Aftermarket suspension w/ OEM shocks

[civicgrl]

Is it harmful to my suspension if I have adjustable coilovers without aftermarket shocks?

[GScivic7]

no, but your stock struts will blow eventually.

[CivicSiRacer]

Not eventually but quicker. I put Skunk2 coilovers on my stock shocks back in 1997. My shocks were gone in about 6 months.

Might as well do it right the first time instead of taking everything apart twice and ruining your shocks (which you might want to sell later when you sell the car).

[civicgrl]

I actually had my Skunk2 coilovers for over a year now without aftermarket shocks and/or struts. I hope it can hold out until I sell the car in a year.

[BullShifter]

It all really depends how much it's lowered. The more it's lowered that faster they are likely to go bad. Struts don't go bad in a single moment it's over time they slowly degrade causing many drivers to be completely unware of a problem. I highly doubt they will last another year, put the stock springs back on if you have them.

Originally Posted by CivicSiRacer

Might as well do it right the first time instead of taking everything apart twice and ruining your shocks (which you might want to sell later when you sell the car).

It really sux when you have to pay for labor twice, but it's good for us people that do the work

[CivicSiRacer]

Originally Posted by jackasssi

It all really depends how much it's lowered. The more it's lowered that faster they are likely to go bad. Struts don't go bad in a single moment it's over time they slowly degrade causing many drivers to be completely unware of a problem. I highly doubt they will last another year, put the stock springs back on if you have them.



It really sux when you have to pay for labor twice, but it's good for us people that do the work

Hahaha I bet you don't complain And actually I don't mind paying someone to do work for me because eventually we all help each other in some way or another.

What happens inside your shock when you add stiffer springs than OEM is that now there is not enough dampening for the stiffness of the spring. The aftermarket spring works the shocks harder because when the spring is compressed it wants to rebound back. Well the shock was only meant to rebound and compress for a OEM spring. This causes more heat build up and an eventual failure of the seals and oil/gas in the shock.

Sort of what happens with a pressure cooker. More and more pressure raises the inside temperature of the pressure cooker.