DIY 6th gen Civic suspension

[chimchim]

Ok, here's my DIY changing a suspension on a 1997 Civic EX (6th gen). I'm not a professional mechanic, I just read the Helms manual and talked to a mechanic friend and read up like crazy on the net. Any mechanics out there, please feel free to correct me. I also feel like a lot of DIY tend to gloss over details that end up taking the most time... like "put this bolt back on" actually can take a long time because there's some important details being left out. I'll be doing this in sections. First, the removal and disassembly of the front suspension. 1) Make sure the parking brake is on. Jack up the car and put them on jack stands for safety. Block off the rear tires so prevent the car from rolling. Problem: how do you get the jack stands on the supports and jack it up? Jack up the car at the tow loops (two) located below the bumper. (PIC TBD) 2) Remove the wheel. This is a pic of the wheel well. (Please shut up about my dirty a$$ car ) 3) Loosen and remove this bolt at the bottom of the fork arm (my index finger it touching it, hard to see). This is to release it from the lower constrol arm that the axle,hub,wheel connect to. You'll need a 17mm socket wrench, and a 17mm crescent wrench to hold the nut on the other side. Once the nut is off, you may need to use a rod or another long bolt to push the bolt out. On mine, the LCA wanted to move up wards; which is what made removing the bolt difficult. Some downward force on the brake rotor made it easy to pull out. 4) The top of this fork is connected to the bottom of the strut by a pinch bolt. Use a 14mm socket wrench to remove this bolt. Since there's no tension from the lower arm, this bolt should come out pretty easily. If not, use something to push it out from the other side. 5) Pop the hood and loosen the two 14mm on either side with a deep socket 14mm. Do NOT loosen the center bolt at this time. These two side bolts are holding the suspension up. Have someone hold the suspension as you remove these bolts or reach around and hold it yourself. 6) The suspension assembly is now loose and can be removed. Slide the fork off the strut. (Once you have its bolt off, nothing but friction is holding it on, so just pull.) 7) Slip the suspension assembly out the side carefully so you don't bang anything up and especially don't rip a brake line or abs line off. This can be done WITHOUT any muscleling, so you should not have to force it out. 8) This is a picture of the assembly. The cap on the right is held only by the center top nut and the spring is under compression. To quote my mechanic friend: "this is the most dangerous thing you can change in a car"; (besides blowing yourself up by smoking near the fuel cell....) 9) Compress the spring to reduce pressure on the end cap. I used spring compressors, but I wish I had a press. Here's the compressors on the assembly. Make sure they are 180 degrees apart from each other (on exact opposite sides) and stretch about the same distance. Keep the strut inside the spring. If the compressors are not exactly opposite each other, they can slip (especially while de/compressing) and the spring can kill you. The strut will help prevent a slipped spring from shooting out somewhat. (My friend did this once and the spring shot itself across the street and lodged itself into a tree...) 10) Use an allen wrench in the top and a 14mm crescent wrench to loosen the top nut. Wrap the assembly top in an old cloth (blanket or tshirt, etc) and switch to useing a 14mm socket wrench to remove the bolt the rest of the way. Wrench it while it's wrapped in the cloth because as soon as the bolt comes off, the remaining tension in the spring will shoot the the top cap off. 11) This is the disassembled assembly, in order of how it goes on the strut. I bought new mounting parts, and still had to reuse some of the old parts. 12) You'll probably need to transfer the old bumpstop (the yellow/orange rubber thing) to the new strut. A retaining washer blocks it (I'm pointing to it). Mine was stuck and I had to take a hammer and tap it loose. It was held on by age old gunk. 13) This is a picture of the end cap. You can barely tell, but this is a rubber insert that the spring presses against. This is part of what "settles" in a new suspension. Up next.... reassembly and the rear suspension too....

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[chimchim]

Tell me if this is useful. I'm not wasting my time doing the rest if no one cares about it.

[sno]

if i had a civic then yes this would be usefull to me. thing about the internet is that once it's here it's here for almost ever. so don't be dissapointed when people don't use your write-up right away. i'm sure this will help someone down the road. good pics.

[XCM828]

Great DIY. Great Pics. Great job. Please continue. Just one question:

Originally Posted by chimchim

Problem: how do you get the jack stands on the supports and jack it up? Jack up the car at the tow loops (two) located below the bumper.

