The Traccord - 2003 Honda Accord Coupe

MadScientistMatt said:

mazdeuce - Seth said:

The hood prop is heavy, almost a pound. I think it's over engineered. Typical honda. 

My question is, what aluminum alloy would you choose to make a hood prop out of? It's 5/16 or .31 in diamater. Lots of solid rod and at least a couple of tubes available in that size. 

Online Metals Aluminum Stuff

How about a carbon fiber fishing pole?

Broken carbon fiber golf club shafts or maybe arrows are probably easier to source... although recycling carbon "is a thing"... so, some ranges might have disposal SOP's in place

mazdeuce - Seth said:

In reply to captainawesome :

That's pretty much the plan. I was going to use the top hat upside down to hold the spring on the bottom and figure something out for the top. Put a scale there instead of the load cell ( I can probably just do the first inch) and figure out how to mount a digital caliper to read the distance as it goes down. Glad to know the idea is solid. 

I am curious what scale would be capable of handling that pressure and could potentially be reset after the first inch, off to the Googles to find a cheap scale.

Today was grocery day, which means it's also "buy things at WalMart to improvise tools" day. Behold, my $7.87 scale. And socks with my work Crocs, because that's how I roll. 

Drills and saws and stuff. 

Gives me this nice stack of wood that holds the top hat for the front springs and the caliper. Not my best work, but honestly pretty average for when I'm in a hurry because I'm totally sure this is going to work. 

Front spring being tested.

And rear spring with me deciding that it's not that scary and just using the spring rubber to create a flat surface was good enough. Didn't even die. 

The plan was to use three starting weights to see if there was a more or less accurate/repeatable starting point. I also had to shorten some of my compression distances on the fronts to keep from going too close to the end of the 300lb limit of the scale. 

Front run 1:
20-269lbs 1.00in  249lbs/in
50-229lbs 0.751in  238.3lbs/in
80-267lbs 0.751in 249lbs/in

Front run 2:
20-258lbs 1.00in 238lbs/in
50-229lbs 0.7515in 238lbs/in
80-269lbs 0.75in 252lbs/in

Rear run 1:
20-162lbs 1.005in 142lbs/in
50-200lbs 1.00in 150lbs/in
80-231lbs 1.00in 151lbs/in

Rear run 2:
20-164lbs 1.00in 144.bs/in
50-201lbs 1.00in 151lbs/in
80-231lbs 1.00in 151lbs/in
 

Is this useful? Even if the numbers aren't accurate? I think so. At least for super squishy stock springs that can be measured with this equipment. 
I was looking for two things here. 1. Ballpark numbers. 2. The ratio of front to rear. 
Let's say I want the car to be half again as stiff as a starting point for a street/One Lap car that can still use fairly off the shelf shocks like Koni yellows. Fronts are somewhere between 240 and 250 lbs/in, so a 150% spring will be something like a 375. The ratio of rear to front, to keep the car balance like it is, which I like and is probably a good starting point, is 150/250 or 60%. 60% of 375 is 225. 
I'm not particularly worried about wheel ratios and all that, just making the car stiffer than it is and preserving balance. I think that maybe I have an educated guess on where to start. 

Of course I'm not going shopping until you guys tell me what I did wrong. 

Edit: just wanted to add that the fronts are right about 13 inches uncompressed and the rears are 15 inches. This is more for my use than anything else and I'm writing it here so I don't forget. 
And the shock body diameter is 1.77in for the front and 1.62 for the rear. Just in case I start looking at coilover sleeves or something. 

The ebay civic coilovers and sleeves i got are 450/275 according to the math.

For $43, it may be close enough for you to experiment with 

This spring rate measuring thing intrigues me, so I went looking for stock M3 spring rates so I could relay that back into what percentage stiffer they are. Turns out it's not an easy answer because M3 factory rear springs are progressive in rate. 

It's hard to tell from the photos but are the Accord springs progressive? that may be the big flaw in this system of measuring as you cannot compress the spring as much as it may be compressed on the car.

If the springs are linear it seems to me that would be a sufficient way to measure them.

The rears are linear and the fronts are probably mostly linear. Coil spacing and wire diameter stay constant and it's just diameter that changes. They don't appear to be designed to collapse coils and increase rate like most progressives. A proper spring tester would have a load cell that would go much higher, which would be nice. Pretty sure this data is worth the $8. 

oh, yup, if they're mostly linear then it should be plenty sufficient to get starting spring rates.

