Suspension Upgrade

Sinub

Sinub

Well-Known Member
304
83
Southern California
Vehicle Model
Civic Si
Body Style
Coupe
Ok so I'm currently concentrating on upgrading my whole suspension and I want to track my car and make it oversteer or reduce under steer as much as possible, so far I have my rear sway bar installed and I have a front sway bar but not installed yet and I'm debating whether or not to install it because I've done a little bit of research and seems like I shouldn't due to it eliminating the purpose to the rear sway bar and inducing under steer all over again. I know these is stupid lol but the installation paper did say the soft setting on the sway bar(I ordered the eibach set) will reduce under steer and if it does I do want to install it.

The other thing I wanted to to was SPRINGS and was looking into eibach sportlines though people have said that they have called eibach and they have not actually released them though some vendors are already selling it sooo ????

Lastly TIRES, I can't seem to find a good review on any tires for our cars, any suggestions?
 
Eibach Sportlines have been available for around a month now. Some pics -

CivicMx said:
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Cell pics
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as for sways - it's covered pretty well in this thread here:
http://9thcivic.com/forum/threads/sway-bar-question.6326/

tires - are you looking for a dedicated track tire - super sticky? Just want the best summer tire?
 
Lookin more of a summer tire, I do plan on taking it to the track.but like once a month, maybe once.every two months
 
From a completely performance standpoint - larger rear sway, leave off the front. Unless the eibach front is smaller than the stock one. I doubt that it is but im not 100% on that. You may want to measure.

Spend the $$ and get a set of koni yellows and either ground control coilover sleeves or the springs you want. It will be much better than just the springs alone.

Better tires will make a lot of difference. Depending on your budget there are a lot of good choices out there. The tires listed as high-performance or max performance are not the best performance tire out there. The "best" are the ones listed as extreme performance.

Tires like the Dunlop Direzza Star Specs, Falken RT615, Hankook Ventus rs-3......

You won't go wrong with any of those. There may not be extensive reviews out specifically for the 9th gen civic but read the reviews for any front wheel drive, or any civic review that's fairly recent, and you'll have a good idea of how the tire will be on your car.


Those tires will wear fairly quickly though.

The michelin pilot super sport is a very popular tire as well. I believe KennyGS just picked up a set. Those might give you more life but still some nice performance.
 
Oh, once you do all that, you will probably want to get camber adjustments F & R. Running a little negative camber will help improve your cornering without killing your tires. Something around -1.25 not -5 to stuff 9" wheels on a +20 offset.
 
I was thinking about -1.5 front and -2.0 rear but I haven't done much research yet on that since I'm still sometime away from it but I'm not really interested in coilovers, not really planning on spending more than $1500 on my car not including tires, I want a good decent suspension setup. As long as I have at least tires with about 20,000 miles of life its good and the front sway bar it is bigger than stock and really a lot of work to put it on so I'm probably just going to sell it then
 
if you want a fantastic tire for doing a track event per month or so and the rest on the street, i'd look into BFGoodrich G-Force Comp-2s. very sticky and amazing rain performance as well. and as far as suspension goes, you're better off with a coilover with camber plates. -1.5 to -2.0 all around is perfect for the track. also remember tire pressure is an extremely important factor at the track, make sure you fine tune it the way you want. the BFGoodriches in 215/45/17 on my sedan is perfect at around 34 cold in the front and 33 cold in the rears.
 
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Lower thread wear = more grip. :D
 
Hmm I was thinking maybe 31 front and 33 rear so I have more contact patch don't lose grip on the front and help prevent under steer(correct me if I'm wrong on the tire pressure and explain please) and during acceleration the weight will transfer to the rear and increase contact patch. As for coilovers I'm still thinking since it is a lot of money and I won't make much use of them that often and half the reason I want to Lowe my car is the horrendous wheel gap
 
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Lower tire pressure on the rear will give you more slip angle ( more rotation ) and are a bit more forgiving before the rear loses traction. I would lean towards getting a good tire on the car, and increase the spring rate.

Coilovers are an option, but most all of them I have checked out adjust both rebound and compression simultaneously.

However, Redshift Motorsports Koni's adjustable insert for the front strut has either rebound adjustment ( for the sport and single adjustable race model ) or both rebound and compression adjustment on the more expensive race unit ( both separate adjustment ) The rear Koni shock has the same features.

The fastest way through a corner is with all the tires sharing the load, if you do not have enough spring to counter the roll, most of the load will transfer to the outside front tire. Increasing the spring rate and having a good damper will do more than you think, and can also increase the ride quality over stock.

