D2 Coilover Install

1779 Views 59 Replies 5 Participants Last post by The_Mystical_Vegitibishi, 3 mo ago

The_Mystical_Vegitibishi

Discussion Starter · 3 mo ago

2

Well I'm installing the D2's on the 3g however ran into an issue with the back and not positive on how to solve. D2 is not open on the weekends and I notice a lot of you have installed them on your 3g. So whats up with the back coil-overs? Do I need to remove this center metal piece on the coil-over? or rather change something on my hub? The front went in no issue the back of course was harder to disassemble the stock that was stuck on there. Attaching pics but why doesn't the D2 just slide over the stock rear hub? And how do I properly install? Without having to wait for D2 to get back to me Monday. Thanks in advance!

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Sisyphus58

· #41 · 3 mo ago

The_Mystical_Vegitibishi said:
Yeah I did MOOG all up front last year too.

And for the record it seems all of these have that specific bushing seized. I pulled another ones and it was seized in the exact same spots just as bad if not worse. And also the lower came apart fine on that one. Another 3g hit my junkyard this morning so I checked that one too it was in nice condition definitely cared for rims and etc. Alsp seized same spot. I was just gonna trade out the one I pulled if that ones was better. So yeah be prepared. That upper control arm is screwed on these. Apparently known to do it with the 3000gt as well. Since I talk to a guy in those forums often too. So yeah I’d prepare to just be ready to press out that bushing it’ll save a lot of time of trying to release the bolt. Just press it out with the bolt in it. Replace it right away and save 2 weeks of struggling with a bolt is what I learned.

so which gave you more trouble, where the knuckle mounts to the upper control arm, or where the strut mounts to the knuckle?

The_Mystical_Vegitibishi

Discussion Starter · #42 · 3 mo ago (Edited)

Control arm for sure on all the cars I could remove the strut bolt didn’t have that issue on any of them I figured out a system to loosen that bolt. Leverage essentially a Rachet/breaker bar with a long pole on it and angled under the car. Then just cut off the strut.

And all 3 of the the bolts were seized to some degree on the upper control arm on all 3 cars my OG being seized on all 3 bushings. Hence why I had to remove the knuckle to to begin with.

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chinchooter11

· #43 · 3 mo ago

The_Mystical_Vegitibishi said:
When you say use the inner sleeve of the new. So are you proposing the replace the old inner sleeve and leave the old rubber that is detached? Because in that case I could just press back in the inner sleeve I freed the bolt from. Which is what I meant in the original question leave the rubber that is still in the control arm and press the inner sleeve I pressed put back in. But as a couple posts ago, the apparent concern with that is the possibility of movement. Due to the softer rubber. As posted by @Bitter

or are you saying just use the upper mount and etc replacements and keep the oem lower control arm and etc bushings as you did?
Since im sure the replacement control arms and etc you got were closer to oem than the poly.

How does yours ride?

Reusing of anything in this situation is going to yield you to having to do it all over again with very poor ride quality. Why would you reuse old rubber insets when you already put so much force and prying on the rubber insert. And just so you know the inner sleeve on OEM inserts are molded to the rubber it’s not meant to side out.

As for my car you don’t wanna take any info from my car unless you are going for a track build. I changed out everything on my car.

I have my opinions on how this should be taken care of but idk what you have for budget, time, and mechanical skill (it seems you’re mechanically skilled enough). But I wouldn’t waste my time having to go in there a second time. If you have something out already I would replace it especially suspension parts like bushings. it makes no sense on a 20+ year old car to take something out that deteriorates and work hardens as time passes to not replace it with something new.

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The_Mystical_Vegitibishi

Discussion Starter · #44 · 3 mo ago (Edited)

Completely agree with you. I am replacing the bushing.

I know the oem come molded it. That was the entire basis of the question. Because the new poly does not come molded. @Bitter answered that on the last page I believe stating yeah they can move unlike the oem but the poly is very forced. I was asking why can the new poly inner sleeve move but oem can’t. Bitter said “because of the very soft rubber that once it breaks it allows the center sleeve to move around in ways it shouldn’t” I was already set on switching to the poly at that point I was just hypothetically asking because regardless of which sleeve I use they both could moved and wanted to know why poly doesn’t need to be molded to the silicone or whatever. Whereas the oem does.

also when I asked that I hadn’t pressed in the inner sleeve again, so I was thinking it wouldn’t remove a bunch of it but did so that answered that right away as well. You can’t push it back in without losing quite a bit of bushing.

