Should I get coilovers or springs?


Short answer:
If you're asking this question, you probably dont need "coilovers" and will be wasting your money and should buy a good set of Eibach Pro-kits or any other quality kit.

  • What does coilover mean?
  • What does an adjustable spring kit do?
  • Should I get Ground Control or Skunk2?
  • Are coilovers going to make my ride bouncy?
  • What spring rates should I get?
  • How do I tell what my spring rates are?
  • What length/diameter springs do I order?
  • Which springs go up front?
  • What about "true" coilovers?


    What does coilover mean?
    The term coilover describes a suspension design where a coil spring is placed around the shock absorber. In fact, your Honda probably already has coilovers as stock! Coilover design is used as opposed to leaf springs on trucks, torsion bars (like 1st gen CRX and Integra), and torsion beams (like VW rear axles where the coil spring is placed separately from the shock to allow more interior space). Kits from Ground Control and Skunk2 are often loosely called "coilovers" and is wrong. They are more appropriately called "adjustable spring" kits, and can be used to convert originally non-coilover suspension to coilover suspension (trucks do this all the time). These kits are mainly for those who wish to customize their suspension because of the adjustability that these kits offer.

    What does an adjustable spring kit do?
    An adjustable spring kit provides adjustability in ride height by raising/lowering the height of the lower spring perch around a threaded sleeve mounted over the shock tube. Doing so does NOT change the spring rate (of a linear spring), NOR preload unless youve raised the perch past the point the spring is tight at full droop. The other main benefit of getting an adjustable spring kit is being able to choose your own spring rates according to the spring and easily swapping springs of different spring rates for tuning.

    Should I get Ground Control or Skunk2?
    Personally, I believe of the two products mentioned, only the Ground Control is worth buying, or at least worth the little more it costs over the Skunk2 kit. The Skunk2 kit uses two lock nuts to adjust the perch and from motorcycle shock experience its a bitch to adjust and doesnt always lock properly. Also, I dont know where Skunk2 gets their springs from, I know they are NOT Eibach or Hypercoils, two of the best consumer spring producers. Ground Control uses a simple cap screw to lock the adjustable perch and uses Eibach Race Springs (ERS) and is the only west coast distributor if ERS.

    I hope it goes without saying the quality of Ebay "coilover" kits are worthless. My guess is that since the threaded sleeve is compatible with many different cars, they offer the same cheap springs and springrates for all car which means you get the same spring rates for your CRX as the owner of a bigass Accord, where there is no room for compromise and you will likely regret ever wasting your money. GC offers different customized threaded sleeves for each car (and different shocks, such as Koni) to insure the proper range of height adjustment, another plus for GC.

    Are coilovers going to make my ride stiff or bouncy?
    As mentioned above, the function of an adjustable spring kit is to adjust ride height, which is totally independent of "stiffness". What determines how stiff the suspension is the spring rate. These aftermarket kits more than likely come with significantly larger spring rates. This value along with the performance of the shock damper determine the actual ride quality. Bad or underperforming shocks will make the ride "bouncy". When ordering the GC kit and you do not specifically order custom spring rates, for the integra they give 380f/250r lbs/ft, and civic/CRX 350f/250r lbs/ft. Compare this to an OEM rate of about 250f/150r. I would characterize the change as very stiff and stiffer than most aftermarket street kits, but can still be considered driveable with good shocks, but not to all driver's opinion. Skunk2 will give 450f/336r for the integra and civic/crx. So if you do order an adjustable spring kit, you have the freedom to determine your own spring rates, choose appropriately for your application.

    In comparison, Eibach Prokits give a rate of 331f/126-194r, their Sportlines are 460f/174-257r. I mention this to show you can get equivelent spring rates with regular spring kits. Here is a link to a good list of spring rates for the integra. SPRING RATE TABLE

    Lastly, additional problems of lowering your car too low will cause a harsh ride due to bottoming out of the shock or suspension arms. Be careful of this. Bottoming out the shock destroys the internals (thats why the bumpstops are there, but dont rely on them if you are constantly hitting or "riding" them). Bottoming out the suspension arms or hitting the top of the fender starts bending stuff, which is not good.

    What spring rates should I get?
    This is a completely open question. Quite frankly, if you're blindly asking this question, you probably dont need custom rates and brings us back to the original question, "Should I get coilovers or springs?" and you probably would be better off with one of the many street kits from Eibach, Neuspeed or H&R, or just get the preset vehicle specific kit from GC. The reason I say this is because there is such a wide variety of street kits with varying stiffness and ride heights that will still perform very well on autox and even be enjoyable around the track, and remain a fair margin of safety required for driving on the street. Typically, most adjustable spring kit owners rarely, almost never based on my survey, adjust their ride heights after initially setting it and buying such a kit would be a waste of money. Furthermore, allowing more adjustment simply allows more ways of setting your suspension WRONG for your application.

