Been doing searches but cannot find a good, concise recommendation on springs and strut towers. Getting my 18s fitted this week so I am now working on the suspesion:

1. Want to lower my X just to reduce wheel gap. Dont want to slam it. What is the recommended spring combo for the X (as to not screw up the AWD drivetrain/suspension, etc) Z/coupe combo? Coupe/Sports Sedan?

2. Would upper/lower strut bars be better than sways for the X. Which ones are recommended? Ran DCs in my old Integra many years back

 

The main purpose of suspension is to hold the body up and try to maintain tire perpendicularity to road under turning loads and stress.

Strut tower bars correct for bending of shock towers changing camber under load.

Sway bars are used to fine tune under/oversteer ratio for entry, mid, exit corner correction. As with springs things can only be perfect under one single condition at one tire temperature and road coefficeint of friction.

Most lowering jobs I've seen actually make the measured handling worse than oem but people after spending money think it feels better............never bothering to measure precise gains or loses.

 

Great info.

So, should I invest FIRST in strut ties or sways to reduce body role overall/overall handling? I do want to lower the stance. What would be the recommended spring set up.

 

What he is saying is there are none. The proper way to lower would be to do so by raising all the attachment points of the stock suspension retaining travel distances of all the components. Not easy to do on a newer car. Not doing so will make everything else a compromise.

 

so, in essence, I should do nothing.

 

If you are just going for looks then don't expect handling improvements, at least not overall handling improvements unless you really spend the bucks to do it correctly.

You could go for the illusion of lowering without making any changes to your suspension. Just keep in mind that some of these (such as larger diameter wheels) also may have their own baggage (such as decreased braking power) that come with them.

For example if you use something like Tirerack.com you can look at your car with your color with different diameter wheels. Larger ones can make your car look lower and tend to make the appearance of the wheel gap to appear less than it is due to your eye keying in on the rim, not on the edge of the tire. This effect varies due to wheel designs and car color. However a larger wheel can greatly influence brake requirements (even if the same exact or even lower weight) and needs to be considered just on that one factor alone. Changes in tire width and track width come into play as far as handling.

Not saying not to go with this type of mod, but beware of what is really going to happen.