One of the most under-developed (but not for long) places on my car is the suspension. I know that the purpose the Honda Prelude in the hands of enthusiasts isn't to make a drag car out of it, it is to make a track car out of it. After all, we are known for our excellent handling and so on. The suspension modifications I did came from a need to want to make the car better in the twisties while also getting people off my back about how my car was never lowered before. Even with my old Accord, wheel gap was prominent, but I felt safer in that regard that I still had a cushy ride. So I did my research on coilover kits. After reading articles that described Koni/Ground Control Coilovers to be the best of the best out there, I still didn't want the hassle of assembling the two together and using whatever OEM top piece you have to to put the two together. I just wanted a full coilover that would be a bolt-in-place affair. Now let the attacking comments begin...
So after choosing between my top 3 choices were within the $1,000 price range (Tein, D2 and KSport) I chose the KSport simply because there was more literature done on them and all of their customers were documenting the install and everything. And I couldn't find anybody with D2s to ask them about. The KSport Koilovers are a monotube shock design with front spring rates of 9kg/mm and rear spring rates of 6kg/mm. They were 36 way adjustable, but i doubted I would ever fully use that adjustability.
My car suffered an upper ball joint blow out in early February 2008, so I took the three suspension pieces I had waiting for me and decided that was the time to put them on, along with my wilwood brake kit.
But I'll go one piece at a time...
The coilover kit went on in a snap. Overall driving impressions after that are a much stiffer ride that you can feel every bump. Body roll is really insignificant it feels and it's not hard to rotate the car being so stiff. Understeer is cut down alot I can tell. If you want a cushy ride, do not choose this kit, because its going to be very violent going over holes in the road or even speedbumps. The adjustability allows you to lower your car however much you want, but I chose to keep a bit of wheel gap in between a moderate amount due to the fact double wishbone suspension don't take kindly to cars that are lowered. I heard that a couple of customers have had a problem with their shocks inside the coilover leaking within a year, but I have had mine on here for 8 months with no problems.
Pretty good
When you lower a car, I believe that you better have the ability to adjust your camber. Case and point, my sisters car has some Koni shocks with Ground Control Coilovers and no adjustable ball joints, that's how she bought it. But one day when I was trying to raise her car up, I took off the wheel and noticed the insides worn down to the cords while the outsides were halfway worn. Even with those fancy tires out there that are made for lowered cars, i still wouldn't take the chance of not being able to adjust the camber.
So I popped in a set of Ingalls "camber kit" (but really they're ball joints you press in). Remember, Honda does not recommend you should ever press in a ball joint, adjustable or not, and some alignment shops will tell you that, so make sure to find a place that will do it first. Luckily I found one and they also spray painted the A Arm black again to give it a nice new effect. Just make sure if you do this, everytime you get your car aligned, tell them you have adjustable ball joints because they will simply tell you that your camber is "okay" and leave it at that. This way they will now correct it.
I also heard ball joints will wear out prematurely too if pressed in, but once again, I've had these for 8 months without any complaints.
The next suspension upgrade I got were the Megan Racing Rear Toe Arms. When I bought them I had absolutely no idea where they went or what they did. I did not yet understand what toe was. But when I got them in, the shop I took them to showed me where they went and I kind of wondered why I should've bought them in the first place. There were no differences between these arms and the stock arms except the pretty blue paint and $100 some dollars out of my pocket. I would not recommend these unless you are into undercarriage bling, because I dare to say that they have performed a little worse than the OEM ones did... For some reason my rear toe doesn't alway stay in place and I have to get an alignment every 3 to 4 months. I can't specifically blame it on these, but they could be a large part of the problem.
The C Pillar Bar by EM Racing is the last suspension upgrade I've done on my car. I read all there is to read about these and everyones opinion on if they work or not, but to be honest, I have felt no noticable difference. I will testify to its wonderful quality and fitment as well as very straightforward and easy installation. But they might not do anything for your handling. For $135 and shipping, this is a pretty big bling factor that weighs less than an tee-ball aluminum baseball bat. Together with the Sparco Harness Bar (which also might add a touch of rigidity) I've done all I can to tie both sides of the car together without going for a roll cage. The backseat is now no longer useable so you can cut the seatbelts out like I did haha!