As for the build this year I’m getting ready for track doing seat time as much as I can but this is my main daily. We have other dailies but it’s not my 3g. In the 3g It’s 4th gear torque you can feel. Very unlike a 4cylinder Honda or Hyundai and I live in a hilly area. You use horsepower in those to get up hills pretty much no torque you’ll just slowly lose speed in 4-6 (Hyundai is a 6). Imma car guy not a truck guy, just use that for tows or moving. I love to drive the 3g and am looking into getting another as I said in another post this car is intended to go full track when I get another 3g. (Had one lined up but it was listed wrong (listed as a GT and when I got there was a GS). So I don’t want to replace the 3g as my daily yet but I will want it to be my track car. I’m going for an endurance build when I do as I think that’s where it has the best shot. It’s not a dragster we know this you wanna do that with an eclipse go 2g and try to take on the red demon. Good luck with that too! That thing is hitting 7s regularly and hit 6 last June.

So for this year I am going mostly daily but weekend warrior for the track. Hence the upgrades but means it is still full interior. The reason I ask how does yours ride is because if you went full Polly I want to know how you feel about the ride ability? I will still have MOOG rubber up front, but I am getting that Polly kit. So far I plan to just do the upper control arm bushings to fix the problem of the seized ones but am debating on how much I wanna swap. It will just be the back end that will be poly, and not even ALL of the back since I am getting just the 3g kit not both and you need the 2g to complete the entire transition.

So what do you think? Stick with just doing the upper control arms? Since it is more daily than track? Or swap em all since it will leave a few bushing rubber regardless and the front will still be rubber I replaced last year?

Or let me put it this way since you swapped to poly would you still use that car as a daily? Or does the ride suffer that much?

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chinchooter11

· #45 · 3 mo ago

So to answer the question about why the sleeves are free in a Polly bushing is becuase you have a full solid bushing to a set hardness. OEM bushings typically have slots of free space for movement which in a race car you do not want.

Cylinder Auto part Household hardware Electronic device Composite material

some OEM bushings are solid but the material used still have a lot of movement they are meant to be soft. The movements made by these OEM bushings absorb road noise, bumpiness in the vehicular and overall ride quality for a daily commuter.

the question you should be asking yourself Is how much do you wanna deal with a non OEM feeling car that can ride really stiff and create a lot of road noise. Each person is different for me I wouldn’t wanna drive my car daily but I’m old enough now that I need to have a comfort vehicle. Some on the other hand and I think most of the younger generation would drive with a full poly bushing car for a daily because you know race/daily driver that bragging right off well I drive my car all the time.

its a hard balance to choose for a daily/race car cause how far do you really go until you don’t wanna drive it daily anymore that’s what you kinda need to figure out on what you wanna do. Asking people will yield you ideas but ultimately you still need to make that decision that one extra mod could be the decider for you to be like I just don’t wanna drive this daily anymore. I’ve seen it time and time again

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The_Mystical_Vegitibishi

Discussion Starter · #46 · 3 mo ago

Yeah in that case I think I’m gonna stay just replacing what is seized and keep all the rubber I can. But I’m going to keep it symmetrical like for example the upper control arm on passenger is not seized at all even the strut came right off, it was bliss honestly after dealing with the drivers. But that upper control arm is fine however I’m going to do those 3 bushings as well to keep it symmetrical. All 3 of the upper control arm bushings on the driver is seized and upon trying to remove the arm from the knuckle the center bushing on the control arm broke free and can spin now as well however it is is a solid piece no inserts as depicted. But that ones rubber is now moving the bolt is seized it there just like the other 2. So need to replace all 3 on the driver, none really on the passenger but I assume that would make the ride weird if I left rubber on the passenger control arm and swapped driver to poly so gonna do both.

I think thats the smartest safest option to mostly maintain the ride and fix the problem. Which will leave all the lower bushings stock oem rubber.

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Bitter

· #47 · 3 mo ago

You'll get worse ride from the coilovers than from changing the bushings, tires and shocks do more for ride quality than the bushings do. Harder bushings or heim joints just keep everything where it was set during the alignment so your toe, camber, caster don't deflect under load and change handling in potentially undesirable ways. You have a mostly double wishbone rear suspension type on these cars, the wheel more or less moves straight up and down meaning that toe and camber in the rear shouldn't change as the tire goes up and down. Reality is that the OEM bushings compress and deflect and allow camber and toe to change under load whether it be from cornering, braking, accelerating, etc and it changes differently under different loads making handling less predictable. If you changed just the bushings you'd probably feel a difference in ride but the difference in how the D2's handle damping vs the OEM or OE replacement shocks is where you'll drop most of your ride quality.

