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I have the HFP suspension on my car which is supposed to lower the car by 1" After I put on my koni and ground controls I set my ride height to the same amount. About 13.25 inches, on all corners, from the center of the wheel to the top of the wheel well. I know I don't want to go lower because of bad lower control arm angles. Im just wondering what the measurement is for a stock civic?

 
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Bump

 
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Anybody?

 
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it really depends on the car. im dropped on prokit (1 inch), but when i had bad shocks, they were much lower like 2 inch or more. ive seen stock civics with the same gap as my lowered one, and ive seen civics with gigantic wheel gap more than normal. so there really isnt an answer, it depends on the condition of the shocks and how the car was driven.

 
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Shocks have absolutly nothing to do with it, springs yes. Im just asking for a stock ride height measurement. The biggest problem with that im asking is that the tolerance band the fender has to sit in is probably pretty large. Im just aking for some measurements to see if mine was an inch lower. Besides when any company says a set of springs lower a car by 1 or so inches how do you actually know. This could be a usefull thread for anyone lowering their car so they know how much lower it is.

 
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shocks make every difference actually. blown shocks or aftermarket will change the ride height quite a bit. with prokit springs and good stock shocks, i had 3 finger gap front and 1 rear. now with tokico shocks, i have 2 finger front and 2.5 rear. go find 10 stock civics on the street and measure the gap. i doubt you will even find two with the same distance.

 
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If you change shocks it will make a difference but if you have a good shock and a blown shock it won't make a difference. All you proved is that tokico's change the ride height of the car. I haven't seen anywhere that tokicos change your ride height. Having the information like that of how much the tokico's changed your ride height is important. Basically if people say what they have with what setup then well have a good database of parts so if you want a specific drop then you can look up what components will give you that specific drop. All I wanted to know is around what a stock civic is, so I know how much lower the HPF suspension actually was, thus how low I have my ground controls set. It isn't that difficult of a question. Your first post never mentioned you changed your shocks to tokicos so that was part of the confusion.

 
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well if you compare different stock civics to each other, they will all have different ride height depending on how used the suspension is. ive seen civics with a fist of wheel gap, and ive seen some that are as low as mine. i guess what youre asking is not really possible, you would have to find a brand new civic and measure the ride height, then you will get your answer. or find someone with a stock civic that just had all the shocks replaced with oem replacements (doubtful if anyone would do that with a set of 4 costing over $1k for crap).

 
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gearbox is right. there is no clear height and it would be alomst impossible to find one.

 
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Ground height clearance is the distance from the road to the bottom of the car, you can add that to distance from the same point to the top of the fender well for your stock ride height.

accounting major ftw.

 
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arright...well, what i'm confused on is this: do the shocks actually contribute any force to hold the car up, or is it just the springs? Because if the shocks actually apply an upward force on the car (ie helping the springs lift the car up) in addition to dampening springs, then it would make sense that blown shocks and good shocks have different ride hieghts. But if the sole purpose of shocks is to dampen spring motions, then the ride hieght is independant of weather or not the shocks are good or blown.

the only reason i can see why different shocks have different ride hieghts is because the spring seats on the shocks are at different hieghts...assuming that shocks don't produce any upward force to hold the car up...

 
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The only time a damper is going to contribute any thing to a cars ride height is if that damper is gas charged. and even then its questionable as some do and some don't. Regardless any change in ride height would be minimal.

 
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i would say that shocks have a very minimal effect on the ride height

they do push upwards but very little compared to the weight of the car pushing downwards...i can compress a shock/strut quite easily by pushing down on it against the ground...

 
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i just speak from experience. on blown oem shocks, my ride height was 3 finger gap front, less than 1 in the rear. after new shocks, ride height was around 2 finger all around. thats quite a difference to me.

 
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actually gearbox is right i had the same thing. I had stock springs on blown stock struts and i had a 3 finger gap but before the struts blew out i had like 4 and a half. Now with my coilovers im down to less than 2