I thought you said tie rod. Make sure of which part the taper is in before beating.

A pickle fork will ruin the boot of the joint. Get the other tool.

 

Hi Vash,

Please read this 2 threads of mine where it contain information on how to remove ball joint (when I change my lower control arms with Insight aluminum LCA),
and also when I change my studs with the stronger and longer ARP studs for my Brembo install that need spacer,
the links are below, it will show you clear pictures and all the tools (including Honda Special Tools) needed to do this properly according to Honda service manual:

https://www.fitfreak.net/forums/2nd-...ntrol-arm.html

https://www.fitfreak.net/forums/2nd-...i-rotor-2.html

 

Went and rented a ball joint remover tool? Worked really nicely!!!

 

i did exactly what ezone suggested. there just wasn't room on the fit to put the new studs in without removing the knuckle. on the plus side, my wheel bearing didnt need replaced like the Honda dealership said it would.

 

just wanted to update, i bought one of these tonight, and going to finish putting it together tomorrow and see if i can push out those bearings!

12 Ton Shop Press

 

done! finally!
Honda Fit Bilstein - Album on Imgur

 

What do you think about the performance and comfort different compare to stock?
It was night and day for me when I first install my Bilstein a while ago

 

oh yeah! it rides way better compared to stock, i actually set the collars the same exact way everyone else did. the rear to the lowest setting and the front to it's middle settings!

 

Vash is that the lowest you can go on the bilsteins?

 

Yeah I had the same question. I mean you said in the front you did middle of the collar. Is that why you still have a wheel gap?

Asking because these are high up on my upgrade list to replace my swifts and stock struts.

 

When I have Bilstein,
I had the front Bilstein Coil over slightly lower than middle setting on the collar.
I once lower it down more but it hurt the ultimate handling,
what I mean is when doing over 90mph on bumpy freeway
because the car become a bit bumpy due to less suspension travel...
but if you guys don't worry about the very high speed handling,
then you can adjust it to the lowest and be fine...

another trick to reduce the gap is to use larger diameter wheel / tire combo...
I used to have 225/40/18 and it really fill the fender gap even with the
Bilstein in the middle...
this larger wheel/tire have extra benefit which it making the car have almost as much ground clearance as stock,
so I can drive it anywhere without worry of scraping...

 

My concern is ensuring I lower the vehicle enough to eliminate the wheel gap and evenly across all (4) shocks. Would hate to have to raise and lower the car multiple times to get it right lol. Also got to ensure the driver side is a hair higher to account for my weight.

I considered the difference in tire size. Currently running a 205/50/15 which is 23" vs stock which was 185/55/16 which are 24". So as it is I'm running a smaller diameter tire, which both increases the wheel gap and changes my "true" speed on the speedometer. If I go to the 24" I'll gain 1/2" of ride height and filling 1/2" of the the 1.5" gap I currently have...so in combination with the increased drop of the bilsteins I can get the drop hopefully to less than 1/2".

 

Hello,
Actually raising and lowering the car was so easy,
all you have to do is jack up the car without even taking off the wheel,
as long as the suspension is not loaded with the car weight...
and use the spanner/wrench included from Bilstein to adjust the collar,
lower or higher and that's it.
you can do all 4 corner adjustment in less than 30 minutes.

and once you drive with this Bilstein kit, you will never want to go back without

oh, and I did adjust the left (driver side) a bit higher than the right side just like your plan, so we have the same way of thinking

 

Weird...half my post didn't show up

End should say "i can get the drop to hopefully less than half an inch"...as well as the following

I was commenting on tire sizes and their effect on speedometer and odometer readings. The 225/40/18 is 1" larger than stock so the speedometer will say 80mph but you will really be going 83.7mph. So every 100 miles you do according to your odometer you are really doing 104.6. So your odometer is showing less than actual miles driven which is good for resale.

Where as my 205/50/15 is 1" shorter than stock so when my speedo says 80mph its really only 77mph. So every 100 miles I do according to my odometer I'm actually only doing 96.2. So my odometer is increasing more than actual miles driven which is not a good thing for resale lol.

 

^dont forget with larger diameter wheels you hurt your acceleration a bit. I like to keep mine as close to stock size as possible and not mess around with odo and speedo readings. Im not concerned with resale value because i know i will keep my fit forever(until it too far gone to revive)

Im also more interested in actually lowering the car. Not only do i want to reduce or eliminate fender gap, i want to reduce the gap of my front lip to the ground. Right now it looks a little weird with the mugen front end being so high off the ground. Wont be as much of a problem when the flatter JDM one, but still would like to actually be low.

At this point, bilsteins seem like the best option for daily driver over air suspension, assuming it can get lower than swift springs. I am happy with the ride quality of swift but wish the rear was just a tad lower.

 

Agree. I like/want to keep close to stock diameter tires. Next set I get will be 205/55/15 which are 23.9".

Swifts are only F -1.2 in / R -1.0 in drop so with Bilsteins you can get up to .75" lower in the front and nearly an inch in the rear. I currently have 2 finger gap currently...measuring my 2 fingers its about 1.5".. So larger diameter tire will reduce it to

 

^ on paper swifts only drop that much but it seems like they sag a bit and drop quite a bit more than advertised, at least after a few months of use.

Heres mine for example.

 

The back is at it's lowest if you look at other peoples Bilsteins it seems to be widely known that the rear's max still has a few fingers worth of space between the tire and the fender.

as for the front, you can lower that all the way down, I actually had it at its lowest setting at first, but it was just way too low for my liking and I don't wanna scrape everywhere.

damn is it really a wheel gap =( ahhh well I am more concerned about the front bumper hitting everything so I am ok with how it looks.. but yeah it can go alot lower in the front if i put the collars all the way down., right now they are almost all the way up, the passenger side I have them about half way.. I measured it pretty good as well, and both my front and rear should have the exact wheel gap's.. but... perhaps the pictures make it look like the front is much higher?








I do not believe this statement is true, but I did not test it to find out when i had the collars all the way down in the front.but it should be assumed that the ride quality will be the same at any height as long the maximum compression and extension of the shocks and struts are not reached, which they shouldn't because typically these coilover kits are paired together to work with the maximum compressed and extension rate of the shock itself... , so they are SUPPOSED to allow atleast an inch or so of compression for it to feel normal. I don't exactly know.. because I didn't drive it around when i had the collars all the way down in the front.. I just knew it was way too low for me to feel comfortable driving around, so I raised it up by ALOT in the front.

what i do find odd is check out this picture of my rear springs!!! are 3 coils supposed to be touching like that?!

 

Yeah those dead coils are for when the suspension decompresses from say a dip in the road. You dont want the spring to pop out in the situations haha.

Looks like it might be possible to lower another inch or so in the rear if you took that collar out though would the spring fit in the stock rubber bushing? Does changing the height affect the ride quality/spring rate?

And do you have pics of the lowest height in the front?

Thanks

 

I did not mean like its a HUGE gap, I was just asking if that was what the gap was at the middle setting. Can you please measure that gap for education purposes? =)

I also do not believe ride height will affect the overall performance. Like when I had coilovers on my truck...I could preload it or have it neutral. Still the same amount of travel.

As mentioned with my Swifts and tire set up I currently have about 1.5" between the tire and fender. I want to get that to around 1/2" or less.

Great observation...removing the collar theoretically would lower it more...but will that additional lowering be out of the range of the rear shock spec?