DYI01
Senior Member
- Thread starter
- #1
Since getting the Si I've always felt it handled really good for a stock car, it definitely could be way better though. I wanted a bit more spring rate and body motion control without going to aftermarket lowering springs or coilovers. I got the Si as a really fun to drive daily that gets good gas mileage, I don't want to have to deal with a lowered car, and wanted to keep decent ride quality.
I installed a Whiteline 22mm rear sway bar which is pretty straight forward. You should order the Accord end links and 10th gen civic bushing brackets for the new sway bar. The only issue I encountered was I couldn't snake the stock sway bar out without having to remove the riveted together mounting brackets. I had to use a angled die grinder to break the rivets, once the brackets were removed from the bushings, the bar was able to be removed.
After doing a ton of research on springs (OEM and aftermarket) I really liked the spring rates on the Swift and Whiteline 10th gen lowering springs. The FD2 CTR OEM spring rates also looked really good too. I saw that by keeping the stock Si rear springs and getting a set of FK8 CTR front springs I should keep factory ride height and increase the spring rate a good bit from ~155 lb/in to ~263 lb/in. It would also keep a really good front to rear spring stagger to keep the handling great too. I found a used set of CTR springs with about 500 miles on them that had been sitting in a guys garage for the past 2 years taking up space. You should be able to pickup a set for less than $100, I got mine for $75 picked up about 20 minutes from my house.
Installing the front springs was a breeze, it can be done with hand tools, spring compressor, a jack, and jack stands. Took me about 2 hours from setup to clean up. A couple of notes on installation: The springs are coiled in opposite directions when you compare the left and rights springs, also the top and bottom of the springs are different, so they can only be installed one way. You need to use the spring compressors to remove the OEM Si springs, but you don't need to compress the OEM CTR springs to install them. The OEM CTR springs are heavier, have fatter coils, but are a bit shorter so you can get the top nut started before you encounter spring preload. Right now the front of the car is sitting about 1/4" higher with the CTR springs, but I think the springs will settle another 1/4-1/3" over next month or so, putting right back to stock ride height.
The car corners extremely flat now, and honestly very well controlled. I had some concern that upping the front spring rate so much would cause the front struts to be overwhelmed and be bouncy, but they dampen the rebound without issue. I would bet the struts being still new with only around 2500 miles on them helps. The turn in feels more responsive and hitting mid corner bumps doesn't really seem to upset the chassis a whole lot since we're keeping all the suspension travel in tact. Going over a speed bump or a bumpy road I could feel an imbalance where front springs felt much softer under compression than the rear. Now the car feels way more balanced in spring rate. Another thing I noticed right away was how much brake dive was reduced under really hard braking. The next things on my list are dialing in some front camber and a set of 245/40-18 summer tires with lightweight wheels.
I installed a Whiteline 22mm rear sway bar which is pretty straight forward. You should order the Accord end links and 10th gen civic bushing brackets for the new sway bar. The only issue I encountered was I couldn't snake the stock sway bar out without having to remove the riveted together mounting brackets. I had to use a angled die grinder to break the rivets, once the brackets were removed from the bushings, the bar was able to be removed.
After doing a ton of research on springs (OEM and aftermarket) I really liked the spring rates on the Swift and Whiteline 10th gen lowering springs. The FD2 CTR OEM spring rates also looked really good too. I saw that by keeping the stock Si rear springs and getting a set of FK8 CTR front springs I should keep factory ride height and increase the spring rate a good bit from ~155 lb/in to ~263 lb/in. It would also keep a really good front to rear spring stagger to keep the handling great too. I found a used set of CTR springs with about 500 miles on them that had been sitting in a guys garage for the past 2 years taking up space. You should be able to pickup a set for less than $100, I got mine for $75 picked up about 20 minutes from my house.
| 10th gen FC Si OEM | F: 144lb | R: 208lb |
| 10th gen FK8 CTR OEM | F: 263lb | R: 235lb |
| 11th gen FE Si OEM | F: 155lb | R: 320lb |
| Swift Si | F: 229lb | R: 319lb |
| Swift CTR | F: 352lb | R: 414lb |
| Whiteline 10th gen | F: 253lb | R: 286lb |
| 8th gen FD2 CTR OEM | F: 294lb | R: 345lb |
| FK8 front + 11th gen Si rear | F: 263lb | R: 320lb |
Installing the front springs was a breeze, it can be done with hand tools, spring compressor, a jack, and jack stands. Took me about 2 hours from setup to clean up. A couple of notes on installation: The springs are coiled in opposite directions when you compare the left and rights springs, also the top and bottom of the springs are different, so they can only be installed one way. You need to use the spring compressors to remove the OEM Si springs, but you don't need to compress the OEM CTR springs to install them. The OEM CTR springs are heavier, have fatter coils, but are a bit shorter so you can get the top nut started before you encounter spring preload. Right now the front of the car is sitting about 1/4" higher with the CTR springs, but I think the springs will settle another 1/4-1/3" over next month or so, putting right back to stock ride height.
The car corners extremely flat now, and honestly very well controlled. I had some concern that upping the front spring rate so much would cause the front struts to be overwhelmed and be bouncy, but they dampen the rebound without issue. I would bet the struts being still new with only around 2500 miles on them helps. The turn in feels more responsive and hitting mid corner bumps doesn't really seem to upset the chassis a whole lot since we're keeping all the suspension travel in tact. Going over a speed bump or a bumpy road I could feel an imbalance where front springs felt much softer under compression than the rear. Now the car feels way more balanced in spring rate. Another thing I noticed right away was how much brake dive was reduced under really hard braking. The next things on my list are dialing in some front camber and a set of 245/40-18 summer tires with lightweight wheels.
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