Recommendations for new struts

[Peter Serwe]

I have to step in and completely agree here.  I wasted money on prokits
before I bought my ground control kit.  I'm going to get it properly
cornerweighted sometime after I install the progress swaybars I bought
too long ago for them to not be on the car already.

I cannot iterate enough how cool the ground control kit is on a set of AGX.
Most especially with pillow ball mounts on all 4 corners.

There are better suspension setups, but they cost a little more.

As well, I'd have to say you should really put the caster/camber plates in
at the same time as you install the coilovers.  They will greatly aid you in

getting your alignment decent at a non-stock ride height.  I'd say they were

worth every penny since I basically eyeballed the alignment, and it came out

decent on the caster/camber gauge, just had some minor adjustment to get
close enough to spec to be pretty happy - I still don't have enough caster,
but
I'll resolve that when I get my cornerweight/alignment.

The pillow ball mounts are quite nice, as well, since they remove the play
of the stock rubber strut mount, which means, you don't squeak, bounce,
or rattle, you just listen to your struts hissing :)

I'd also mention that I'm running 300/200 springs right now, and I'd have
to agree with Khiem that a little more in the rear would be nice.  You have
a
b14, right?  The ideal rates' a little different than a classic, b14's are
heavier.

I'm waiting to make sure, after I put a rear strut brace in, but it seems
so.

As well, resist the temptation to turn up your dampers, anything over 2 up
front makes it skittish handling wise, and I think that 4 in the back is too
high.
One of these days, I'll pop the hood, and turn the fronts down to 1, the
rears
to 2, and see if it stick better.  It sticks *pretty good* now, but I'm
certain it
could be better.  I drove for a few weeks on 4/8 F/R and in retrospect,
the car felt like sh--!

A somewhat wiser LM pointed out to me that he never felt the car
handled well at anything over 1-2 front, 3-4 rear, boy am I glad he
said something!  I thought the car felt great, and very tight, but it
skittered
quite badly, and was miserable to go over a 1/16" pebble on smooth pavement
in icy/snowy roads were miserable as well

Subtle hint:
If you can feel sand, like it's gravel, under the tires, either your
shocks/springs
are WAYY too stiff, or you replaced your coils with 2.5" OD 1.5" ID steel
pipe.

Definitely drop the 1200 bucks and get the gc/caster/camber plates/shigspeed

rear pillow ball mounts.  Then go blow at least 150 on a cornerweight/align.

I think you might really like some swaybars, if you want to further
tune your suspension, and stuff like adjustable parallel links, but then
your blowing another 500 bucks, and just giving yourself more ways to
throroughly f--- up your car's handling.  On the other hand, between
someone experienced in setting fwd cars, the fine, fine, fine, folks on this
list,
and your wallet ending up lighter by at least 2g's just in parts, now.
That's if you buy everything everybody's mentioned and don't install
any of it yourself, but you'll end up with a car that REALLY handles.

Man after that, there's brakes, cams, forced induction, but
out of all of them nothing affects the way the car feels to you
like the suspension, IMHO.

Have fun, good luck, waste money, all that fun stuff :)

> Well, the hot setup really seems to be Ground Control sleeves on AGX
> dampers.  The default shipping B14 kit, I think, is 300/200.  You can do
> lots of upgrades, like pillow ball mounts from SHigSpeed, camber plates,
> and more fun stuff.

> If enjoy the scent of money burning, just call
> Scott Higashi and say, "Hook me up, dog."  Um, shigspeed@yahoo.com, I
> think.  His stuff is top-knotch, though, all the way.  I don't think any
> of his suspension stuff will put you out of STS, which is a good class
> for street-driven SE-Rs (cams are illegal, though..).

--
Peter Serwe <peter@easytree.net>
Cheaper, Faster, Better, pick any two.
finger peter@easytree.net for public pgp key