Lucky for you if you own a 5th or 6th generation Civic. They come with double wishbone suspension front and back, a far more sophisticated suspension system than any car in the same price range. The double wishbone design gives an excellent starting point for a first class handler and the aftermarket has the pieces to allow you to reach the pinnacle.

Lowering Springs

You know you want some lowering springs for your Civic because there is no doubt about, lowered cars look bad ass, with those wheels all tucked-up in the fenders.

If you are going to lower your car though, you have got to do it the right way. Don't take the shortcut of cutting the springs. This method is real ghetto and real unpredictable. You will probably end-up having to buy lowering springs anyway so you better just save yourself some time. Besides, with the prices we can get for you on carparts.com, you have got to be really broke not to be able to afford them.

Properly designed lowering spring have carefully chosen spring rates to work well with the weight distribution of your car, while offering good ride quality as well. The stiffer springs and the lower centre of gravity will give more responsive handling as well as an increase in ultimate grip.

You can't go wrong with Eibach springs. Eibach is known worldwide for its line off springs for road cars as well as racing cars. Over the past decades, vehicles equipped with Eibach springs have won countless motorsports championships in racing series ranging from World Rally to Formula 1. The lists of winning teams include AMG, Audi, BMW, Ferrari, Ford, Honda, Lamborghini, Lola, McLaren/Mercedes, MOMO, Porsche, Toyota and numerous others. Take a look at their website for more info. here.

For the Civics, Eibach offer two spring kits worth looking into. The Sportline,the Pro Kit and the Race Spring. The Race Spring is the one we like as it drops the car by 2". The Carparts Homepage has got them for $261.56 for a set of four. The Sportline and Pro Kit spring kits are cheaper but they probably won't give you the slammed look you want.

Shocks

In the viscous cycle that is car modification, once you put lowering springs on your car you really should replace the shocks as well with performance aftermaket versions which are up to the task of managing those stiffer springs. The stock shocks are not up to the task and your car will bounce all about the place and feel out of control.

While you are at it you might as well get some adjustable shocks that allow you to adjust the damping rate. This will allow you to fine tune your shocks to match your springs and give the ride quality you are looking for.

We have had experience with Koni Sport adjustable shocks on a 6G Civic and highly recommend them. The compression rate is significantly stiffer than stock and the adjustable rebound rate on the softest setting is also much stiffer than stock. The adjustment range allows for a 100% increase in stiffness from the softest setting the stiffest. The spring perch height is adjustable too (in steps), so you can drop the front of the car a little extra for a meaner look or drop the car lower than the springs will allow. It might be an idea to buy one of the cheaper Eibach kits that don't drop the car so much as the race kit and use the adjustable perch to drop it to the height you want.

The adjustment is really easy to do. They adjust form the top of the shaft where it enters into the engine bay/trunk and come with a little adjustment knob that you stick over the shaft and turn to increase stiffness.

Click here to read more about Koni shocks on their website.

Carparts.com carries the Koni shocks for Civics starting at $152.81 each. Remember to use the coupons to discount this price even more.

For those of you that have deep pockets and want the ultimate, Koni have an adjustable threaded coil over suspension kit for the Civics. The kits include four KONI Sport valved shocks featuring threaded adjustable lower spring perches and progressive rate lowering springs designed for performance street driving. Threaded coil over suspensions not only allow you to individualize the ride height. You can slam the car for shows, night cruises and track days and then raise it for driving to work.

The Carparts Homepage has them for Civics starting at $1021.65.

Tie Bars

Tie bars are a must for improved handling for all cars from stock street cars to all-out competition. Tie bar takes the roll and twist in the sheet-metal tub frame of your Civic- an inherently weak spot.

Tie bars will improve the handling of your car by helping to keep the suspension geometry where it should be when the chassis is placed under extreme cornering loads. The tie bars also provide quicker feed back to the driver of what the car is doing and will make the steering quicker and more responsive to your touch.

Tie bars are available to reinforce the upper parts of the front suspension and the upper and lower parts of the rear suspension for your car. We recommend the tie bars manufactured by DC Sports as well as those manufactured by Neuspeed. Both are of very high quality either brand will be a great addition to your car. If your tastes go towards the show car side of things, definitely go for the DC tie bars as they look really flashy with their CNC machined construction and anodized colors. The Neuspeed bars are for those who want the purposeful, no nonsense race look.

Look here for more information on the DC Sports stuff and here for more information on the Neuspeed stuff.

The Carparts Homepage has the following great prices on the DC & Neuspeed bars:

	DC Sports	Neuspeed
Front Upper Bar	starting from $164.12	starting from $98.96
Rear Upper Bar	starting from $162.99	starting from $206.21
Rear Lower Bar	starting from $121.99	starting from $74.21

Sway Bars

Sway bars (also called anti-roll bars) are designed to limit the amount of roll that your car experiences when going through a corner, to increase the cornering grip. Sway bars can also be used to affect the handling bias of the car. By putting on a stiffer rear sway bar, a front wheel drive car like the Civic will tend to handle more neutrally when going through corners, rather than pushing wide.

Unless your Civic is a new Si, it will only come with a front sway bar. Not the best design for ultimate handling. Even the Si, comes with a conservatively sized rear bar that still biases the handling towards understeer. Remember the Civic was aimed at the average guy who is an average driver who will never push his Civic to the limit and then if he did, he wouldn't know what to do when he reached there.

Performance enthusiasts demand more precise, neutral handling for their cars, which is where Neuspeed come in with their sway bars for the Civic. Neuspeed 19mm sway bars are race-engineered to work in perfect harmony with all other suspension components, stock or aftermarket, and give the neutral handling you want. The sway bars are mandrel bent using only aerospace quality 6150 steel that does not require heat treating, a process which can distort the bar and leave a rough finish. The ends are machined to use precision ball-joints for precise control and alignment. Polyurethane bushings and custom formed brackets utilizing grade 8 or better hardware make mounting very easy. These are the same sway bars used by winning drivers in SCCA, NASA, IMSA and SOLO racing.

Carparts.com has got them for Civics starting at $329.99. We don't really need to remind you about the coupons page do we?

Wheels and Tires

Believe it or not, replacing your wheels and tires with larger diameter, wider and lower profile versions is by far the biggest change you can make to the handling of your car. Low profile sticky performance tires give increased grip and improved turn-in response and feedback.

If performance is your top priority, we recommend you go with some light weight 15 inch wheels and tires. On the other end of the spectrum you can go with some awesome looking 18 inchers, but they are not good for performance as they will be significantly heavier than the smaller wheels. 16s and 17s fall in-between. You should remember that the larger the rim and tire you chose the more it will cost you as well.

Carparts.com do not carry rims, but they do carry tires. However their coupons are not applicable to tires and their regular prices on tires are surprisingly uncompetitive. Your best bet is to get a package deal from either tire rack or discount tire direct. The sales people can recommend the right offset for your car and give you the rim weights as well. Tire Rack has a cool feature that allows you to see what all the wheels look like on your car.

BACK to Civic Page