I'l be curious to see if the balance stays the same or if limiting the weight transfer with more springrate changes handling dynamic such that you need to adjust percentage front/rear to maintain the same handling balance you previously had. 

So, 250 is only 6% off from 225... dunno if dropping 2" in the rear is too extreme, or how hard it would be to fit the larger diameter... but free front springs as new rear drop springs kinda has me intrigued (maybe that move is better saved for a challenge accord effort?)

In reply to sleepyhead :

the front springs are actually smaller than the rear diameter wise and they have different end diameters. My first thought was "that'll never work". 

However if you flip the spring upside down the bigger top fits quite nicely on the lower seat. 

The top does not. There isn't anything to hold it in place. 

It's held mostly in the right spot by the bump stop and boot, and that might work. I'm more concerned by the point load of the pigtail on the top. Any thoughts about that. 

I have to admit, it's a very intriguing idea. Both for the "free spring" aspect and because it made me measure the diameter of the small end of the spring. 

So on the front it looks like I could use a regular 2.5 inch spring, chop one of the flat parts off to get a pigtail to seat on the lower 2.5 inch perch, and the flat top would fit flat top mount. Mostly. I think. Figuring out/chopping for length would be interesting. 

tadaaa $12 and you've eaten up the space up top.

https://www.ecstuning.com/b-genuine-bmw-parts/upper-spring-plate/31336759452/?gclid=Cj0KCQjw77TbBRDtARIsAC4l83nz3r2ldDgs4uTwCLzOyIlzr1aK397gOcHySgdRbjBUwrJ-wek9QVwaAsCWEALw_wcB

I'm actually not 100% certain those use 2.5" springs, but if I have one at home I'll measure and report back.

In reply to klodkrawler05 :

Holy crap! If that fits a 2.5" spring then I could use the fronts in the rear and grab a set of 2.5's for the front and cut them to fit? Maybe? 

Yes, if you could measure that it would rock. No hurry other than my inability to sleep at night until I know the answer..........

I'd be a little concerned about the point load.

grinder?

unfortunately I don't have it anymore... but maybe you could hit the parts store and check the sonata's upper mount... pretty sure it has an isolator that accounts for an upper pig-tail... don't have the diameter either, though.

edit: there's a ref pic here, sorry no banana for reference 

Sleepyhead OneLap thread pg #17

Pretty sure these will work. Style D. Amazon has them for $14 a set. 

Energy Suspension Coil Isolators

Waiting on parts. Waiting for the kids to start school so I can have a junkyard day. Waiting for rallycross in a couple weeks. In the mean time I keep taking things apart and weighing them, and poking around. Yesterday it was the center console/arm rest. 

Weighs 8.5lbs. There's some hidden metal in this guy. If one could remove it then a couple of brackets could come out too. I think you could pull a full 10lbs. 

Mostly I pulled it because I wanted to look at this little guy. K-tuned has a piece of art quality billet shifter that would bolt right in place, but it's $400, so I'm going to play with the stock plastic one. 

Mostly I want to know how much higher I can get it and still have it fit under the stock plastic. The answer is about 1.5 inches. Not quite the four inches I want to move the shifter up, but not bad. 

More to come......

I'm incredibly jealous of how easy/cheap it is for cable shift guys to get a shifter closer to the steering wheel, the RS guys have some spacers under their shifter for the same purpose.

I bought an extension for my Mustang shifter, I'm sure you could do the same.  The female end threads into the stock shifter handle, and the extension adds about 3" or so.  Here's a quick ebay search: https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=m570.l1313&_nkw=shift+handle+extension&_sacat=33736

In reply to klodkrawler05 :

FWD drivetrains are the bomb. If I didn't have the desire to keep it all under plastic I'm pretty sure I could build a tower and go full touring car. 

In reply to dj06482 :

That's the general plan. I think I can get things pretty close for super cheap, which is the name of the game right now. 

Speaking of which.......parts! 
These little guys are Energy Suspension 9.6119R and they were $12 on Amazon with free shipping. 

They fit nicely in the small end of the front springs which used to be the bottom of the spring. 

Since the top of the front spring fits nicely in the bottom seat of rear shock we flip it upside down and see if I measured right and the new poly seat will fit around the bumpstop/boot. It does.  Tight enough that you have to smack it with your hand to get it around the boot. Perfect. 