    Having said that, and you are still convinced you require custom spring rates, first define your application. What type of driving will your car MAINLY be doing and NOT just "occasionally"? (i.e. street, autox, open track, road race, rally) Then do your own RESEARCH (key is "search") to other recommended setups. Only YOU can determine what is a good spring rate for your application, and then try it. The good thing about the GC setup is you can swap out springs and try another combo. For many autoxers of FWD Hondas, stiffening up the rear relative to the front reduces some of the understeer inherent in FWD cars and helps rotate the car. 400f/600r (along with an aftermarket rear swaybar) seems popular among Integra drivers but is very stiff for street use and requires high quality shocks. Competitive road racing setups can go up to 450f/900r or 600f/800r, even 1200, but is completely NOT recommended for driving on the street, for comfort and safety and suspension/hardware reliability and lifetime, and is not needed except for competition.

    Currently on my CRX I am running a hybrid setup using the front springs from my Eibach Pro Kit which I believe is rated to be 331 lbs/inch and is linear, with a very streetable and aesthetic wheel gap which sets the wheel concentric to the wheel well (old pic with EPK springs installed), and my old competition 450 GC/ERS springs front springs to the rear and set the ride height to match the front, giving me 331f/450r with a 22mm rear swaybar and stock front bar. I find this setup to be tolerable on the street (perhaps driving on 450f/900r really defined "stiff" to me) and good ride height (I never scraped with the full Eibach Pro Kit spring kit, and still dont). The performance on track during an open test day was pretty much up to par with my old setup with no complaints of unnecessary understeer, eventho I wasnt driving at race speeds. I'm looking forward to testing this setup during autox, which my old setup failed miserably in with too much oversteer.

    How do I tell what my spring rates are?
    Ground Control sells Eibach Race Springs (ERS) which are labelled by 3 different values in the following convention: length . diameter . spring rate. However, ERS will come labelled in either Metric (mm.mm.N/m) or English (inchx100.inchx100.lbs/inch) units. 180.64.61 is the same thing as 700.250.350. The conversion from Metric to English is (/.254, /.254, x5.7) "/" means "divide by", "x" means "multiply by".

    If you ordered a Ground Control kit without specifying custom rates, they will choose an appropriate spring rate for your vehicle. For the CRX, it is 350f/250r.

    What length/diameter springs do I order?
    For Honda applications, you need 2.5" diameter springs. Spring length is usually either 7 or 8". There is a much wider choice of spring rates in 8", however 7" allows you to set the ride height lower. But unless you have specially shortened shocks, ride height set low enough requiring 7" springs will be unpractical for good driving as you'd bottom out your shocks anyway.

    Which springs go up front?
    First, learn how to read the spring rate from your springs. One pair will be stiffer (greater spring rate) than the other. GC normally designs their spring kits so that the front is stiffer. You can follow that, but ERS(springs) are interchangeable. So you CAN put the stiffer in the rear, it will alter the suspension by basically making the rear stiffer, which makes the car less understeer, which is generally more desirable for better handling performance. However, it *makes the rear stiffer*, and you will feel the difference since FWD cars have the center of gravity more towards the front, so the rear wheels rotate further from the CG than the fronts, thus are more sensitive to bouncing motion. Its up to you. I suggest you just follow what GC recommends, but if you are so inclined, cautiously try to swap them and see what you prefer.

    What about "true" coilovers?
    The term "true" coilover is a result of the general misnaming of coilovers mentioned above. There is nothing more "true" about these suspension parts. "True" coilovers refers to what is correctly described as integrated threaded body shocks and adjustable lower perch that usually come with the spring. A more proper term should be "full coilover". Typically (not always) these shocks are of better quality than off the shelf shocks like Koni and Tokico and provide more adjustability in shock settings (such as separate ride height adjustment which allows the car to be lowered without sacrificing shock travel). However, you can buy just as high quality shocks with the same adjustability as well from other reputable manufacturers that can be custom valved for your application (and knowledgeable advice in English...) And with adjustable spring perch kits from GC and custom spring rates, it doesnt necessarily make full coilovers any better in equal comparison. What you are generally paying for when buying full coilover kits is a turnkey solution (but not necessarily optimum) with both shocks and springs for your car. Also, keep in mind that most autocrossers and road racers who dont use full coilovers are usually limited to their class rules that dont allow threaded body shocks or remote reservoir shocks and are limited to the number of shock adjustability settings - not just their pocketbooks.











    The purpose of this FAQ is to provide a centralized source of information to common questions frequently asked that provides a comprehensive answer that may not be given for each time a question is answered. I just wanted a place to brain dump my knowledge. All information in this FAQ is a product of my own thoughts and shall be regarded as my own opinion, unless otherwise noted. Take it for what its worth. I do not pretend to be an authority and am open for correction and input.