More than you ever wanted to know about the 88-91 Honda Civic suspension

Quote
Aaron Luptak
Took one of the rear shocks (F4-B46-1605-H2) off over the weekend and did some measurements.




Top of shock body to USP - 5.5"


When compressing the shock by hand, it stops with about 0.25" of the chromed rod still showing.

SOOoooooooooooooooo, about 140mm travel in the shock.

And up there ^ earlier you say 184mm wheel travel..
Verrry interestink, Schmart.

UND, you will do the same dismount and measure for the front?

---

John Vanlandingham
Sleezattle, WA, USA

Vive le Prole-le-ralliat

www.rallyrace.net/jvab
CALL +1 206 431-9696
Remember! Pacific Standard Time
is 3 hours behind Eastern Standard Time.

Quote
john vanlandingham

Quote
Aaron Luptak
Took one of the rear shocks (F4-B46-1605-H2) off over the weekend and did some measurements.




Top of shock body to USP - 5.5"


When compressing the shock by hand, it stops with about 0.25" of the chromed rod still showing.

SOOoooooooooooooooo, about 140mm travel in the shock.

And up there ^ earlier you say 184mm wheel travel..
Verrry interestink, Schmart.

UND, you will do the same dismount and measure for the front?

The 184mm number was with the infinite-travel-but-very-little-damping PVC job (patent pending!) - I haven't run through the whole test with the actual rear damper installed. But - the wheel ratio that I calculated says that we should be getting right about that anyways, assuming that the shock gets mounted in the right place to get all that travel.


Front is about 175mm wheel travel from 115mm shock travel.

Both shocks allegedly have some internal spacing that can be removed for additional shock travel. (~15mm on the rear, no idea, maybe the same, for the front).

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KF7RWG
http://www.utahrallygroup.com

I've got hotbits on the back of my civic and they suck so I'd like to replace them with something bilstein based. I was thinking something like the SL series offroad shock. The 7" travel model is 20" extended, 13.14" collapsed. I'd have to hack off the lower eye and weld on the honda fork, and add a schrader valve to recharge it. Its got a circlip groove for coilover stuff and a number of various off the shelf valvings. 7" of travel at the shock would give like 9ish" at the wheels for my '93 I think. Add some springs that are more suited for rally and my back end might have a bit more grip. Those hot bits in the back sure made for lots of sideways at LSPR. I don't know if there is enough of a pin on the top after unscrewing the eye for all the spring seats and bushings, though.

Quote
Carl S
I've got hotbits on the back of my civic and they suck so I'd like to replace them with something bilstein based. I was thinking something like the SL series offroad shock. The 7" travel model is 20" extended, 13.14" collapsed. I'd have to hack off the lower eye and weld on the honda fork, and add a schrader valve to recharge it. Its got a circlip groove for coilover stuff and a number of various off the shelf valvings. 7" of travel at the shock would give like 9ish" at the wheels for my '93 I think. Add some springs that are more suited for rally and my back end might have a bit more grip. Those hot bits in the back sure made for lots of sideways at LSPR. I don't know if there is enough of a pin on the top after unscrewing the eye for all the spring seats and bushings, though.

Carl ol tavarich, I have some various Steel bodied 7" travel things and I have a can of this pasty/goo stuff called "Heat Fence"...I've used it several (like 7-8 times) when I have to repair a damaged pin on the top of an insert...you smear a good layer of the paste on, near as you dare, and weld away and 3-4" away its like ambient temp...Doing the clevis thing for the Honja would probably be a snap..We should talk about this....As for the top of the rod where it mounts into the body I make a heftier version, around 14mm shaft and a M12 x 1.75 thread instead of the tiny M8 or M10 x super fine crap. I make it in stainless for you guys who live in salt drenched worlds.

---

John Vanlandingham
Sleezattle, WA, USA

Vive le Prole-le-ralliat

www.rallyrace.net/jvab
CALL +1 206 431-9696
Remember! Pacific Standard Time
is 3 hours behind Eastern Standard Time.

