quite literally be rolled by hand (or at least I did it with no problems on my EJ1). All you have to do is grab the fender lip in one spot with both hands (side by side) with your fingers resting on the part of the lip that's parallel to the ground (the part you're going to bend up) and make a fist. The fenders are thin enough metal that it takes very little effort to bend them.

Now with the car I posted earlier, the front wheels only rubbed around extremely tight (steering wheel full lock) slow turns when I hit a bump. That's the only time any of the tires rubbed, and even then they rubbed on the frame rail, not the fenders. That being said, my wheels had an extremely high offset (+45mm) and I had -3.0° of camber at all four corners to help the tires tuck, not to mention the rolled front fenders and nonexistent fender liners. And yes, ride quality decreased, but it actually had a lot to do with the 205/40-17 tires I had. When I got ready to sell the car, I kept it slammed and put the stock steelies back on it... I'd say ride quality was about 50% as comfortable as stock when the 17's were on it, and about 75-80% as comfortable as stock when the 14" steelies were back on the car.

 

Any one you guys have the droning sound issue since you lowered your cars?

 

Run your hand along the edges of the tread (both inside and outside edges) both directions. It's going to feel smoother one direction than it does the other. It's called "feathering", and is a result of the previous owner of your car not having a toe alignment done after lowering the car. Buy a new set of tires and have the car properly aligned (at least the toe adjustment) and you won't have problems with the droning noise you're hearing again (at least until one of your wheel bearings starts to go out... it makes a very similar noise). On that note, if the tires feel about the same in both directions (all four of 'em) the noise you're hearing is probably a bad wheel bearing.

 

^ I haven't had any problems with my shocks. For as low as my car is I'm suprised, and they take a beating from our roads, cold and snowy winters and hot summers do a wonder for cracks in the roads. Hopefully they'll last with autoxing next season and not cause them to start leakin.