Is it safe to do this? The owners manual and all sorts of other manuals say only to use the jacking points by the wheels otherwise bad stuff will happen. I've heard horror stories of peoples frames getting bent cuz the jacked up their cars wrong.

[RicoD]

Keep going, i just did my suspension and im curious to see if we do the same steps lol actually i did the front then i tried going to the rear....then when i got the rear shocks off and opened the springs....i realized the shop i bought the springs from gave me the wrong ones hell my fault for picking up tanabes and the damn writing on the box were in japanese lol oh well hopefully the shop will exchange them for what i initially went out for..... my eibach sportlines

[chimchim]

Hmm, I've heard conflicting info that jacking at the tow hooks are bad or not. I still don't know, but would love to hear from someone who does.

FRONT REASSEMBLEY:

1) Here's the old spring/strut (top) and the new (bottom) H&R OEs with KYB AGX. Reassemble the new spring/strut just like the old one was. The spring compressors are a must again. You need to compress them far enough that you can put on the top mount.



2) Make sure that the end of the spring is lined up with the notch in the perch of the strut.



3) The stock strut (and most aftermarket struts) have an aligning tab so you know what orientation to put the strut in. This is a picture of the stock aligning tab. This will align to the opening of the pinch of the top of the fork. If this is not lined up, then the bolt will not go on because the indentation (just below the aligning tab) will not allow it. You'll need to put the mount on so that the two top bolts are at a 60 degree angle from the aligning tab. Take note which side you are doing.




4) Once the top mount is aligned, put on the top nut and hand tighten. You can lightly tighten with a wrench, but do NOT torque down, this will be done later.



5) Carefully work the strut/spring assembly back into place and hand tighten the two tower mounting bolts (up top in engine bay) by hand (do NOT torque down). This is so the suspension is held up in place. Put on the pinch bolt and screw in most of the way, but do not torque down. This will hold the fork up.



6) Now here's the bugger. You have to line up the LCA (lower control arm) with the fork. This can be hard to do because it doesn't want to line up. You'll need to push down on the brake rotor and upper arm assembly. Sometimes, this takes two people, one pushing, one pushing the bolt in. The bolt is not threaded until you feed it through the whole thing. If it doesn't want to go in, it's because the holes are not lined up. When they do line up, you should be able to get the bolt through the first arm of the fork and into the LCA. At that point, you can mallet the bolt through the rest of the way.



7) Now, put the jack under the LCA and jack the suspension up to compress it. Jack it up just enough so the car begins to lift off the stand. Now torque the bolts to:

LCA bolt: 47 ft-lbs
pinch bolt: 32 ft-lbs (or whatever your strut manufacturer says)
2 tower mounting bolts: 22 ft-lbs



ALL DONE WITH THE FRONT!! Now for the back....

[chimchim]

Rear Suspension

Ok, there are a lot of similarities with the front, so I'm going to skip some details.

1) Put the car in 1st gear and put blocks under the front wheels so the car can't roll forward. Jack up the back end and put the car on stands in the rear pinch weld supports. Remove the wheel.



2) There are two bolts you will be taking off: one connecting hub to LCA, and one connecting strut to LCA. Remove the hub one first. It will help to use a jack under the LCA to relieve the pressure so the bolt can be slipped out. The LCA is threaded so there is no nut on the bolt.

Once the first bolt is out, lower the jack again and the 2nd bolt at the strut is easy since there is no longer any downward pressure. If you have a rear sway bar, you'll need to detach it from the LCA.



3) Pop the trunk and remove 3 plastic clips (I don't have a picture). There are removed by carefully pushing the center in a tiny bit, then pulling the whole thing out. (to replace the clips, you need to remove the centers from the outer rings, place the outer rings in the hole to hold the side panel carpet up and then insert the center to lock into place.) With the clips removed, you should be able to pull the carpet down to reveal the rear tower. Using a 14mm wrench, remove the two side bolts but don't touch the center nut.



4) The strut should be loose now. Push down on the LCA and carefully remove the strut/spring assembly taking care not to rip the brake lines, etc.

5) Disassemle and reassemle just like the front suspension.

6) Replace and hand tighten the two top tower mount bolts.

