Lower saturn or not.

Found some cheap Eibach pro-line/pro kit springs (all 4)

Car still sits with steel wheel/ hubcaps and will remain as such for the time being.

Car needs to be my DD all year 365 day. Rain, SNOW, etc.

Do i get them and put em on the wagon or not?

Opinions please?

INput please?

Yay or nay.

Thanks

Nay. I've hated every car i've ever driven with ProKits.

Sportlines are ok, but i wouldn't go out of my way to find them.

So.... "yay" to lower Saturn. "Nay" to Prokits.

yay as long as your replace the struts while your in there. i have daily driven my 6 for years now with megans on her with no problems (including when we got 16 inches of snow a few years ago) and drove an egt lowered on intrax springs while living in wyoming with no problems

The rear suspension on my 1995 SW2 kept bottoming out on the Eibachs. Also they handle worse than the stock springs--they soften the rear relative to the front causing understeer. That problem could be solved with sway bars, but the bottoming out wouldn't. That may be why Eibach doesn't list them for the wagons. I would pass. I have a set of half year old H&R Race springs available--took them off for snow and/or selling the SC2.

can i use the lowering springs in front only and leave the rear stock? or will i have way too much rake?

Gratuitous picture of snow packed Saturn wheel well:

I did once get the SC2 stuck in snow drift on a road with the stock springs.

92halftrac and I have gone through this conversation before and we are in disagreement. I've had prokits on 3 different cars (civic, integra, mr2) and I've never had a problem with bottoming or increased understeer. In fact, they always felt like a significant improvement. I suspect a lot of complaints are usually due to bad/stock dampers more than the springs themselves. I've used el-cheapo Tokico blues in the past with good results, now using Koni yellows on the mr2.

That said, not all applications are created equal. If Matthew Huizing has actually tried the Saturn pieces and says no, I'd lean towards his recommendation and wait for another brand of cheap used springs to show up. I'm not sure I'd want H&R race springs for a daily either though, but that's me.

When it comes to springs, everyone's impressions are so subjective and also rely on the rest of the car setup that I've found it really difficult to gain any useful insight on any brand. I'd suggest looking at the actual spring rates & drop compared to the stock setup and make a decision from there.

Matt B wrote: 92halftrac and I have gone through this conversation before and we are in disagreement. I've had prokits on 3 different cars (civic, integra, mr2) and I've never had a problem with bottoming or increased understeer. In fact, they always felt like a significant improvement. I suspect a lot of complaints are usually due to bad/stock dampers more than the springs themselves. I've used el-cheapo Tokico blues in the past with good results, now using Koni yellows on the mr2. That said, not all applications are created equal. If Matthew Huizing has actually tried the Saturn pieces and says no, I'd lean towards his recommendation and wait for another brand of cheap used springs to show up. I'm not sure I'd want H&R race springs for a daily either though, but that's me. When it comes to springs, everyone's impressions are so subjective and also rely on the rest of the car setup that I've found it really difficult to gain any useful insight on any brand. I'd suggest looking at the actual spring rates & drop compared to the stock setup and make a decision from there.

Heh, yes we have.

All that said, Matt is right... springs that are good on one car might not be good on another, and i've never owned a Saturn. (Though i do have a new adjustable Progress rear sway bar in my garage for one...)

They just sucked horribly on my Escort with Tokico Blues.

Hey! at least we can call it a friendly disagreement.

To be honest, I didn't realize you had them mated to the blues. For some reason I thought you had them on stock dampers, then moved to the Sportlines with some kind of aftermarket damper. Although my memories fail me, I'll stick by my guns anyway.

Now for some ungodly reason I'm curious about the Escort rates.

We've often had this discussion on Sixthsphere and the general consensus seemed to be that the H&R Sports are generally the best bet. I did like the H&R Race + KYB combination on the SC2 on the street. The Sports are reportedly biased more aggressively although with lower rates and less lowering. And I would go with good stock struts over the KYBs at least with stock springs.

H&R Race springs and 245/40R17s for snow!

Frankly what they could really use is an LSD.

Matt B wrote: Hey! at least we can call it a friendly disagreement. To be honest, I didn't realize you had them mated to the blues. For some reason I thought you had them on stock dampers, then moved to the Sportlines with some kind of aftermarket damper. Although my memories fail me, I'll stick by my guns anyway. Now for some ungodly reason I'm curious about the Escort rates.

Nah, the Sportlines were on the Celica, actually with a stock damper, and it actually far exceeded my expectations.

Ah, i-c-now. I can't keep up with your jumble of cars and questionable modification combinations.

I keed, I keed.

Matt B wrote: I suspect a lot of complaints are usually due to bad/stock dampers more than the springs themselves.

I suspect that the bad dampers may have a lot to do with the springs being too soft/short. My experience with them is hammering against the bump stops hard enough to rattle the whole car on the freeway, and skipping sideways everytime you hit a slight bump in the middle of a corner (never tried them on a saturn, but on several other cars). Not a fan of eibach lowering springs at all. Tokico blue struts are pretty terrible too, but thats another story.

for a DD, i'd leave it stock.

Lower it. I am going to lower the Civic soonish.

Wasn't there also some kind of random drivetrain/suspension vibration issue that happened with some lowered S-Series? I seem to recall at the time (about 10 years ago), noone had figured it out, and the only way to know if you were going to have a problem was to lower the car and see if it happened.

yes lower.