Well, first up, I am feeling better than the install day. I was out of town for a month and all of the goodies were collected in my garage waiting for me. The parts I installed were the following:
Tanabe front strut bar
Tanabe rear strut bar
Tanabe underbrace
Tanabe GF210 springs
I guess I can go down the list in some sort of order. I don't have an install guide for these as they are straight forward. Tanabe's is a little vague with "refer to your shop manual" for a lot of their stuff. There are a couple of pictures so that helps.
Front Strut Bar--
Nice piece. The hardware looks better than some other's out there. In my opinion, it is connecting the metal, and not actually the struts, but it looks good and possibly has some performance value. The bar is coated in a raspberry like anodizing. The brackets are black and be relatively careful because if you take a wrench to it, it could mar the finish a little bit. It would be easier to do this with the car completely in the air because it is a tight fit to put the nuts on the bolt especially if your hands are bigger than my daughters.
Rear strut Bar--
Again, nice piece. I have seen other installs and they leave the strut covers off. This makes for kind of a gross install. If you have a dremel, take it to the plastic covers and cut some squares in them to fit the brackets. You will thank yourself as it looks nice and clean. It is a pain to take the nut off the strut as you stuff an alan key in the top and use a crescent to break the nut off. The new nuts are supplied and are just as good if not better quality than factory.
Underbrace--Nice piece, lightweight, and a little different finish. The finish is orange. So I am a seeing a rainbow of colors. The bars are like a raspberry anodizing and the underbrace is orange paint or powdercoat. This is a simple install with taking the two plastic retainers out underneat the car, and unbolting a bolt from each A-arm. That simple. It really is a nice piece. Not too much else about this.
GF210's--Nice springs. Now, these are not anodized or orange. These are RED! It would be nice to have consisten colors but what are you going to do? I had the GF's on my Evo and I was reluctant because they were noisy. These came with little plastic wrap for the last coil. USE IT. Obvious install. Popping the top nut off the top of the strut. Pulling the ABS sensor off the strut, unbolting the two bolts in the bottom of the strut and pull out the strut. From there rip off the top top nut creatively. It is nerveracking without airtools. NOTE: Prop the brake rotor with a jack or something so it doesn't fall. The passenger side axle popped out and irritated me. Someone made a comment in another thread because I took the boot and slid it down and put new straps on. Well, I muffed with the axle to push it back in for an hour and they are little baby axles...I didn't want to break it. I am a large framed individual so I didn't want to chance it. Anyway, the springs are an easy install. The rears are even easier. Pull the bolt off from the lower strut mounting point and the suspension drops and you can pull out the stock spring. If you have some tail behind you, you can push it back up and toss the bolt in. If you want to be more pro...jack up the suspension. If you want to be goofy, lower the car some and slide the bolt it! I chose the latter!
Driving impressions--The wife wanted to beat me for testing out the car with the family in it! Just a turn here and there! But I went out today and it was a hoot. It is VERY TIGHT. The body roll, what little there was in the first place is gone period! Coming into the turn's such as an on-ramp or off-ramp and smooth. A nice Integra was on my tail and I guess freaked out when I rode the ramp like a madman! There is NO NOISE form the springs. Very different from the Evo. There is NO NOISE. The ride seems even smoother than stock and there isn't any road noise from what I can tell.
Overall impressions--As always, Tanabe products have been good. I spent $400 and some change on everything and installed it myself so saved the install fees. To me, as a total package, it is well worth the price. When coilovers come out, I will most likely pick them up. The design is nice, the finish is great, hardware is super, and the price is right. If you are looking for something that will spice up the handling in the Fit, by all means, this whole package is ideal. If you are looking for JDM, well, it is made in Japan. If you want to spend double for other parts, by all means, go for it but it fits every category nicely.
For me, I would rather have everything from the same company. If they made an intake, I may consider an intake and exhaust setup. However, I am not sure I want to get loud yet.
By the way, Tanabe isn't giving me a dime for saying this. I have had sponsors before and always did this for them. But I also do this for quality parts. I won't however slap a sticker for free on my car!
Sorry guys.
Good luck to anyone going this route as it is a good way to go.
Kris
Pictures can be found here:
2007 MR Honda Fit
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Linear Mode