Stiff springs will wear out your stock OEM dampers quickly, you will replace them early on in the life cycle. If you are going half the way with buying springs, consider a good coilover, something like the Koni sport:
http://www.redshiftmotorsports.com/RedShift2012CivicSuspPackages.htm
http://www.redshiftmotorsports.com/RedShift2012CivicSuspPackages.htm

I also like the fact that you can keep the ride height close to stock on these, most other aftermarket options the highest they will go is minimum 1" drop from stock.

If you can muster up the coin, consider the Michelin Pilot Super Sport, from my experience, it is an amazing tire. It rides great, is quiet, sticks like glue, great feel / no squirm, and has decent wear, ( it is a PERFORMANCE tire after all )

Here is a link to spring rate testing as done by Redshift Motorsports, it shows some of the aftermarket spring options aren't really that linear compared to the factory and HFP package spring.

http://www.redshiftmotorsports.com/RedShiftSpringTesting.htm
 
I had suggested the ground control coilover sleeve that you can get with the koni yellow setup. Cost is about the same as a "decent" coilover but with much better performance while maintaining the height adjustability.
 
Yes, the sleeve option is an option, but for most people, removal, draining, machining, etc of their struts isn't an option, nor is finding a shop locally willing to do it. If you buy a drop in, you can recoup some of the cost by selling the OEM set with low miles / basically new.
 
Michael Hurd said:
Lower tire pressure on the rear will give you more slip angle ( more rotation ) and are a bit more forgiving before the rear loses traction. I would lean towards getting a good tire on the car, and increase the spring rate.

Coilovers are an option, but most all of them I have checked out adjust both rebound and compression simultaneously.

However, Redshift Motorsports Koni's adjustable insert for the front strut has either rebound adjustment ( for the sport and single adjustable race model ) or both rebound and compression adjustment on the more expensive race unit ( both separate adjustment ) The rear Koni shock has the same features.

The fastest way through a corner is with all the tires sharing the load, if you do not have enough spring to counter the roll, most of the load will transfer to the outside front tire. Increasing the spring rate and having a good damper will do more than you think, and can also increase the ride quality over stock.

Stiff springs will wear out your stock OEM dampers quickly, you will replace them early on in the life cycle. If you are going half the way with buying springs, consider a good coilover, something like the Koni sport:

http://www.redshiftmotorsports.com/RedShift2012CivicSuspPackages.htm

I also like the fact that you can keep the ride height close to stock on these, most other aftermarket options the highest they will go is minimum 1" drop from stock.

If you can muster up the coin, consider the Michelin Pilot Super Sport, from my experience, it is an amazing tire. It rides great, is quiet, sticks like glue, great feel / no squirm, and has decent wear, ( it is a PERFORMANCE tire after all )

Here is a link to spring rate testing as done by Redshift Motorsports, it shows some of the aftermarket spring options aren't really that linear compared to the factory and HFP package spring.

http://www.redshiftmotorsports.com/RedShiftSpringTesting.htm
Click to expand...
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Outstanding commentary and killer links.... thanks.
 
KennyGS said:
Actually, I was planning to, but ended up getting RE11 instead.


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________________
Cowabunga... 325!!/30!!/19!! I've never seen anything like that outside a John Deere application. Makes my Civic tires look like they were meant for a tricycle. Let me guess... $99 bucks/each at Sears, right?
 
Nix said:
From a completely performance standpoint - larger rear sway, leave off the front. Unless the eibach front is smaller than the stock one. I doubt that it is but im not 100% on that. You may want to measure.

Spend the $$ and get a set of koni yellows and either ground control coilover sleeves or the springs you want. It will be much better than just the springs alone.

Better tires will make a lot of difference. Depending on your budget there are a lot of good choices out there. The tires listed as high-performance or max performance are not the best performance tire out there. The "best" are the ones listed as extreme performance.

Tires like the Dunlop Direzza Star Specs, Falken RT615, Hankook Ventus rs-3......

You won't go wrong with any of those. There may not be extensive reviews out specifically for the 9th gen civic but read the reviews for any front wheel drive, or any civic review that's fairly recent, and you'll have a good idea of how the tire will be on your car.


Those tires will wear fairly quickly though.

The michelin pilot super sport is a very popular tire as well. I believe KennyGS just picked up a set. Those might give you more life but still some nice performance.
Click to expand...
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In this test report by Car and Driver, the Michelin PSS took 1st place. The Hankook Ventus rs-3 was a very respectable 4th, while the Pirelli P-Zero was dead last.

http://www.caranddriver.com/compari...mmer-performance-tires-tested-comparison-test
 
Michelins pilot super sport and bfgoodrichs comp 2 are definitely canidates though the comp 2 are cheaper but I also wanted tires that can get all that power to the floor no problem and I know I'm not running like 220hp at the wheels(getting more power mods) and I heard soft tires don't do a good job at that but they should be enough for mostly a stock Si but for future reference I wanted to know what kind of tire would that be best for.
 
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