7) Push down on the LCA and insert the 14mm bolt to connect the strut to the LCA. The bolt should go in easily because the LCA is loose. Screw in, but don't torque yet.

8) Put the jack under the LCA again and jack up the LCA until the hole for the bolt of the hub to LCA line up. You should be able to easily slip this bolt in. If not, you don't have it aligned properly. Readjust the jack till you get it aligned. Screw the bolt in but don't torque.



9) Now jack the arm up higher until the car just begins to lift off the stands. Torque:

Both LCA bolts: 40 ft-lbs
2 Top tower bolts: 36 ft-lbs

9b) Because the rear suspension is a Macpherson design, lowering the rear causes negative camber. If you are going to at a camber kit or use the washer trick, now is the time to install it.

10) All done!



Next up.... the washer trick...

[teg92]

thats a good write up

[chimchim]

On a 6th gen civic, any time you lower the car, you will increase negative camber. The more you lower it, the more negative camber you get. Negative camber increases tire wear (over time, not as bad a toe though... but that's a discussion in another thread)

Even with the relatively mild 0.75" drop front and back from the H&R OE sports, I noticed negative camber. Someone used a rule of thumb of ~2 washers per 1" drop. However in my experience, I found that one washer was quite enough for the 0.75 drop. I post alignment results when I get them. Also, it depends on the thickness of the washers you use.

Washer trick: (assuming you've already got the car up on stands with tire off)

Parts needed:
- 4 bolts 10mm x 1.25mm x 40mm; diameter/thread pitch/bolt length
- 10mm washers in groups of 4; ie, if you want to do 2 washers thick, then you need 4x2= 8 washers total.

1) Place a jack under the LCA and put it up a bit. You'll see why in the next step.



2) Get a 14mm socket (you'll probably need extensions) and loosen the two bolts connecting the upper control arm (UCA) to the chassis. As you loosen, the UCA will be pulled in a direction depending upon how high you are jacking up the LCA. Adjust the jack height so the UCA naturally wants to line up with the bolts. This will make it very easy to pull the bolts out.



3) Put as many washers (10mm) as needed BETWEEN the UCA and the chassis. If you use more than one washer (maybe two), you'll probably need to buy new bolts. You can get bolts at Home Depot (10mm x 1.25mm x 40mm; diameter/thread pitch/bolt length). Bolt length, you'll need to decide for yourself.

Make sure to put an equal number of washers on each bolt. I used one for each bolt for my 0.75" drop. That's 1 per bolt, 2 bolts per side, 2 side = 1 * 2 * 2 = 4 washers total.



4) Screw the bolts back in and moderately tighten, but not up to torque (less than 29 ft-lbs). Jack the LCA up higher till the car just begins to lift off the stands, and torque the UCA bolts to 29 ft-lbs. Lower jack and you're done!

[RicoD]

Good write up, and lining up those wholes when ur all by urself to put the bolts back in is a bitch! good info though....

[chimchim]

Ok, I got an alignement done. I was quite surprised at how bad the camber must have been on my rear wheel. Even WITH 1 washer space at the rear, I still had -1.4 deg camber! It must have been really outta spec with no washer.

Because of the change in height, the entire geometry of the suspension changes, so every wheel of mine had out of spec toe... the worst kind for tire wear. Here's what happened to me:


________________________________Left___Left____Right___ Right
____________________Spec_______actual__before__actual__ before__actual__before
FRONT
________Camber___-1.0_to_1.0____-0.6____-0.6____-0.6____-0.6
________Caster___0.7_to_2.7_____1.4_____1.4_____1.2____ _1.2
___________Toe__-0.04_to_0.12___0.06___-0.18____0.06___-0.02
__Cross_Camber_none_specified__________________________ _________0.0_____0.0
__Cross_Caster_none_specified__________________________ _________0.1_____0.1
_____Total_Toe__-0.08_to_0.24___________________________________0.12___-0.20

REAR
________Camber___-2.0_to_0.0____-1.5____-1.4____-1.4____-1.4
___________Toe__0.04_to_0.16____0.12____0.31____0.11___ _0.24
_____Total_Toe__0.08_to_0.32___________________________ _________0.23____0.55
__Thrust_Angle_none_specified__________________________ _________0.01____0.04

[chimchim]

I just wanted to warn people about something. The way Honda designed the rear suspension on the 6th gen (and 5th gen) puts stress on the main rubber bushing in the rear trailing arm. (See picture with yellow circle... that's the main rear trailing arm bushing).



