June 7th, 2015 - "Strut"-ing my stuff / Tein Street Advance installation on Project Mugen PRO.2 CR-X

June 7th, 2015 - "Strut"-ing my stuff / Tein Street Advance install on Project PRO.2 CR-X

Photo by Khato, CRX Community

I've been working on the suspension for the CR-X for the past couple weeks or so. I haven't been going at it hardcore or anything, just an hour or so here and there or the odd 15-20mins every so often... So far I've got the front struts removed from the car and got myself a little stuck at the brake line brackets. I found surprisingly little worthwhile information for something so widely modified as suspension when performing online searches. The results I found show that some people zip tie the brake lines to make it kinda work, while others have been able to remove the brake line bracket ring assembly from the OEM struts with relative ease.

Brake Hose Brackets Welded To KYB Struts

I was not so fortunate as my struts were  aftermarket. They were also welded to the body of the strut. Spent a few hours and drained my Dremel's battery 3 times before I gave up trying to remove them. I ended up taking them to a friend who is a Tech at a Toyota store here in Calgary. He said they were quite the deal to remove, but with the right tools at his disposal it only took him about 10-15mins. Not something he'd want to try in his own garage at home.

With my skills validated (in that it wasn't just 'me' who had difficulty removing the brackets), I proceeded to try and fit them to the strut. They seemed way too tight to fit and will likely require grinding. I measured both struts and they are the same, but alas, they just. won't. fit..... After grinding, which I've still yet to do, I thought it'd be best to take them in to be powder coated to keep corrosion at bay. I was quoted a very reasonable $20/pr for the job.

Brake Hose Brackets Removed

Before grinding, I wanted to check with Google one more time, as I'd never heard of folks having these kinds of issues in the past. I've never seen anyone selling the brackets, had never stumbled across any how-to's or threads asking for help with this... I mean, what was supposed to be a 2 weekend job MAX is stretching out to almost a month or more with all the scheduling I've had to arrange.

OEM Brake Hose Brackets on Tein suspension

Sure enough, after changing some of my search terms around I now found a plethora of information... most people state that the OEM brackets slip right on (and off too!) without issue. The aftermarket seem to be what gives the most issues... and they are almost always welded to the strut body. So, off to find some brackets or, at worst, some OEM struts. Easier said than done.

Struts are discontinued from Honda Canada, virtually impossible to find on eBay or on the forums. I've resorted to posting on Facebook groups and searching online auctions overseas. There were some rusted out crappy-looking Tein HAs at auction in Japan that even the seller admitted were "junk", but even an offer of 50% of his ask for the set, I couldn't get him to part with just the brackets. Even after his auction ended with zero bids... Nothing. I do have a line on some brackets via Facebook, but the guy who has them isn't certain his suspension has the brackets and he said he'd check when he is back in town next week. If this doesn't pan out, I suppose I will zip tie them and keep my eyes peeled and keep trying.

Installing Rear Suspension

The rear suspension went a little better than expected. The brackets for my modified rear upper strut bar weren't nearly as difficult to work around as my memory recalled. I'm going to forgo using the bar until after the struts/springs are set up and I've made a final decision on whether the hassle of getting the bracket installed is worth the advantages in stability and rigidity over the open hatch configuration. Installing the struts occurred without incident. Whole process took ~4hrs with lots of breaks (I was on-call for work and had to periodically stop working to address issues as they arose).

Note the modified Rear Upper Strut Brace Bracket.

Tein Street Advance

The struts themselves look a lot shorter than the KYBs, so it will be very interesting to see the ride height difference at maximum height, which is what I've set up to start with.

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.