91' NM ghetto cruiser wagon
oilspot
Wagonist
Just got the coilovers/ extended tophats in it yesterday.
oilspot
Wagonist
Comments
I did 1 1/4" tophats in the front and 2" in the rear. Really easy to make!
Had to run some errands earlier. If I leave the car that low I think I'm gonna tear of one of the front mudflaps off pretty quick. Just bringing the roll center down on the car makes it behave so much better in the corners. Now I wanna build a bigger motor!
Here ya go
Modded top hat.
No no... I believe this is actually a tophat!
snark snark
do you have to cut up your strut? or what?
every link ive found has dead pics on the thread.
if i had someone show me how to make these things, my roomate works at a metal piping shop, and he could make as many as i wanted, very cheap.
any simple instructions, with pics???
Take the tophat off the top of the assembled strut/ spring assembly. Knock the two studs out (use a brass hammer, just to make sure you don't chew up the threads).
Put the tophat in a vice. Cut the top hat with a sawzall. Cut a piece of pipe to the desired length. Weld that piece in, paint, and your done.
I used 1 7/8" exhaust tubing. It's big enough for all the washers and spacers to fit up inside. If you use a bigger diameter you'll need to make the bottom weld on the inside of the tophat. If you don't you may have troubles with the weld not letting the tophat sit flush in the car when you go to bolt everything together.
Oh yeah... go ahead and use a hammer and put the studs back in as soon as your done welding. The hole is expanded due to the heat produced by welding, they pretty much just ploop right into place with a few light taps.
so you need the top of the strut. i couldnt just make a bunch of these without the tops of the struts.
so im just sawing off the top, and adding a length of tubing, then welding the top back on it?
thats all! All it does is raise your strut out of the bottom of it's travel. People put low springs on stock struts. The struts blow out and leave the car so it's just bouncing on the springs. Even a top of the line strut isn't designed to work best in the bottom of its stroke.
Yeah it is too easy. I though making the cut striaight with the sawzall would be a little bit of a challenge... not at all. The blade just butts up against the bottom part and cuts everything nice and straight.
Yeah, I've been driving nothing but busses for about the last 15yrs. The wagon Is me hitting my breaking point.... needing a/c, heat, and things of the sorts.
makes perfect sense!
i have Koni adjustibles, and GC sleeves on my wagon, and i HATE the way it rides. you would think for as much as this shit cost, it would ride better...
but now i know why! im gonna do this mod ASAP!! thanks!!
*waves*
nice wago!
I can't see any reason that with the tophats, that my og struts would fail prematurly due to the lowering job. The springs are a little tighter, so I would think that that would make the strut have to do less work. I would think that that would equal longer life for the struts.
Of course.... this is all theoretical for me at this point. Like I said... I'm new to this honda thing. Of course when it comes to performance suspension, I have no idea what the hell I'm talking about
please excuse the bad "paint" drawing!
The drawing on the far right is what the internals of your strut looks like when sitting on lower springs. On the far left shows what happens when you raise the upper mounting point of the strut (via a taller tophat). The internals have someplace to go!
disregard the middle drawing. It was a brainfart. I was trying to figure out why you couldn't just use a spacer on the top of the stock tophat. Reason I figured out is that there was nothing holding the strut rod from raising out the tophat, and punching thorough the hood :shock: .
http://www.honda-tech.com/zerothread?id ... d=35578283
so basically u can use ur lowering spring on ur shoxs with out hitting the bumpstop or bottom out
but wat would happen if u extend ur top hat take the stock 85, 88, 91 springs with aftermarket shoxs and install withe a little bit more tension on ur already tensile weakend springs can u lower ur car and be stiff
but if you use your stock spring, there's no way it will lower your wagon.
and if the aftermarket shock has a shorter shaft (shorter overall), it won't reach the top of the shock tower.
if you compress your stock spring like crazy, so the shock can reach, you won't have any spring compression/movement.
can i use the same year 85 civic sedan coilovers on my wagon
Looks like I'm about to pick up a sweet deal on another rt4wd wagon. In as nice a shape, bodys probably even nicer than mine. Probably need to wait till after the holiday to go check it out though...
Update on my red one. I've got the b18 torn down, blocks at the machine shop. Going to rebuild it pretty much stock, just better head and rod bolts. After I get it broken in I'm planning to boost it.
Love it how low it sits, but may have to lift it up 1/4" or so. Don't really mind when I scrape the flaps, but when the bottom of the car smacks the ground it really sucks!
And when I bought the wagon a few months ago I bought it as a car not to mess with... just drive it. what the hells wrong with me?