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chinchooter11

· #48 · 3 mo ago

Bitter said:
You'll get worse ride from the coilovers than from changing the bushings, tires and shocks do more for ride quality than the bushings do. Harder bushings or heim joints just keep everything where it was set during the alignment so your toe, camber, caster don't deflect under load and change handling in potentially undesirable ways. You have a mostly double wishbone rear suspension type on these cars, the wheel more or less moves straight up and down meaning that toe and camber in the rear shouldn't change as the tire goes up and down. Reality is that the OEM bushings compress and deflect and allow camber and toe to change under load whether it be from cornering, braking, accelerating, etc and it changes differently under different loads making handling less predictable. If you changed just the bushings you'd probably feel a difference in ride but the difference in how the D2's handle damping vs the OEM or OE replacement shocks is where you'll drop most of your ride quality.

Way better said than I can explain lol but this is true.

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The_Mystical_Vegitibishi

Discussion Starter · #49 · 3 mo ago (Edited)

Yeah I knew the quality is gonna go down with the coilovers it’s why I went with the D2s since they have 37 ways of dampening I watched a lot of videos when choosing between D2, or BC. Megan was a thought for a day and maxspeeding rods or equivalent was never even in the running. I ended up choosing D2 because of how a lot of reviews on them in comparison to stock was relatively close (and color scheme was in here too the vegitabishi is Vegeta themed, who would’ve guessed, so the purple and black works well with the blue/purple/black Vegeta Sayain theme I have going. Replaced all the dash lights/cluster lights/dial lights blue, blue dragon ball shift knob, “steel blue” stock paint, black and blue dash/door interior I pulled from a GTS 2 years ago still has my GT seats I don’t like leather I like the fabric, and various Vegeta themed decals and air fresheners and etc. it’s gonna be over the top Vegeta eventually it’s just currently in the making and wasn’t the original plan someone bought me a vegeta air fresher that was also Mitsubishi, has an EVO and Mitsu logo on it, and I kinda ran with it) So for daily driving I intend to have it pretty soft. As I do passes I’ll dial in how I want it for race. But yeah I am trying to maintain quality as I do the best I can. I know poly will make it stiffer too. So hence the train of thought I’m gonna do coilovers that was happening PERIOD her struts were shot especially the front couldn’t even do a U turn without scraping that started about a month ago or so. (Rims and tires are stock size I literally use my alloy as spares)
So I knew I had to choose to either stay stock and spend almost a grand replacing the struts or just upgrade and spend the grand in the coilovers. So here we are with coilovers.

I like all the opinions and info. I still think it’ll be best for what I’m going for just changing the upper control arm bushings. And keeping it really soft for daily driving. I can’t make it closer to stock that that. Unless I go back to stock which I don’t want to do and I don’t have a choice on the poly bushings. You just simply cannot buy that bushing rubber at all. You can buy the 3rd “center” bushing for the control arm though off Amazon for about $20. I could get that and make those stock again too but probably won’t as it already ate more into the wallet than planned.

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Sisyphus58

· #50 · 3 mo ago

D2 color won't matter....when you lower it, you won't see the coilovers anyway.

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The_Mystical_Vegitibishi

Discussion Starter · #51 · 3 mo ago (Edited)

2

Sisyphus58 said:
D2 color won't matter....when you lower it, you won't see the coilovers anyway.

I’m aware but engine bay you do see the top of them. And I have the engine bay dressed up. Blue and black. Purple is more fitting than the BC option of black and gold. Plus the dampening played into this like I said ride matters. BC states 30 ways of Dampening where D2 states 36. So that too made me lean D2.

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chinchooter11

· #52 · 3 mo ago

The_Mystical_Vegitibishi said:
I’m aware but engine bay you do see the top of them. And I have the engine bay dressed up. Blue and black. Purple is more fitting than the BC option of black and gold. Plus the dampening played into this like I said ride matters. BC states 30 ways of Dampening where D2 states 36. So that too made me lean D2.

Go to 13:40 and you’ll find out most people don’t know how dampening really works.