This bushing was set in the trailing arm assuming STOCK height. When you lower the car, the trailing arm must rotate a bit for the shorter height which stresses this bushing. From the bushing's perspective, it thinks that the stock spring is compressed to your new height. So, when the rest of the suspension with your lowered spring is at rest, this bushing is stressed. Obviously the lower you go, the more stress it has.

I have 106k miles on my car with stock bushings andwith 16k miles on my 0.75" drop, my bushings are starting to rip. These bushings are responsible for rear stability so you should check yours. If you had the bushings re-set for your new ride height (and NO ONE does this unless you specifically ask for it) or replaced with urethane bushings then you probably won't have to worry about this.

This bushing is the reason it's hard to get the bolts to line up.

[chimchim]

Here's a closer look at that bushing:

[syclone]

Originally Posted by XCM828

Great DIY. Great Pics. Great job. Please continue. Just one question:

Is it safe to do this? The owners manual and all sorts of other manuals say only to use the jacking points by the wheels otherwise bad stuff will happen. I've heard horror stories of peoples frames getting bent cuz the jacked up their cars wrong.

don't jack it up from the front toe hooks.. the jacking point on the front is a little right of the center of the front frame. you'll see a metal pad.


for the rear, you DO jack it up from the toe hook which is reinforced. it's located dead center.

by the way, nice write up.. nice pics too.. i kept getting caught up so i miss a few pics from time to time.
http://syclone.motocrew.com/EJ6/suspension.htm

[Special K]

FINALLY!!! An actual DIY post instead of a question in the DIY Forum!

Awesome writeup too!

[sakura99]

I agree, great write up... Even though i've already dropped my civic, it was still a good read.

The only thing that was left out that i could see was in the washer alignment part:
If and when you need to replace the bolts (if your drop is so significant that there will be too much washer and not enough thread,) make sure the bolts you are replacing the stock ones with are of the proper strength rating; i think 'grade 8' is strong enough, but i might be mistaken so don't quote me on it. Those bolts have a significant degree of stress/force on them (as does anything suspension related) , so you don't want them to be your only weak link.

other than that, great write up again.

[jamescardenas07]

maybe a bushing replacemnt DIY

[DaNnYsEvEn]

bump because this thread is the shit and should be bumped or made sticky so that everyone can see before asking:
how do i change struts?
best write up!!

[chimchim]

I worked hard on this thread so I don't want it to be lost.

[Psshhtt]

Sweet thread man I may be a noob but I love the DIY section except for all the junk that clogs this section. Your kind of writeup is the exact thing this section needs!! Great Job!

[vi3tromanc3r]

thanks for the share, this came in handy. i had to use 3 washers for my drop.

[GSRRacer95]

Where are the final pics of the drop?

BTW, Nice write up.

[chimchim]

Originally Posted by GSRRacer95

Where are the final pics of the drop?

BTW, Nice write up.

I sold the car... but here's one of the last pics I took of it. Loved that car.

This is with the H&R OE Sports and the KYB AGX's

[finboy]

Hi all,

Big thanks to chimchim, great pics and info! That would be good to know stuff before i did my suspension upgrade. Im going to do camber trick tomorrow if im not having hangover

Greeting from Finland, great forum you have here. keep up the good work!

[gwillmott]

Thanks for the great write up on the strut change. I did mine this weekend and found your post really really helpful!

Post more!

Gerald

[IanB]

Awesome thread! This will come in VERY handy in the next couple of weeks when I do my suspension.

[anthonyth]

great write up, just getting ready to drop my 98 si, great help!

[jonny mac]

perfect i shall be lowering my civic coupe si/vti next week. thanks

[goldex420]

i didnt use a compresion tool i just but the air ratchet on it and ziped it off but be careful that fucker will shoot. it shot across the shop about 10 feet i hightly dout it would stick in a tree homie. slamin civics since 92

[korrapat]

Dear, Chimchim.
I want to see you rear sway bar installtion? Could you please show me the picture of fixing. Now i got sway bar from EK9 and want to install in my car; Civic Vti 1999.

Thank you fro your share