So I've been reading a lot on the form while I have my girl on jack stands in the garage. The project was simple coilovers but has turned into a rust repair, cleaning and repainting exploration. Along with anything else I see that I don't like. The young ol' girl is coming up on 160k.

I ended up getting the Ohlins Road and Track like man of you suggested in one (or several) of your posts from Performance Shock. Nice people. Very friendly. They are priced cheaper than MAPerformance who I wasn't impressed with their customer service being a professional salesman.

Beau was my salesman. Very helpful and straightforward to work with. I asked about different spring rates as others suggested and the revalving of the shocks to match. He said it would cost money (that it is not free on intinial purchase) and maybe to try off the shelf for a baseline.

My first question do you guys honestly feel I should send the coils back to get different springs and valves? I have not yet installed them yet.

Two. Should I invest the time and money replacing the parts with the whiteline roll center correction kit?

Lastly is their anything else you suggest I should look into doing while the girl is in the air? I am more interested in saving time and money if it is something I should do now while she is in the air. Thank you.

 

LS1 swap

 

Thanks for the insight warmmilk. However I don't think that comes under the heading of saving time or money. Besides, with the reliability of a Chevy and the rust of a DSM, you might be one step above a Yogo.

 

1a) A change in valving is generally only needed when running much higher spring rates than as-bought. Most people only revalve when going to race-only spring rates.

1b) The as-bought Ohlins R&T spring rates are front biased at 10f/8r whereas OEM springs are front biased. A lot of people swap the springs to 8f/10r.

2a) Definitely do the Whiteline rollcenter correction kit.

2b) Replace the front control arm bushings. Urethane is the main choice for the front bushing, and the rear can be replaced with either Whiteline that has no cushioning or SuperPro that has some cushioning. I've had both and can say for sure that the SuperPro produces a more quiet more compliant ride, but at a slight cost in steering precision.

2c) Change out the bushing in the trailing arm in the rear suspension.

 

Thank you mrfred! Is 1b) a good idea to do? Meaning is it worthy to swap the front springs to the rear and the rears to the fronts?

Thank you for all the good ideas and suggestions. I will look into each. Thank you.

 

If you aren't going to do a rear sway bar upgrade at the same time, I think that swapping to 8f/10r would preserve the handling balance better than leaving it at 10f/8r.

 

They must have changed that recently. I know four people who bough Ohlins from PSI last year. Revalve was free. Yes, you had to pay for springs, and pay for the extra shipping (shipping from Ohlins to PSI, then to you, vs just from Ohlins to you).


I wouldn't bother switching rates, 8k is too soft in the front. A few guys on here say the rear works fine with a 650lb/in spring and no revalve. I would revalve the rears to match, but that's just me.

 

Great on the revalve. Was it just to accommodate higher spring rates?

Compared to typical stock springs on street driven performance cars, 8k isn't terribly soft. Its 2.5x the spring rate of the stock Evo front suspension. As it turns out, 10k is also 2.5x the spring rate of the stock Evo rear suspension. That's a huge bump up for most people's experience of just adding stiffer springs to stock dampers. Those are usually in the range of 1.25x. So, it seems to me that swapping to 8f/10r makes pretty good sense for someone who is looking for a nice combo of improved high performance experience and reasonable rates for acceptable street ride.

The R&T's are impressive though in their ability to make high spring rates tolerable for street driving. I recently to got to drive an Evo with 11f/11r spring rates, and it was very streetable.

 

swap springs and install it as 8/10... ideal might be 8/9, but 8/10 will work also.. keep the rear ARB stock in that case.

replace all the bushes in suspension with ralliart items, as the originals will be tired.. for rear lower arm bushes you can use stock ones, as outer and inner one is spherical anyhow. Aviod urethane replacements for those as stock ones are superior.

 

One other comment is that the 8k springs installed at the front require about 0.5" of preload to get the correct amount of droop compression travel. The thread pitch on the damper body is 2 mm per rotation. Try starting with 6.5 rotations for the front to get 0.5" of preload. 10k at the rear requires 2 mm preload for correct compression travel, so one rotation of the preload spring.

 

Yes, it was just to match the higher spring rate.

 

I did a full urethane swap on my Honda Civic as my DD street performer. Not. REMOTELY. Ideal. So I agree with the stock or rubber type replacements. They removed the slop for sure but did they squeak. No amount of grease in the world would cure that.

Interesting your guys view on the spring rates and where they should be. I know in stock form the Evo pushes like a fat pig. I had larger spring rates in the rear on my old civic and I was able to rotate her with throttle control. Am I correct in understanding the suggestion of the higher spring rate in the rear is to achieve more rotation/neutral handling?

 

Its definitely possible to go overboard with urethane on the Evo, but selected replacement can make a real improvement in handling with very minor increase in NVH.

Front suspension is MacPherson strut with a leverage ratio of only slightly greater than 1 (maybe 1.02) while the rear is a multilink with a leverage ratio of ~1.2-1.4 (depending on who you ask) on the springs, so 10K is really something more like 8k when comparing rates to the front suspension. More stiffness in the rear can contribute to less understeer. Driving style makes a difference too. Power-on oversteer is very do-able on an Evo with some power.

 

Buy a 10k spring for the rear so you can run 10k/10k, no re-valve needed. I also prefer the Ralliart Bushings to urethane. The Ralliart bushings are a higher durometer rubber, OEM quality, and completely silent. Do front and rear sway bar while you have it up

Ralliart bushing part numbers can be found here http://www.lancerregister.com/showthread.php?t=394898

 

So if I get the part numbers from this website provided, where to I order Ralliart bushings from?