Advice on TRE/CA/Suspension
 

Hey guys,

I'm planning on doing an inner tie rod, all my front control arms, and a new suspension this weekend.

How do you find the Febi control arm kit, anybody having repeat failures a year or two down the road?

As for suspension, I'm thinking of using the Bilstein shocks set one perch lower than normal, will this bring me down 1/2" or so from stock sport height? I might reuse my existing factory sport springs, any problems with that? After 10 years and 180kms, I just want to get rid of the softness, but not have too firm of a ride on a daily driver.

All suggestions welcome!

I have the Febi on mine for the last 80K miles, no problems

Re: Advice on TRE/CA/Suspension
 

If you dont want a firm ride, I personally would stay away from teh Bilsteins. Get some Koni struts, they will be more forgiving.

I would go with an aftermarket spring (Vogtland, H&R, etc.), but the strut is more important.

Is it okay to keep the factory sport springs even with aftermarket shocks/struts?

What I learned from my control arm R&R:
 

0: Before you get things taken too far apart, jack up the car a bit and make sure you can remove your upper control arm pinch bolts.

1: Instead of removing the top of the strut from the top mounting bracket, take the whole top mounting bracket off as one assembly by unbolting it from under the hood. (It will still have the upper control arms, as well as the strut/spring attached). With it off the vehicle, you can properly torque the new upper arms in the correct neutral position. (With the assembly attached to the car, there's no way to get a torque wrench in there.) Also, note the position of each upper control arm before you take it off. The new one will want to be in the same spot when the bolt is torqued, because the rubber bushings can only pivot a certain amount each way.

2: To remove the lower, aft control arm bolt from the subframe, it's a lot quicker to use a cutting wheel and chop the bolt in half, and install the new one from the other direction. That way you don't need to mess around with lowering the subframe. (And, supposedly you need to use a new bolt when doing that, and the control arm kit doesn't come with one.) Be careful if you use the cutting wheel on the passenger side, as the fuel line passes close by. Shield it with a piece of metal or something.

3: Do not tighten the lower control arm bolts where they attach to the subframe right away. Put them in snug, but still loose enough to allow the entire bushing to rotate in the cavity. Once the wheels are back on, put the car on ramps and tighten those once the normal load is applied on the car. That will prevent them from being tightened at the wrong 'neutral' position, and prevent them from getting trashed quickly. Same goes for the little C shaped sway bar links.

4: Order two front wheel bearings and have those changed while you have it torn apart. (If they aren't fairly new already)

5: Post your experiences here.

Excellent Advice! Will hopefully report with good news.

Re: What I learned from my control arm R&R:
 

The R&R comments are right on. I did my passenger side tonight. I'm glad I wasn't nuts when I came to the conclusion that a few of the bolts would need to be cut off. But it makes sense once you see what you have to work with. I did struts and cv boots at the same time and it was much easier to get in there with all of that out.