Synergy

Hey guys,

John over at Exact installed my HA's over the weekend for $180 bucks (what a bargain!!). The car was done in less than two hours and boy what a difference!!!

While I save up for wheels, the stock 17's will have to suffice. The car looks sooo much better dropped. I have about 2 fingers in front and about 1.5 in back.

I HATE wheel well gap so I needed to drop it about 2.5 - 3 inches with the 17's. I am rolling with the 5/5 setting and the ride is actually not bad at all, especially with the amount of drop.

The camber is kinda bad, but these are temp wheels so I am not sure if I am going to get it aligned. I don't drive far to work and there is no left/right pull whatsoever.

Here is a BEFORE shot (stock):


Here is an AFTER shot (TEIN HA):


Hers is another AFTER shot (TEIN HA)


Wow - what a difference a couple inches can make!

Synergy

Here is a BEFORE front wheel shot


Here is an AFTER front wheel shot ** PLEASE NOTE - I am ditching the painted red calipers ASAP - I am going black or grey so no comments please

Synergy

The camber is really the only unfortunate thing here - comes with the territory. These are temp wheels, so once I get the 19's or 20's I will make sure to bring it up a bit and get it aligned. Gotta love adjustable suspension, baby

C A M B E R - Can such camber be fixed at this height anyways?

rominl

iTrader: (4)

awesome pics man, i am sure i will get mine installed asap

yeah the rear camber is a bit bad huh? but that definitely motivates you to get new rims

Synergy

I hear that - I think I will need to raise it up a bit for 19's. I can live with the camber for now, 17" tires are alot cheaper than 19's or 10's

Thanks for the feedback! How far are you planning to drop your HA's rominl?

--

rominl

iTrader: (4)

IF everything goes well, it's this coming weekend. hopefully i won't have to stay back in the office @_@

ShowGSLuVv

it looks great man, but one thing What is Camber? and how much did the Teins cost u? if u dont mind me asking, thanks

ShOwGS

Synergy

The TEIN's were about $980 and then another $180 for installation. Camber is the inward slant that you notice when you drop a vehicle before alignment. Usually when the drop is less extreme you can have your alignment done to fix this. Camber kits can be installed which can usually help fix the tire wear issues.

I don't care that much because they are stock 17's that will be replaced in a few months anyway. Alignment also will help your handling capabilities.

rominl

iTrader: (4)

camber is one of the 3 parts that combined together as the whole alignment of a vehicle. if you look from the front of the car on the wheels, ideally they should be like this:

| |

however, if you lower your car, it will start taking the suspension out of spec, and eventually if you drop too much your wheels would be like this

/ \

in this car, your camber is affected. it's out of spec and specifically the above case is called negative camber.

if it's not very seriously, an alignment would be able to fix that. there is a little "arm" at the top of the suspension which people can adjust and try to get the camber back into spec. however, most likely it can't "extend" that much.

so in order to correct the problem, you wil need some aftermarket camber kits, which you would use to replace the stock ones and allow you to adjust the wheels back into the ideal position of | |

bad thing about negative camber is that it will give very uneven wear on the tires you running on, and effectively makes your tires die much faster. on stock tires or 4 season tires it's ok coz' it's not as expensive and it's usually "firmer". however if you get really good summer tires, you will cry after a while.

but negative camber COULD be good too. it actually helps handling a little bit, specially at hard cornering, coz' it allows the car to have more grips on the road. therefore this is when if you see videos of cars doing drift racing in japan, all the cars have quite serious negative camber.

ShowGSLuVv

Thank you guys for explaining that to me, like I was saying, they do look nice but how is the ride compared to L-tuned springs, beacuse the thing is I want to get my car lowered about 2 inch's and also have it handle good but without losing as much ride comfort since i will be upgrading to 19's, thanks

ShOwGS

Synergy

Show, I was exactly in your shoes a month ago before I ordered the HA's. I wanted to find a less-expensive solution and drop the car two inches. The problem is that there are NO two inch drop springs and if you cut or heat them the ride is real bad. There is no other solution other than purchasing coilovers, hence my HA decision.

The HA's dropped 2.5 - 3" still rides great. Not quite as good as the L-tuned but I have twice the drop which was my goal.

Good luck...

rominl

iTrader: (4)

well, from what i heard (and nice info from manary), even with the softest setting on the HA it's stiffer than the l-tuned, so if you want the same ride quality but with some 2 inches drop, get the Flex.

and to me, you can never achieve what coilover can get you. they (springs and shocks) are designed together, all the settings are specially designed, how can you beat that

Manaray

ShowGS, you might want to contact Tein USA (www.tein.com) and find out exactly how low the CS can go. That is the softest coilovers they have.

Also, the HKS LS are pretty soft and ride smoothly....again, contact HKS (www.hksusa.com) to see if they can go as low as you want.

I know for SURE that the Tein FLEX can do a 2" drop...as a matter of fact, I can probably drop it so low that my wheels would hit the inner fender or my car would be sitting on the body kit...

However, the ride on the FLEX is stiffer than on CS....

ShowGSLuVv

Thanks alot everyone for the help and the information.

ShOwGS

Synergy

I know the HA's can get you down 4". The best thing to do is take a test drive w/ someone that has a viable option. Rominl and myself had an awesome road test with redgs4 who has the HA's and we were sold in about 5 minutes. I have had many dropped vehciles from BMW's to Hondas and no matter what anyone tells you, the HA's ride very nice.

Granted my car is on 17's, but I am dropped 3" and on setting 5/5 and the car rides awesome. I rode in redgs4's car and he is on 18's and dropped about 2" and the car rode great.

The beautiful thing about the TEIN coilovers is that you can adjust the firmness. The HA coilover is versitile, yet afforable and about $400 less than FLEX.

If money was growing on tree's for me then FLEX would be the solution. However, $400 to me is a chunk of $$ towards exhaust or some other mod and I am very happy with the result.