nbredcivic

Hey all,
New to the forum but definitely not new to the forum community, so I thank all you for you help and expertise. I have a 93 Civic CX hatch that I recently put new tires with 16's on. Since doing so, the tires have made it very apparent that the rear of the car is sitting lower than the front. Obviously I know that a hatch will always have more weight in the rear but just wondering if anyone knows what the factory ride hieght is for this vehicle. trying to decide if this is the way it came from the factory or whether i need to do some springs/coilovers. And speaking of such items, also looking for good aftermarket websites for our cars. Obviously I support the website vendors but any other recommendations?
THANKS ALL.

MindBomber

Hey, welcome to the site!

Springs are a wear item, overtime they will always sag, especially on a sedan or hatch with weight shifted to the rear as you stated. That said, blown shocks can also cause a significant drop in ride height and they are definitely a wear item. If you replace the springs and shocks with OEM replacements, your ride height would even out and give you 2-2.5 of wheel gap on stock tires and rubber.

If you want something more performance oriented, then I'd strongly recommend Progress CSII coilovers. They are not dampening adjustable, but most people never use that feature anyway, and they are ride height adjustable. Progress is a budget brand, but they are exceptionally good quality, they manufacturer OEM parts for Toyota's TRD line. Progess CSII for your application would be around $580.

civicexracer

The rear section of Hatchbacks is very light. This is the main reason why the hatchback is a good bit lighter than the coupe and espcially the sedans. So that has nothing to do with it.

Check your lower control arm bushings. Worn bushings in the rear can cause the rear to be a little bit lower depening on how they wear. I had it happen to me with my sh*tty Blox LCA's back a while ago before I replaced them with Function7's. Noticed something odd with my car when driving one day, got out and immediately noticed the rear of my car was a little lower than normal. Bad bushings..

Blown shocks have no affect on ride height. Shocks by themselve do not support ANY weight. Think about it, you can press the shaft of a shock in and out with little effort with your hands. It's certainly not going to bear any weight from your car. The job of the shocks is to control movement. Springs are what affect ride height(amongst other things). The springs could be worn a bit. I'd start by checking your other suspension components and rule them out before you change your shocks/springs though.

MindBomber

I know you understand suspensions, but I'd beg to differ, without bearing weight a shock can control the disbursement of load onto springs across the four corners. I've worked on a car with blown shocks and a single corner sinking a bit, everything other suspension component in check, replacing the shocks corrected the ride height even prior to the alignment.

Just my opinion.

civicexracer

I've replaced blown shocks on cars with them having no affect or change in ride height afterwards.

Shocks have oil or gas within them with seals. Neither of which is enough to bear more than maybe a couple of lbs of weight. Which is why if you take a good shock off of a Civic, you can very easily compress it by hand. The shock may be able to resist and hold up a lb or 2 weight from your hand, but it just cannot resist the hundreds of lbs on each corner of your car. That's the springs job. Maybe when you replaced that shock and had the spring off and decompressed, it "corrected" the ride height when you reinstalled it.