Quote
john vanlandingham

Quote
Carl S
I've got hotbits on the back of my civic and they suck so I'd like to replace them with something bilstein based. I was thinking something like the SL series offroad shock. The 7" travel model is 20" extended, 13.14" collapsed. I'd have to hack off the lower eye and weld on the honda fork, and add a schrader valve to recharge it. Its got a circlip groove for coilover stuff and a number of various off the shelf valvings. 7" of travel at the shock would give like 9ish" at the wheels for my '93 I think. Add some springs that are more suited for rally and my back end might have a bit more grip. Those hot bits in the back sure made for lots of sideways at LSPR. I don't know if there is enough of a pin on the top after unscrewing the eye for all the spring seats and bushings, though.

Carl ol tavarich, I have some various Steel bodied 7" travel things and I have a can of this pasty/goo stuff called "Heat Fence"...I've used it several (like 7-8 times) when I have to repair a damaged pin on the top of an insert...you smear a good layer of the paste on, near as you dare, and weld away and 3-4" away its like ambient temp...Doing the clevis thing for the Honja would probably be a snap..We should talk about this....As for the top of the rod where it mounts into the body I make a heftier version, around 14mm shaft and a M12 x 1.75 thread instead of the tiny M8 or M10 x super fine crap. I make it in stainless for you guys who live in salt drenched worlds.

why not leave the eye/rod end on, use a strut-style upper spring seat, and then just modify the towers to bolt that in instead?

I think coming up with shocks for the rear should be easy, only real difficult decision is whether to run the original LCA (more clearance for exhaust etc, "better" motion ratio) or to run the DA Integra LCA (more clearance to the semi-trailing arm, "worse" motion ratio, less exhaust/sway bar clearance).

The difficult part is going to be getting the arms to move as needed - I hope that you can get enough twist out of the big rubber bushing if you get it clocked just right, but the little "compensator arm" at the very front of the rear suspension (and the "frame rail" that it eventually contacts on droop) is a big concern:


(pic is looking towards the front of the car - so when the rear wheel goes down, the arms in the picture both go up - and hit the body if your shock gives enough droop)

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KF7RWG
http://www.utahrallygroup.com

well hell Aaron I's always saying its far smarter to mod the body or the part once than have morphoditel-ized shocks---and naturally Honda jus had to choose morphodited mounting on a huge range of model over the rears.
Showing it was intentional.
And yeah I really don't link pin mounts since they guarantee that bending loads get resolved down around the guide bush inside the shock which obvious results...

OK the question becomes can one re-do the top and bottom mounts to make life easier?

---

John Vanlandingham
Sleezattle, WA, USA

Vive le Prole-le-ralliat

www.rallyrace.net/jvab
CALL +1 206 431-9696
Remember! Pacific Standard Time
is 3 hours behind Eastern Standard Time.

Quote
john vanlandingham
well hell Aaron I's always saying its far smarter to mod the body or the part once than have morphoditel-ized shocks---and naturally Honda jus had to choose morphodited mounting on a huge range of model over the rears.
Showing it was intentional.
And yeah I really don't link pin mounts since they guarantee that bending loads get resolved down around the guide bush inside the shock which obvious results...

OK the question becomes can one re-do the top and bottom mounts to make life easier?

Top should be easy on the rears - plenty of room up there to do whatever we want.

Bottom "may" be more difficult. Most of the US-market civics and integras came with the cast-style lower control arms that use the clevis-type mount. The '88 Civic/CRX and the Integra Type-R came with a stamped steel lca that used a more typical bushing-on-shock type mounting.

So, easy enough, right?