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The_Mystical_Vegitibishi

Discussion Starter · #53 · 3 mo ago (Edited)

Good video yeah the dampening will effect how the car takes bumps as stated and weight shifting I am going for a softer set up because of ride. The bumps and how dampening will effect them is where this had the most consideration in a street car. So I actually already have them set to almost full soft and they were all at different spots for the record all were close to full hard when I unboxed them. So I went all the way hard and then counted down 36 one click at a time then did a click up on each rn. So should be 2/36 so almost full soft and am setting ride height since I have to wait a week almost two for the bushings. Figured I’ll have that done so when they get here I can just pop em in and go get an alignment.

I have read though on these cars it’s common to go softer in the front and harder in the back. So was thinking might try out 5/36 up front and 10/36 in the back to start. Idk tho just set it 2/36 all around and figured do some test drives.

The_Mystical_Vegitibishi

Discussion Starter · #54 · 3 mo ago

chinchooter11 said:
Go to 13:40 and you’ll find out most people don’t know how dampening really works.

You are set up full race though. But still can take ideas like the video says, “what feels good in the road will perform well on the track, maybe set it up a couple notches for track but don’t go crazy”

so if you don’t mind me asking. What are yours set too? Or from your experience what would be a good starting starting to dial it in for this car? If yours are BC just do it out of 30 or however many settings yours have. If you don’t mind.

Bitter

· #55 · 3 mo ago

30 or 36, doesn't matter. Cheap coilovers always don't have any damping change on the first and last 5 or so ticks. I have BC's and in talking to people with BC, Megan, D2, etc they all said the same thing.

Sent from my SM-G892U using Tapatalk

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The_Mystical_Vegitibishi

Discussion Starter · #56 · 3 mo ago

Bitter said:
30 or 36, doesn't matter. Cheap coilovers always don't have any damping change on the first and last 5 or so ticks. I have BC's and in talking to people with BC, Megan, D2, etc they all said the same thing.

Sent from my SM-G892U using Tapatalk

Well same question to you then. What’s your approximate start off set up out of 30 since you have BC. And I’ll just translate that to the 36. How far are yours clicked in and how did you get to that setting where did you start for example?

Also for the record I am in no way throwing shade towards BC I know they are quality coilovers it came down to color scheme more than the 6 more clicks tbh. They are about the same as far as reviews go everyone who got BC or D2 was happy with their purchase so it’s nothing against BC at all just stated what sold me personally on choosing D2.

Sisyphus58

· #57 · 3 mo ago

Installing a thicker rear anti-sway bar from ST Suspensions part# 51194 is a bigger bang for your buck in regards to handling.

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Bitter

· #58 · 3 mo ago

I have different springs, sways, and curb weight. It doesn't translate.

Sent from my SM-G892U using Tapatalk

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The_Mystical_Vegitibishi

Discussion Starter · #59 · 3 mo ago

Fair enough then I’ll go with the test drive and click option. I put it all together with the bad bushing and dropped it last night to set ride height noticed it’s very bouncy (just from adjusting the jack and seeing how the car reacts) that low in the clicks so I’ll probably go up 5 on each to start. Then disassembled the rear again after setting height to wait on the bushing.

The_Mystical_Vegitibishi

Discussion Starter · #60 · 3 mo ago

8

For the record the bushings that come with the 3g kit sold by Prothane. ( Prothane 00-05 Mitsubishi Eclipse Rear Control Arm Bushings - Red https://a.co/d/31hzhk1 ) DOES NOT come with a bushing for the upper control arm although the picture looks very much like it does! It comes with about half of the little bushings depicted and the bushings included DO NOT fit the upper control arm. Apparently that is not sold at all by anyone I guess. You can get more from the 2g kit and the other thread on here said the 3g kit came with upper control arm bushings as well as the 2g kit. Although it is old and maybe the kits sold are not exactly the same anymore? ( REAR Prothane Bushing Install Information ) But you do NEED the 2g kit to do the upper control arms if you look at my pictures you will be able to see, the amount I had to cut off, what is ALL included in the kit (there is 2 more small red and 1 more metal center piece that I had to modify and is installed on car).
For $70 2 big bushings, 4 little bushings, and 2 center metal pieces, that only cover 1 side of the car is dumb. So yeah idk be very WARY of doing upper control arm anything if it’s seized you’ll probably get to endure this thread. IRL.
That being said also be prepared to get the 2G kit or modify the 3G kit as the center metal piece is too long and so are the bushings themselves.

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