The bottom is secure, the top is secure, spring rate goes from about 150lbs/in to 250lbs/in. The only question is how much it lowers the rear. I still have room to chop coils if it's not low enought. Kids start school tomorrow so time should be showing up soon.  

3/4 kids in school. Close enough. 

I'm going to do rear measurements from this notch on the rear cross member. For today anyway. It would change with tire size so it's not 100% perfect, but this is going to be where the diffuser eventually attaches, so it's going to be important. Let's call it 8 7/8. 

The top of the shocks is two nuts that you get to by folding the rear seats down and pulling a plastic panel. Pull them all the way off, the shocks can't go anywhere, they're held in by suspension tension and it's better not to have to climb in and out with dirty clothes. 

To get the shock assembly out, pull the shock bolt, the sway bar link from the bracket on the hub, and loosen the bolt holding the bracket on. You don't have to take it off, 4-5 turns gives you you room you need to get the shock out. 

A little crow bar action to gently pull the hub down and the shock can be snaked out under the fender. 

I slotted in the assembled shocks from my previous playing around. Interesting note, these came off the Accord Hybrid that had the aluminum rear knuckles. The eye is narrower, like on the TSX. I suspect the "fancy" rear knuckles are just TSX pieces and this answers why the Accord Hybrid has a different shock part number. I need some spacers. 

All back together. Hmmm...... take it for a drive. Hmm...... measure and......it's higher. Crap. Stupid stiff springs. 

Some measurements and I'm thinking just take one coil off and see if I can get is close to or slightly lower than stock. In theory just taking that bottom coil off should make is about 1/2 inch shorter, right? Taking two coils looks more like 2.5 inches. I think the answer is going to be between one and two. 

Remembering Pat's recent cutting wheel incident, I took it nice and slow and used ALL the safety equipment. 

Assembly is the reverse of the diassembly that I just did after assembly. It's an iterative process. After a drive is looks lower, kinda. 

And the tape measure says we're at 8 3/8 or 1/2 inch lower than we started the day.

Needs more low. I'm going to wait for the parts for the front to get here. I would say that there isn't enough shock for the rear springs right now but I'm not unhappy with how it's driving. On the crap tires there isn't any bad behavior in the dry. The car still understeers before anything bad happens. I think I can feel that lift oversteer mid corner would be an issue but I'm driving around on normal roads so I'm not going that far. I could always go back to the smaller rear bar or no rear bar at all. I've got some wiggle room. The big thing is that the rear takes a set WAY before the front. Wiggle the car and you know that the rear is ready to do it's thing long before the front. It would probably be frustrating to slalom. It rides nice, I'm going to drive it to pick up the kids this afternoon. 

I had a suspicion it would be the same /higher based on the assembled length comparison picture from yesterday

edit: mid-corner makes sense... that's where I got caught out with the TL at NOLa with the morning elevated rear pressures

In all honesty I was hoping for "the same" but I still said "ohgoddammit" when I lowered it down the first time. Easier to take more spring off than put it back. 

And now that I measure the front shocks that I have apart, the springs I ordered from Speedway might be too long. Or the perfect length. We'll see. 

Had a similar experience with my S10. Measured the spring compressed, measured it uncompressed, mathed, cut, measured the vehicle height (was aiming for .5" drop) and....... No change at all. Granted, I only removed about 1/4 coil. Still frustrating.

I have had good success measuring the distance between two coils in the middle of the spring with the weight on the car bottom of coil the bottom of the next coil. That is one full round of spring and is pretty close to what cutting one full round will get you. I then do the math from there for my desired drop. On the Japanese cars I've done this to it typically gets me within a quarter of an inch of where I wanted to be.

mazdeuce - Seth said:

Remembering Pat's recent cutting wheel incident, I took it nice and slow and used ALL the safety equipment. 

 

Where exactly does one acquire steel-toed crocs? Or is it kevlar socks?

sleepyhead said:

I had a suspicion it would be the same /higher based on the assembled length comparison picture from yesterday

edit: mid-corner makes sense... that's where I got caught out with the TL at NOLa with the morning elevated rear pressures

I'm never going to live this down am I?

bobzilla said:

sleepyhead said:

I had a suspicion it would be the same /higher based on the assembled length comparison picture from yesterday

edit: mid-corner makes sense... that's where I got caught out with the TL at NOLa with the morning elevated rear pressures

I'm never going to live this down am I?

Redemption is but 9 months away.........