Here's the difficulties I see:
a) US market ones are relatively rare
b) most of the stamped steel arms (see the exception below) use the same geometry as most of the cast arms - I'm using the 90-93 ("DA" Integra arms that move the shock a little further inboard, and scroll wayyyy up to see how little clearance I've got to the trailing arm.

reasons those may not be a big deal:
a) they were standard on many (all?) Japanese-market Civics/Integras
b) most of the aftermarket suspensions use the clevis-style mount, so plenty of folks get rid of them
c) according to this one picture I found online, the Japanese-market 90-93 Integra has the 'eye' style arms, but with the same slightly-inboard geometry as the USDM arms.
d) I had that little clearance at not-nearly-as-much-droop-as-we-want, so if we're able to get anywhere near the 210mm that you shoot for, we're probably going to have to modify the semi-trailing arm for clearance anyways.

---

KF7RWG
http://www.utahrallygroup.com

Quote
Aaron Luptak

Quote
john vanlandingham
well hell Aaron I's always saying its far smarter to mod the body or the part once than have morphoditel-ized shocks---and naturally Honda jus had to choose morphodited mounting on a huge range of model over the rears.
Showing it was intentional.
And yeah I really don't link pin mounts since they guarantee that bending loads get resolved down around the guide bush inside the shock which obvious results...

OK the question becomes can one re-do the top and bottom mounts to make life easier?

Top should be easy on the rears - plenty of room up there to do whatever we want.

Bottom "may" be more difficult. Most of the US-market civics and integras came with the cast-style lower control arms that use the clevis-type mount. The '88 Civic/CRX and the Integra Type-R came with a stamped steel lca that used a more typical bushing-on-shock type mounting.

So, easy enough, right?

Here's the difficulties I see:
a) US market ones are relatively rare
b) most of the stamped steel arms (see the exception below) use the same geometry as most of the cast arms - I'm using the 90-93 ("DA" Integra arms that move the shock a little further inboard, and scroll wayyyy up to see how little clearance I've got to the trailing arm.

reasons those may not be a big deal:
a) they were standard on many (all?) Japanese-market Civics/Integras
b) most of the aftermarket suspensions use the clevis-style mount, so plenty of folks get rid of them
c) according to this one picture I found online, the Japanese-market 90-93 Integra has the 'eye' style arms, but with the same slightly-inboard geometry as the USDM arms.
d) I had that little clearance at not-nearly-as-much-droop-as-we-want, so if we're able to get anywhere near the 210mm that you shoot for, we're probably going to have to modify the semi-trailing arm for clearance anyways.

I was thinking in the above of the rear so you guys could use a eyelet/eyelet shock straight out of the box. The fronts are a special challenge.

---

John Vanlandingham
Sleezattle, WA, USA

Vive le Prole-le-ralliat

www.rallyrace.net/jvab
CALL +1 206 431-9696
Remember! Pacific Standard Time
is 3 hours behind Eastern Standard Time.

Quote
john vanlandingham

Quote
Aaron Luptak

Quote
john vanlandingham
well hell Aaron I's always saying its far smarter to mod the body or the part once than have morphoditel-ized shocks---and naturally Honda jus had to choose morphodited mounting on a huge range of model over the rears.
Showing it was intentional.
And yeah I really don't link pin mounts since they guarantee that bending loads get resolved down around the guide bush inside the shock which obvious results...

OK the question becomes can one re-do the top and bottom mounts to make life easier?

Top should be easy on the rears - plenty of room up there to do whatever we want.

Bottom "may" be more difficult. Most of the US-market civics and integras came with the cast-style lower control arms that use the clevis-type mount. The '88 Civic/CRX and the Integra Type-R came with a stamped steel lca that used a more typical bushing-on-shock type mounting.

So, easy enough, right?

Here's the difficulties I see:
a) US market ones are relatively rare
b) most of the stamped steel arms (see the exception below) use the same geometry as most of the cast arms - I'm using the 90-93 ("DA" Integra arms that move the shock a little further inboard, and scroll wayyyy up to see how little clearance I've got to the trailing arm.

reasons those may not be a big deal:
a) they were standard on many (all?) Japanese-market Civics/Integras
b) most of the aftermarket suspensions use the clevis-style mount, so plenty of folks get rid of them
c) according to this one picture I found online, the Japanese-market 90-93 Integra has the 'eye' style arms, but with the same slightly-inboard geometry as the USDM arms.
d) I had that little clearance at not-nearly-as-much-droop-as-we-want, so if we're able to get anywhere near the 210mm that you shoot for, we're probably going to have to modify the semi-trailing arm for clearance anyways.