If you're looking for the Wilwood Big Brake Kit for the Prelude like I have, you might have to search extra hard. I bought mine off of an Ebay company that will custom make the kits to put a caliper you want on a certain size rotor. If you look up a 13" rotor Wilwood big brake kit in their catalog, you won't find it, you'll find a 12.1" rotor kit. This could be the reason why I have such a large area that has surface rust on it, because the caliper wasn't designed to cover the width of a 13" rotor. A couple things I noticed about the Big Brake Kit. The first one is that you're going to lose AntiLock Brakes. Most people say that a track car doesn't need them, but after using the ABS a couple of times in the past, I think that it is very missed because I've alredy locked up the wheels two or three times and "squared" the tires without even trying. And you'll know when you do that because the smell of a drag racing track will come wafting in through your windows as soon as you do. The added weight of the rotor almost certainly affects your acceleration as well. I need to find a 2 piece rotor, one with an aluminum hat, to keep the weight down and to reduce that ugly rust area on the car.
The BBK kit also means you have to be picky about the wheels you get. Do not get this unless either you have enough money to buy a new set of wheels or if you have wheels with really thick spokes that go inward (like my enkei rsv's) I'll give you an example
Good wheel choice
Bad wheel choice
Double Stacked H&R Spacers
Don't pick a wheel with a thick fat spoke because you'll be buying spacers for sure, which will come with a hefty price tag and then a heftier one for buying longer length wheel studs and paying for their installation. And when you're all done with that, you might have to buy new wheel lug nuts. The total cost for just the front wheels and doing all that could run you over $600 no joke. But the Wilwoods do give you a large selection of brake pads to choose from for the kind of driving you do. This automatically makes them champs over similar Honda/Acura multi-piston calipers like the RL or TL (as I've seen a couple of conversions).
In June of 2006, I had enough money set aside to purchase some new brake rotors for my badly worn factory ones. I read online where drilled rotors had no real purpose because they only weakened the rotor, so I found a company called EBC (makers of the famous red and green pads) who also made a slotted and dimpled rotor. I liked the look of it, so I bought it. EBC did not make a rear rotor, so I turned to powerslot a couple weeks later for their slotted and dimpled version and paid extra to get it cryogenically dipped (adding strength and longevity to the rotor). The rears are still with me today but I found both front and rear rotors to be well worth the money.
EBC slotted and dimpled front rotors. Notice the slots having a non-straight line. I don't know if these helped any or not.
Powerslot slotted and dimpled rear rotors
In July of 2006, I bought a set of 4 Techna Fit Brake lines to go with my EBC front brakes and Powerslot rear brakes. They front's were replaced with Wilwoods braided stainless steel lines in February of 2008, leaving only the rear brakes with those lines, but the rear passenger hose got a hole in it in October 2008 and it was very upsetting that something I viewed as so tough would fail. I do not recommend these lines for the long haul and the problem seemed to have come out of nowhere. I believe stainless steel lines should hold up better than that...
Beware of these brake lines...
The H&R Spacers listed above come with not only the spacers, but wheel studs as well. After holding these up side by side with the ARP and stock wheel studs, they have a little more length than the stock wheel studs, but you're going to have to get the ARP ones (plus what name is more proven to work than ARP?)
You can tell the length difference
Also, here are the new lugnuts
My wheels were a choice I made back in June of 2007. At the time, i just knew I liked the style first, and color second. I think gold and bronze rims are absolutely the best choice to go with a white car with white rims being in second place. It's just like seeing a pretty girl wearing tasteful jewelry, so I asked my car to marry me and gave it some tasteful jewelry, haha.
But for real, the Enkei RSV's have treated me well. They've taken some big pothole hits, never got road rash (yet) and haven't bent. But they're a heavy wheel. Every bit as heavy as a stock 16" SH rim. There are better choices out there for wheels if you wanna race in them, but this wouldn't be it in my opinion. Mine are 17"x7" and I do not remember the offset. Before my big brake kit, they looked excellent as well. But the real meat of any wheel is the tire (get it?) and the meats I've had on mine for the past 15,000 miles have been the BFGoodrich TA/KDW GForce. They have been a remarkable tire so far simply because of their tread life versus stickiness. I believe the tire is very sticky with little wheel slip. The tires grip hard but have a rather flimsy sidewall in my opinion. This may be because I got the 215/40/r17 tires and maybe if I had bumped it up to a 215/45 I would have a stiffer sidewall. In rainy conditions they are still surprisingly excellent too. I am going to probably get another 5,000 miles out of them before I try some Falken R615's and then I'll do a review on those. But if you're looking for a tire that has a tread that'll get you noticed on and off the track, look no more than these.
