Lowered my car - now there's rubbing

[Alpine]

Folks, need some advice. I lowered my '99 Civic Coupe by about 1.5 inches, still using stock shocks. The shocks have about 60,000km worth of mileage on them. Generally everything is OK but on the highway tonight I experienced some rubbing on high speed dips on the highway. Also when cornering left or right and there happens to be a pothole or dip in the corner. I have 17" rims on 205/40/R17 tyres. I was told by many people that rubbing wouldn't be a problem but yet I experience it in these conditions described above. How can I stop it? New shocks?

[bennjamin]

Its the suspension bottoming out so to speak - since on stock shocks , they cannot provide adequete rebound on the current springs...the width of your rims ( 6.5 or 7inches ) and 205 rubber is rubbing during conering too - but this is the price u pay for pushing a car past its designed limits.

I think you should invest in soem decent aftermarket shocks to take such a drop and decent after market springs too.

[Taxi-R]

welcome to the club =P

i'm lowered abt that much in the front and i got koni yellows and eibach prokits. but only my left side on the odd occassion lightly scrubs the insides when i'm turning and there's a pot hole or when i'm facing downhills and i chuck a uwee. even if u change ur shox, u may still rub, it just depends on how low u have it and yeah, how ur sussy setup holds up. slightly stiffer springs and stiffer shox should help.

[aznsiko]

guard rolling mayb an option..

[J-MuN]

alpine, my coupe is dumped on its ass.. cant even squeeze a finger between the guards but i dont get much rubbin.. i've still got the stock em1 rims but i also got D2 racing coilovers which definitely STIFFENS my ride... think bout changing your springs...

[rAySiR]

what springs u using alpine???

cuz when i had 17's, lowered 1.5 inch... but i lipped the gaurds.....
still had my stock shox, done about 100 *** kms plus... and it still went alright.... not much rubbing....

but yeah.... lipping the gaurd does wonders..... but i wouldn't mind getting better shox...

now i'm on oem vti-r rims..... no problems with rubbing....and even when i had 16x7 enkeis.... not a problem what so ever...

[Baopham]

did u get ur car properly balanced? that always helps... if not.. just get urself a nice pair of stiffer springs, ur shocks are fine.. there will always be rubbing, but this will minamize it

[Alpine]

The springs are Pedders SportsRyder springs (stage 1 drop). There's not alot of rubbing probably 95% of the time, it only happens if I am driving fairly fast and there happens to be a sharp dip in the highway or on a tight bend. As I've only had the car lowered for a week, I'm not too familiar if this is supposed to be normal with lowered cars or not (real newbie eh!).

[fusion_VTi]

sounds to me like its ur tyres rubbing on ur guards, have u had them lipped? my civic's dropped by 2 1/2" on 17" and i dont get any scrubbage even with full car + stereo

[HRV-80Y]

roll ur guards bro its like $40 each guard at a lot of places...

den put 18's on it = ]

[speedracr]

umm.. I don't agree with some of the above posts and I think they are leading you in the wrong direction.

What offset are your aftermarket wheels?

[Alpine]

I have no idea...but they are certainly quite flush with the edge of the guard....

[sesshoumaru]

i think the problem is your shocks arnt stiff enough.

rolling the guards might help, but just one word of warning, it can cause the paint on the wheel arch to crack... and if it's bad enough you'll need to respray the whole guard.

[Alpine]

I suspect you may be right about the shocks aren't stiff enough. Hell, it's only a 1 inch drop. Beats me how all you other people drop it by 2 or 3 inches on the stock shocks and claim there is absolutely no rubbing!

[LowEk]

something no one has said is there is a seam on the chasis in your wheel arch cut it about every inch or two and bash it all up all the way along i had probs with that cos i have 18's and coilovers and i have my car pretty low i still get the odd scrape now and then ive had my guards rolled they can only roll the rear guards as there is not much to roll on the front plus ive taken my inner plastic guard out and cut it so it only covers up the back of the front guard so i dont get rocks in my doors.
LowEK

[sivic]

get your shocks replaced as that will help. get koni yellows or KYB agx's so you can adjust the hardness. 17"s will start scrubbing on a civic so getting the gaurds rolled is a good idea, unless your rims are 7.5" wide, then it wont do shit.

[CivicCoupe]

On my coupe, I'm running a similar setup (ie 205/40 on 17's) although the only difference is that I dropped mine 2 inches. I haven't experience any sort of rubbing at all actually.. I'm on my stock shocks too.