I was thinking in the above of the rear so you guys could use a eyelet/eyelet shock straight out of the box. The fronts are a special challenge.

Everything I wrote in quoted post is specific to rears.

Fronts, I think, are more-or-less "solved", at least for the 88-91 chassis. I'm pretty confident that we'll be able to hit 190mm at the wheel with the bilsteins with a simple revalve and spacer removal.

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KF7RWG
http://www.utahrallygroup.com

Them piccies was rear arms? ACK!

I mean if I could quote from the President of Mars when he was addressing the Joint Session of Congress (in the great movie you must know "Mars Attacks"

ACK!

---

John Vanlandingham
Sleezattle, WA, USA

Vive le Prole-le-ralliat

www.rallyrace.net/jvab
CALL +1 206 431-9696
Remember! Pacific Standard Time
is 3 hours behind Eastern Standard Time.

I'd prefer to mod the shocks to fit the car, that way I can keep what I have now for spares and be able to get off the shelf replacement parts if I was ever in a pinch. There seem to be a few options for spherical bearings instead of that big bushing in the trailing arm which would let things move as they were intended to. Reguarding the toe link hitting the chassis, there will always be the next thing on the list thats limiting something, you just have to figure out how far you want to take things. I prefer driving over building/modifying so I'm not going to be getting crazy with custom modifications. After taking a 6 year hiatus from racing rally I was able to do some 3rd and 4th in class stage times (out of 18 or 19 in class) at LSPR with the car as it is. So with a few tweaks to make the obvious things a bit better I should be in good shape without having to go nuts on things.

I think I attached a pic of how the rear shock towers are currently. I don't feel like messing with it if I don't have to. And for starters I might just get some halfway resonable springs to get rid of those too-short too-stiff hotbits things.

Quote
Carl S
I prefer driving over building/modifying so I'm not going to be getting crazy with custom modifications.

I'm definitely on the same page with you there, although the realization that I won't be doing any stage events next year regardless of what happens with my car has helped me to slide a little further down the rabbit hole than I intended...

Quote

There seem to be a few options for spherical bearings instead of that big bushing in the trailing arm which would let things move as they were intended to.

I only have seen the PCI ones, although a quick search shows Blox making some too... I seem to recall seeing a few posts from some of the Irish guys having tried them for rally and them not holding up real well.

---

KF7RWG
http://www.utahrallygroup.com

I'm thinking to modify the rear suspension to a trailing arm setup where it ditches the small front toe link. Weld a braket just forward of where the stock trailing mounts, and make a custom tubular trailing arm and make longer control arms for more travel. Or just make a semi trailing arm setup like the S1600s. Oh and the front is going to struts pretty soon too.

Quote
Cosworth
I'm thinking to modify the rear suspension to a trailing arm setup where it ditches the small front toe link. Weld a braket just forward of where the stock trailing mounts, and make a custom tubular trailing arm and make longer control arms for more travel. Or just make a semi trailing arm setup like the S1600s. Oh and the front is going to struts pretty soon too.

Ditching the trailing arm setup is interesting. What about going to a push rod cantilever design? Many off road trucks do this and i remember seeing an article involving a focus getting this for rallying

Quote
Cosworth
I'm thinking to modify the rear suspension to a trailing arm setup where it ditches the small front toe link. Weld a braket just forward of where the stock trailing mounts, and make a custom tubular trailing arm and make longer control arms for more travel. Or just make a semi trailing arm setup like the S1600s. Oh and the front is going to struts pretty soon too.

I'd be into that! Hack the stock arm to retain the hub/brake assembly or go custom hubs?

Andrew