is there going to be a worrysome amount of extra strain put on my shocks if i put 1.5in lowering springs on my car (93 civic)? my buddy has a mustang and he broke a ball joint about a year after he lowered his on the stock shocks and i def don’t want that happening.
and another thing, if it’s 1.5in drop will i need a camber kit to get it into alignment
You might need a camber kit, not sure on that one. I do know that your stock shocks are going to be hurting tho…
I agree. I want to say that hondas have more adjustment built in so aligning might not be so bad and you might not need camber plates but depending on how worn your stock struts are now, you probably won’t get more than a couple thousand miles out of them without it being really harsh and hitting bumpstops on sharp bumps, or really “ocean liner” like on rollers.
My experience, do it right the first time. Save up for some koni yellow single adjustables (or whatever is hot for civics) and toss everything in at the same time. You are only delaying the inevitable by running stock on a short spring.
I’ll just throw this out there too, while you have everything apart, it might be a good time to toss in some new bushings or ball-joints, tie-rod ends, anything else that is worn. Again, this is depending on the age of the suspension components.
I’d def get new shocks. If your stock ones aren’t worn out already they definately will be if you lower it. You can probably get away without camber correction, just get an alignment and get the toe zeroed out…thats what really eats tires.
so does camber though and i just spend 460 on g force kdw’s that i’m not destroying
Youll spend $460 dollars on tires but you wont buy new shocks for your car? And yes lowering your car will cause camber issues and eat the tires. Dont be cheap
i have lowering springs that i got for free, i was just wondering if my car could be lowered and aligned without buying all new shocks/camber kit/ ball joints/ etc.
Your toe adjustment will have a far greater effect on your tires than camber. ON your Civic, static camber will increase as you go down, but toe will go out. Toe causes “scrubbing” or “strafing” of the tread blocks which leads to drastically reduced tire life. Technically negative camper is essential for maximal tire grip, but only negative enough to make the best use of the slip angle of the tires you are on. For mileage concerns on expensive tires, setting toe will be KEY.
1.5" will net you roughly -1 degree of static camber, which is pretty low (I run -2.2 degree for reference). If you set your front to to zero with one negative degree of camber your tires will do just fine. Same with the rear, you’ll gain almost -2 degrees, which can be eliminated by two 1mm washers placed behind the upper compensator arm. The washer trick will bring you back to less than a quarter of a degree static camber, and the toe will need adjusted to somewhere in the neighborhood of 1/16 of a an inch toe OUT, for rotational purposes and compressional allowance.
As for springs on stock shocks, regardless of rate it’s not a question of WILL the blow, it WHEN they’re gonna shit the bed. The springs you have are guarranteed to have a higher RATE than your stockers which does two things; creates an underdampening situation which wears out the shocks super fast, reduces total travel, (full droop to bumpstop compression). Basically you’ll have a poor handling, unresponsive, on-the=verge of blowing suspension. If you don’t know the spring rates that you are about to use, IMO don’t use them…wait until you can put something on correctly that you can trust.
Maybe if you drive in a straight line all the time. I run ~neg 2 degrees on the M3 and -1ish on my accord. They might show some excess inside wear after maybe 20k miles…
I wasn’t sure if you could do the washer trick on the rear control arm like I did on my Accord, but if it makes you feel better you can zero out camber in the rear and swap tires front to back to reduce the wear…but I really don’t think -1 to -2 camber will give you problems if your toe is zeroed out.
wow. i just learned a lot right there.
Everything he said.
Also, chances are your shocks are blown or damn near it anyways on a 93 civic.
KYB GR2, Koni Yellow, whichever…take your pick.
But get some new ones that are right for that drop!
Camber does not eat tires, Camber + out of wack toe + out of wack caster = eaten tires.
Get it alligned right after you get it lowered and it will be fine. Ive been running 1deg of neg camber on my car for almost 2 years.
I run stock shocks they are fine.
1.63 60’
i no my old roomate threw lowering shocks on his 5th gen civic and it rode horrrribleee… we would go over that one bridge that connects to northshore going inbound on route 65, and both are heads would hit the roof on them bumps… easliy clearing air… he later put a decent set of shocks on it and it was like night and day… oh to add… his stock shocks blew out in less then 2 months…