Is this a bad idea? dangerous? difficult?

I am getting my springs anyday, and I want to install them. My shocks will be here a few weeks afterward.

 

Wait till you get the shocks and do it all at once. You will apreciate it in the end. The upgrade is not that difficult and you really cant mess up. It just takes a little help of a buddy and a few hours of your day. You need the right tools offcourse too. Basically you can do the whole thing with a sring compresser and some rachets.

 

that was the first mod i ever did. just make sure you get a manual and follow it. you should have no problem

 

everyone likes to tell me that installing springs/struts on our car is more difficult then other cars...any truth to that?????

 

Not at all. Most Macpherson struts are all the same. I've helped a few friends out and they are all basically the same. I dont think that our's are hard to change at all.

 

i'm just a bit worried about cutting the rears for hte koni inserts...do I need to do that up front too? oh well

 

only the part where you have to pull your back seat out and unbolt the big gland nut (for the rears) that makes it more difficult than other cars.

 

its really easy, requires taking back seat out and a bunch of screws. we (me james and his brother) did his springs ourselves and had no trouble other than it is annoying to have to remove the back seat. as long as you are somewhat mechanically inclined and not clumsy you should have no trouble at all but youll nedd hel it would be hard to manuever that crap by itself

 

to install coil springs yourself is asking for death... coil springs are under pressure.. what does this mean? it means that if you take a coil spring and aim it at 4 feet of concreat and relese it, the spring will go through it twice. if you slip when you are taking the spring off of the strut assembly, it will decapitate you. spent the $75 to get them installed correctly.

 

FYI, in most cases it costs 2 or 3 times that to get springs installed.

 

Ah, that's what spring compressors are for. Easily rented at any tool rental or parts store. Besides you will probably never get the new ones on w/o them anyway.

 

unless you are one strong ****...hehe

 

I'm doing it by myself so its taking a little while. the weather isn't helping any either. I found it a bit difficult to remove the gland packing on the rear, by my self it's not that easy to hold down the strut and remove that awkward bold with a pipe wrench. I'm putting in tokico/eiback combination and boy does it look sweeeeet! as you can see I'm very pleased.

 

any idiot would know to use spring compressors why pay someone whos probably dumber than you to install them big guy.

 

Uhhh, guys.. did you not hear he's installing Konis?
they're quite a bit more difficult than simply unbolting the front struts and replacing them with the Tokicos.
the rears are easy.. tear tham apart, stick the koni inserts in, screw them back together.
the fronts are a PIA because you actually have to cut the OEM struts.
full instructions are included with the Konis I believe.

read over those and see if you're comfotrable doing that type of work on your car. if you're not, take it to a shop that works on imports or other modded cars. a "regular" wheel/tire/suspension shop will most likely refuse to install the konis because it requires modifications to OEM equipment.

 

Thanks Matt, are the tokicos just bolt ons? or do they too require modification?

 

Tokico fronts are 100% bolt-on.

the rears are cartridges.. this is the same method for any brand:
just remove the rear strut, pull the spring off, loosen the gland packing nut (with a 2ft pipe wrench.. it's a ***** the first time)...
look inside the strut and you'll see a rubber o-ring around the top of the metal holding piece thingy.. pry that rubber ring out with a small screwdriver- don't worry about damaging it. it all goes into the trash. but if you don't remove that ring, tearing it down will be a PIA.
now pull out the old shafts and valving (dump all the oil you can first, then slowly pull out the shaft and dump the remaining oil, THEN take it apart)..

after everything is out, just slide the new cartridge back into the old strut, then fill the gap with the oil from your old struts.. then put the NEW glad packing nut on the thing and crank it down. replace spring.. reinstall..
takes about 5-10 minutes /strut if you don't stop to goof around.

 

So the Tokicos are like installing one set of the Koni? Tokico the front are bolt on, but rear are inserts; Koni front and rear require work?