Has anyone tried to tackle the job of putting lowering springs on their 2.2 base yet?

Just wandering i have some sportlines and just wanted to know how hard it would be. Thanks for any and all comments.

 

front u need at least 2 people one 2 compres the spring one 2 put the bolt ontop
the rear u take out the top shock bolt and den the spring comes out its hella easy i did it last night and it too 45 min for the front end and 15min 4 the rear and it rides great and soes not need alignment

 

did you guys switch shocks or is it ok on stock shocks? also i have 225/4/17's think they would rub after the drop?

 

I wouldn't take my chances putting those Sportlines on the stock struts...I don't imagine they'll hold out too long but it's your car . I guess if you are really serious about it you could look into the struts from the SS and check how much they're going to run you, they should at least be a little strongs than the ones on the non-ss models.

The stock shocks should be fine but it's not exactly going to be a smooth ride...that's a pretty intense decrease in travel considering our suspension isn't sport tuned .

Burst, I'm not real sure if your tires would rub or not, the car in the featured pic is riding on Sportlines to give you an idea of how little gap is left between the sidewall and the tire...you could be cutting it close but I can't say for sure. Hopefully someone else has some ideas on this one.

Permafried-

 

Well, first off do not try to put the kit on yourself, its a bad idea even with the proper equipment, because why not pay someone else to put it on that way if anything gets messed up while putting it on its on them not you. I tried to put on the kit with a buddy (sportline) and it sucked and we were in over our heads. As for sportline being a bad idea with stock struts...they will hold up, not as long as they should but they will. I talked to Eibach and they design springs to work with a stock setup. They do warn of the stock struts wearing out quicker but eh, if you got the money for the springs you have it for the future expenses. And finally with my 225/45/18 I have no rubbing issues and the ride remains pretty good up front but horrible in the rear seats. Peace.

 

Moved to Suspension

 

don't try to discourage people from working on their own car. what fun is it if you pay someone to do everything for you and you just drive it around? Save some money, get a feel for your car and learn to do things yourself. If you've got basic comprehension skills you should be able to follow directions and put the springs on yourself and not have to worry about blaming someone if something goes wrong.

You don't need a shop to or a "professional" to do this for you, bottom line.

 

Agreed, doing this stuff yourself is half the fun! ... unless you have absolutly no idea what your doing... (i.e. never had auto class in h.s. or anything...and if thats the case sorry about your life, lol jk )

 

I agree too, I think it's pathetic that people can't install a CAI by themselves, however, suspension is something completely different and a little bit more important, you life rides on it, its like not going to get your wheels retorqued after you get them on brand new, I trust a professional to realign my front end more than i trust myself, they are properly trained. It's their job to make sure I get home safe, and to me the 100 bucks i paid to have it done is worth it.

 

Word up, word up. I see now that your not a tool , ... just realized you couldn't do the job safely (or safely enough) yourself ... and thats just smart... anyway i know you prolly already said but you got the sportlines right? how do they look?

advice... don't tell people not to do the work themselves outright... you don't know what THEIR abilities are...

 

That is true but where i live it is much more expensive than that and i know the guy at the dealer really well and they will allign it under warranty.

 

Yah i am curious to see how it is going to look and did you have any prb. with the 18's? What size tire did you get? Was looking at 17 and an all season tire. Toyo proxes FZ-4. What do you think?

 

dude have you seen the people that work at auto shops. they aren't exactly the smartest brightests people around. You usually have one guy who knows all his **** running the show and everyone else doing the grunt work.

If they can do it you definitely can...in fact I just did mine today (Monday) and there is no way in hell I would pay $300 for that. I didn't have any tools so I bought some, I got some nice tools for future projects, I have some experience working on my own car, and I have bragging rights when it comes to doing my own work.

On these cars its seriously not that hard, especially on the rears. If you can get the rears changed out then you can do this yourself.

The only thing I need now is an alignment.

 

yeah i kno that my buddy work for sear and works with a whole bunch or ricer tards one of them got a rejection sticker cause his car was too low his tire was and inch from the inside of his fenderwell

but has any one tried putting on springs w\out a compressor??? i dont have one but have been told it can be done id rather work my ass off to do it my self then pay someone and not know if they did it right

 

well assuming that the cobalt suspension is pretty damn similar if not the same...you will at the very least need a spring compressor to get the new springs on the strut. There is no way you can get the top cover on the strut with the spring uncompressed because its too tall. All I did was go to Autozone and get a spring compressor for $43 bucks. When I'm done I return it and I get my money back...

this was my first time ever touching a suspension and I had mine done in 4 hours not counting the 2 hours I had to wait for someone to run me to Autozone for a damn 3/8 to 1/4" extension! My suggestion to you is get an impact wrench, it will make your life 100x easier.

 

Did you take pics because i do have experiance with working on my car but it would be very helpfull with some pics or very detailed instructions. Thanks for any help.

 

seriously tho. it was just as easy as putting on a short ram intake. The back on our cars you unbolt i think it was 1 bolt on eachside and the whole backend drops down. just pull thesprings outand put thelowering onesin. and make sure to put the rubber thingy back in there too. then push themback upand bolt it up. the front is a little harder. just haveyour car up jackstands, unscrew the strut bolts on top.then a few bolts underneath it all drops. and when you take the spring off. have one person with there foot on it pressint it against a wall and theother w/ thefoot pressing thespring in. this iswhat ididw/my friend and it was nothingbad at all. to put it the spring back on its a pain in the asstho. u bothneed to be pushing down on it while lining it up. then justbolt it all back togetherand urdone. it took us 1.5 hours total w/ an impact wrench and no spring compressor. good luck man.

ryan

ps. make suretoget an allignment afterwards.

 

I didn't take pics of the install but I followed a how-to from here. It shouldn't be too much different...

Once you have basic instructions its pretty self explanatory. Just make sure you have all the tools you need BEFORE tearing your car apart. **** that cost me like 2 hours...

And as Cobalt30 said, u need to unbolt one shock bolt from each side (on my car its the bottom shock bolt) and the whole rear assembly will just fall down and you can pull the springs out. I was trying one side at a time and they wouldn't budge but then I unbolted both and it just fell. I was so happy Then all you have to do is put them in bottom first, use a car jack to jack up the bottom of the spring "seat" and it will go back in then just bolt in the shock. I did it without the use of a friend, it can be done.

For the fronts I just did what was explained on the how-to and it worked fine...don't be worried about the spring compressor warning on the instructions though. Its not all that bad...oh and you do NOT need to slot the struts for camber adjustment.

 

Hey thanks for the input guys and wheni get them on and figure out how to post pics i will post pics of the install and of the before and after.

Also will a spring compressor eliminate some of the grunt work because i can get one no problem?

 

Ok, IonNinja........... I tried to find a how too or something with the instructions that you used but i found no luck.

Also do you think that some of the kyb shocks that are for the ion would work for the cobalt? Because that is going to be a must in the near future with the drastic drop pn the stockers.