Dropped! My Weekend Project

[krousdb]

What a PITA! But I think it was worth it. Total drop, 1.75". No measureable change in camber or toe. Drives straight, coasts well, corners much much much better, ride much bouncier.

Oh well, you can't have everything.

Before:


After:



I have reduced my frontal area by 28 square inches! Thats gotta be worth a few MPG's!

Car wash, courtesy of Dawn dishwashing liquid. Waxed 6 weeks ago courtesy of McGuires.

Curent tank, 300+ miles, SuperMID says 50.9 MPG. Digital Fuel gauge says 53 MPG.

[Matt Timion]

wow, I had no idea that 1.75 inches would make such a noticable difference. Kinda makes me want to play along too and lower my ride.

[SVOboy]

Woot woot. How'd you measure the toe I wonder?

You can indeed have everything, but it'll cost like 400 bucks in suspension parts.

Also, take my some pictures of your IM/TB set up!

[MetroMPG]

nice! the bumpy ride... that's my holdback on dropping my car.

so... reduced frontal area, less airflow going underneath the car, decreased height:length ratio, and now you can corner faster to conserve even more momentum. good work.

if/when i do it, it will be with spring clamps or a coil-ectomy via sawzall.

[SVOboy]

Don't hack up your springs, they'll sag and do nasty stuff, y0.

[MetroMPG]

that's been debated to death on the teamswift site.

people are pretty evenly divided on new shorter springs vs. cut springs - a bunch of guys have cut off one coil (1 coil = about 1 inch) and say it works fine; no adverse effects (aside from worse ride, which you get with coilovers and shorter springs too).

everyone agrees that using a torch is not the way to do it though. a cutoff wheel/angle grinder is recommended.

[SVOboy]

Honda-tech is pretty unanimously against doing it, and there're lots of horror stories about it too, even without the torch,

[krousdb]

Originally Posted by SVOboy

Woot woot. How'd you measure the toe I wonder?

You can indeed have everything, but it'll cost like 400 bucks in suspension parts.

Also, take my some pictures of your IM/TB set up!

I before I started, I placed the end of a tape measure in the center groove of one tire and measured to the center groove of the other tire. I measured as high as I could on each tire and still have the tape go across, about 45 degrees up from the ground. 58 1/6 inches before and after the lowering. That is as good as I can measure with what I have at home. Also, the car still drives straight and coasts very well. If there was a toe problem, the car would wander and coasting would be affected due to the tires working against each other.

I just now measured camber by standing up a 2 ft level and holding the bottom against the outermost part of the tire at the bottom. Once level, I measured from the top outermost part of the tire to the level. The difference from top to bottom was about 5/8". The diamater at the widest part of the tire is 18". So Arctangent(.625/18)= 2 degrees. So my eyeball is off. :-)

I just took some pics of the IM/TB. Let me know if you need more detail

http://img385.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dcp59966eh.jpg

http://img454.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dcp59950at.jpg

http://img454.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dcp59941gd.jpg

http://img454.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dcp59933tq.jpg

http://img385.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dcp59966eh.jpg

[krousdb]

Originally Posted by MetroMPG

that's been debated to death on the teamswift site.

people are pretty evenly divided on new shorter springs vs. cut springs - a bunch of guys have cut off one coil (1 coil = about 1 inch) and say it works fine; no adverse effects (aside from worse ride, which you get with coilovers and shorter springs too).

everyone agrees that using a torch is not the way to do it though. a cutoff wheel/angle grinder is recommended.

I chose the shorter springs because I wanted the option to undo what I did in case I didn't like it. The coilover set was $40 shipped. Not as cheap as cutting but these are adjustable also. I saved the OEM springs in case I want to go back to the original, less bouncy ride.

[SVOboy]

Did you measure the difference between the front and the back of the tire?

Thanks for the pictures, checking them out now, a super close up of the fuel rail where the fuel line attachs would be good, mine sprayed massive amounts of gas upon startup.