However, on my old twincam rolla I dropped that 1.5 inches with king springs and I put 15's on it. It rubbed like crazy on sharp turns and sharp dips on the free way like you mentioned. The solution is what everyone has mentioned already, and that was to lip my guards. Never rubbed again ever after that. :thumbsup:

[CIV73C]

sounds to me like its ur tyres rubbing on ur guards, have u had them lipped? my civic's dropped by 2 1/2" on 17" and i dont get any scrubbage even with full car + stereo

FUSION VTI: did u get ur gaurds rolled at all!? or are u just sittin on super lows with 17z wif no rubs?

[speedracr]

umm hold on for a sec. The purpose of a shock absorber is to control a spring's oscillations. Springs keep the car suspended and are also primarily responsible for this 'stiffness' issue that people are talking about here. That is why springs are measured in kg/mm: the weight in kg required to make the spring deflect one mm, eg: 16kg/mm springs are stiffer than 6kg/mm springs.

I'm certain your problem is the wrong offset wheels. The offset is usually stamped on the back of the wheel. If it is 35 or in that ballpark, then that's the culprit. Since your rubbing is occasional, I'd hazard a guess that you have a 40 offset. Rims with an offset between 43-45 should solve the problem.

Can you give us more info tho; is it rubbing at the front or back or both?

[Alpine]

From what I could hear, it seems to be just the front.

[speedracr]

From what I could hear, it seems to be just the front.

Try removing the plastic screws that hold the splash guard on and 'tuck' the slash guard into the lip to hold it in place. It might just be rubbing on the plastic screws.

[fusion_VTi]

FUSION VTI: did u get ur gaurds rolled at all!? or are u just sittin on super lows with 17z wif no rubs?

yeh bro i had the rear guards rolled, think it cost me like $60

[Alpine]

Try removing the plastic screws that hold the splash guard on and 'tuck' the slash guard into the lip to hold it in place. It might just be rubbing on the plastic screws.

Thanks mate, I'll give it a try and report back after a few days. :thumbsup:

[civtec1]

go with the gaurd rolling dude as it is a cheep way to solve the problem. any local suspension place should be able to do this.

[ABZY]

dude, i wouldn't have a clue wots goin on there, i got a 96 civic 4 door, 17's 40/205 there fronts lowered bout 3-3.5" and the back about 4", there just sum dropzone adjustables off e-bay, still with standard shocks, the only prob i've had is the shocks bottoming out and when i had the front on the lowest setting the was sum rubbing on the outter gaurd.. i don't anna sound like i'm hi-jacking this thread but where is a good place in canberra to get guards roll, lipped etc... i know ozzy tyres can to it but sydney is to far away

[onabuzz]

serious i got a 97 hatch,, with 18x8 on them.... 2.5inch kingsprings i never get scrape.. oh and jus bought coil overs so if any one interested in my kingies let me know.

[BLu CiViC]

I had the same problem. I've got a 99 sedan 18x7.5 rims originally dropped on 1.5 pedders with stock shock. The reason why it scrubs in those situations is the pedders springs are soft they are only 10% stiffer than stock springs. Now m car is dropped 3.5 rear and 2.5 front on kmacs (30% spring rating) and it doesn't scrubb at all.

my advice is to change the springs. You can fit 17" under your civic without rolling the guards. I done it with 18"s.

[saboteur]

The Koni sports coilover kit is good, this is my car with about an inch from the bottom of the thread left:
http://www.ozhonda.com/gallery/showphoto.php?photo=652&sort=1&size=medium&cat=500

[Alpine]

my advice is to change the springs.

Great......the Pedders Sportsryder springs are only brand new too...and now it seems they are too soft hence why I could be getting the rubbing so to replace them seems like such a waste. What do I do??

[BLu CiViC]

I had the Pedders on for 2-3 months before i sold them for $150. Then I picked up a set of K-macs for $320.

The choice is up to you. The pedders are a comfortable ride. apart from scrubbing on dips at high speed, theres nothing wrong with them. But if you wanna go a bit lower and not scrub at high speeds, you will be sacrificing the comfort of the pedders, any other spring will give you a rough ride.

[onabuzz]

well u can buy my kingies if u want , they up for sale.. doin the job exceptionly 4 me ;)

[crazycivic]

put aftermarket shock