July 4th, 2015 - Moving Up In The World: Raising The Ride Height Of Project PRO.2 CR-X

July 4th, 2015 - Moving Up In The World: Raising The Ride Height Of Project PRO.2 CR-X


Struggling to wrap my head around how basically compressing the springs was supposed to raise my CR-X, I hit the Internet to try and get some answers...

I'm old enough to remember the days of kids in my high school cutting their coil springs to lower their cars when aftermarket kits were either unavailable or too expensive. I'd heard of a couple people compressing coils together to lower their cars. People bought "lowering springs" all the time in the infancy of the sport compact scene before coil-overs became "standard issue". This would of course cause the strut to be in a permanently compressed state and reduce travel but your car would be lower. So, when I slapped the OEM top hats on an unloaded Tein strut I expected the ride height to be at the maximum height because the spring wasn't compressed. This theory was further confirmed by videos and articles on the web showing that other coil-overs had a threaded tube inside the strut body that could be turned to lengthen or shorten the struts to raise/lower the car.

Front Strut Adjusted For Greater Ride Height

So when I noticed that the Tein Street Advance didn't have the adjustable strut body, it left me wondering how this was supposed to work...? If by threading the spring seat upwards, it will only serve to compress the spring, thereby lowering the car and reducing travel of the strut rod. I put 0 pre-load on the struts when installing the top hats - the strut rod should have been fully extended - so that wouldn't make the struts any longer. But thread after thread, in Miata forums and Nissan forums etc etc, they all said the same thing... It goes against what you may think but you compress the spring to raise, and relax to lower.



Maybe I'm just dumb, but I still don't quite get it... Despite feeling like I'm missing the important piece to a puzzle, I decided to dive right in and do it anyway. What choice did I have?

And guess what? It worked!

I used a caliper and measured with the lock ring at the base, and went with a 15mm (1.5cm / ~1/2") raise on all four corners. When I lowered the car off the jack stands, it sat noticeably higher. The front wheels are exactly where I wanted them height-wise, but the back will still need a bit of tweaking. The right rear corner, which was the most awkward to get at because of the exhaust hanger, is sitting almost 1/2" lower than the other side. According to the forums, this was perfectly normal, as I'd suspected, but I decided to verify that the height adjustment was correct - and it was bang-on where the other side was. I ended up raising it another 12mm for a total of a 27mm (2.7cm / ~1") raise in ride height... Now it sits a little closer (visually) to the other side.

Left: 15mm (locking ring not engaged - Right: 27mm (locking ring engaged)

I may end up taking it in to have it corner balanced and adjusted properly when I have the alignment redone, but for now, this should work to get me there without a tow, at least.



Next up... Exhaust

Ride Height Increased - Front Is Where I Want It

Ride Height Increased - Rear Needs Still Needs A Bit Of Tweaking

Remember, this blog was written in chronological order so, you will need to click OLDER POSTS to move forward in time, and click NEWER POSTS to go backwards.