Originally Posted by E-Ticket Ride

Installation instructions

A lift would be the best, but we did the installation on jack stands.
Ramps would also be fine.
Do not (under any circumstances) rely only on a jack to keep the car lifted.
Sockets:
12, 14, 17, 19mm sockets
Air gun (if you have)

Front installation
1. Jack up the front of the car (we did front and then back separately), secure with jackstands or ramps

2. Remove wheels

3. Remove the brake line from the strut. It is attached with a 12mm nut (I did my best to circle the nut/bolts in question with a red circle, and each picture where you remove a part should have a red circle):


4. Remove the bolt (17mm) that attaches the strut to the lower control arm:


Rear of bolt shown in above picture. Remove endlink. Remove the sway bar from the endlink bolt (19mm):


5: Remove the 3 bolts that secure the strut plate to the lower suspension (14mm bolts):


6. Remove the 3 nuts that secure the top plate to the shock towers (12mm nuts):


7. Fish the stock strut/spring out from between the brake lines. Be careful when you do this so you don't damage the brake lines nor the ABS lines. Stock strut/spring removed:


8. Reverse the procedure to install the new units:




Brake line bracket installed on strut body (it works, but not my preferred method. I guess it saves on tooling and manufacturing costs):


Rear installation
1. Jack up car under diff cover, secure car with jackstands or ramps.

2. Remove wheels.

3. The rear is super easy compared to the front. Use a jack to support the lower suspension arm in order to remove the stock spring.

4. Remove this bolt (17mm bolt, 17mm nut) to free the lower spring mount cup:


5. Slowly lower jack and the spring will drop and can be easily removed:


New spring and seat installed:
**EDITED**
Correct orientation, new adjustable spring perch should be on the top (thanks to Shane for the correction!)



Incorrect method:


6. Remove the 17mm nut that secures the bottom of the strut to the suspension assembly:


7. Remove the two upper nuts (12mm) that secure the strut to the strut tower:

**Footnote***
The top area of the rear strut is totally enclosed, meaning that once you set the stiffness of the rear strut (not applicable to an "EDFC" type unit or an inverted strut), there is no way to adjust it after it's mounted. Something to think about if you're the type that likes to constantly "tinker" with the strut stiffness settings.

**Footnote 2***
I solved the problem of how to adjust the rear without having to remove the strut each time. See pics below. It does involve removing the rear lower seat cushion and seat back cushion, but it's a 5 minute job tops so it's super easy.

8. Reverse the procedure. Remove the strut, replace with new unit
(Ignore the orientation of the spring, refer to picture in #9 below):


9. Rear completed:


10. Rear spring/strut height adjustment
(Thanks to Ian for the info from JIC)

I received this set up info from JIC-Magic tech support,
which seems like a logical procedure to keep damper stroke near max. length.

1. Adjust the spring height FIRST.
2. after your spring ride height^ is set, adjust the damper length.
- place car on jack stands
- measure height to bottom of spring cup
- with a floor jack raise the spring cup 10mm (pre-load)
- adjust the damper length to fit this position.


I did mess up and forgot to measure the car before I lowered it. I also forgot to take a picture of the car prior to lowering.

Here's the new measurements. If you're expecting a "slammed" ride, that's not me and that's not how to properly set up a suspension (IMO). I'm not sure how much it lowered the car in the end, so if anyone has any measurements of a stock sport suspension, please post them up.

Rear:


Front:


Side profile (sorry, bad pic):


IIRC, from the top of the wheel centercap to the fenders was 13 3/4" all the way around. Again, if anyone can measure their car that's stock, I'd appreciate it.

If anyone has any questions, post them here. I'll be doing a review of the suspension ride after about a week of driving it. As it is right now, the struts are set to #10 out of 15 (15 being the stiffest). The car does ride stiff, so when my friend comes back we'll probably lower the stiffness all around to maybe 7 or 8 (the car's a daily driver).

Stay tuned for impressions.