How to lower an 8th gen civic

I’ve come to realize that driving a stock car simply isn’t for me. Already the proud owner of two modified cars, the allure of a third beckons—not because it’s necessary, but because I relish the process of transformation. Whether it’s upping its performance or elevating its aesthetic, every enhancement is a deeply rewarding endeavor. Those brief moments spent admiring my car, whether I’m approaching or leaving it, are pure joy. The sight of its cool demeanor and the sense of personal achievement dissolve any worries about debt or life’s pressures. In those 20 seconds, my car isn’t just a car—it’s a testament to creativity and craftsmanship.

Maybe it’s all because I’m an artist and can see the true beauty from within… Ha, that’s probably not the case. Here is what it most likely is.

• I enjoy the hope of dreaming about what I want to do to it
• I enjoy the excitement of ordering the parts
• I enjoy the anticipation of getting the parts in the mail
• I enjoy the eagerness of looking forward to installing the parts
• I enjoy the thrill of installing parts
• I enjoy admiring the parts after they have been installed
• I enjoy the outcome of the cars performance after installing them
• I enjoy seeing the car everyday after everything is installed

When I frame it in this light, it becomes abundantly clear just how joyous the experience of car modification can be. The thrill certainly extends far beyond what you might expect. It’s not merely about the action of attaching a new component—it’s about embracing the journey. This process, which can span weeks, is a delightful endeavor that contributes to our happiness and well-being.

The fervor with which I dive into each new project is unquenchable. It’s only a matter of time before my soul yearns for more—craves the thrill of transformation and innovation. This passion, though, treads a delicate line, spiraling all too easily into an obsession that rivals the most gripping of vices.

It begins innocently—a mere window visor, a small nod to customization. But like a siren’s call, it beckons you deeper. Engines are swapped, wheels are chosen with painstaking care, suspensions are fine-tuned, and turbos installed, each upgrade a hit of adrenaline, a rush of pure ecstasy.

This is the human condition, a love affair with the rush of joy, the chemical embrace of happiness coursing through our veins. Such is the magnitude of our desire that it leads us down paths we never expected, all for the thrill, all for the blissful high of pushing boundaries and breaking new ground.

Enough of my pathetic attempts at trying to sound deep. Let’s move on to what I’ve been up to with my 2009 Civic EX-L. Like I mentioned earlier, I’m trying my hardest to fight the urge to fix up this car, but unfortunately, I’m losing that battle quickly. It all started one day when I woke up and decided that I couldn’t have the car remain at stock height, and I was able to talk myself into buying lowering springs. I did this all by telling myself that the ride would remain comfortable and wouldn’t become harsh if I just installed lowering springs. So, what did I do? I went out and ordered some Swift Spec R springs.

Let me take you through the process of installing these springs on a 2009 Civic.

Start off by jacking up the front and rear of the car and placing it level on 4 jack stands. Make sure you break loose the lug nuts before you get the car off the ground (unless you have an impact like I do)

I will start off with the front first. Remove the front wheels and place them under the car.

Once the wheel is removed you will have access to unbolting and removing the front strut.

You will need to undo the 10mm bolt holding the brake line to the strut and unclip the ABS line.

Below you can see what it looks like with them undone.

Next, you’re going to unbolt the X2 17/19mm bolts holding the strut to the spindle.

Now, to gain access to the X3 14mm nuts holding the strut to the chassis, you will need to remove the plastic piece on the windshield cowl to gain access to the nuts. It’s just clipped in, so it’s pretty easy to pop out.

One all three nuts are loose the strut will easily come out.

Now that you have removed both struts (left and right sides), you’re going to need spring compressors to remove the stock springs. Spring compressors are pretty sketchy, so be careful when using them. You will not need them to install the new lowering springs, as they are shorter than the stock springs.

Use the spring compressors to compress the spring and remove the tension from the shock. Now this is where it can get a little frustrating… you need a 17mm wrench that will fit into the top hat of the strut because you will also need to use a hex wrench (Allen wrench) to insert into the shock. This will stop the shock shaft from just spinning as you try to loosen the 17mm nut. For some of you, it may be possible to use an impact gun to zap it off, but for me, that was not the case. Thankfully, Ever had these cool “go-through” ratchet/sockets which will fit in deep enough to turn the 17mm nut and allow you to stick a hex wrench through to hold the shock shaft. This may sound a bit confusing, but when you’re at this step of the process, it will all make sense.

Below you can see how I used a ratchet with a hex key socket, the “go-through” ratchet/socket, the impact to tighten and loosen the spring compressors, and finally a razor blade to cut about an inch and a half off the bump stop.

Below is the top hat/dust boot, stock shock, and stock spring.

Make sure you take the rubber isolator off the bottom of the stock springs and transfer it to the new springs. This will help keep the noise down so there is no metal-to-metal contact while the car is driving.

Once you have taken off the stock spring, the new spring will go on in reverse order (it’s very easy). One side note though… Since these springs are technically only for a CIVIC SI and not for the R18 models, there is one small issue, but there are a few ways around it.

(This only applies if you are putting lowering springs meant for an SI on an R18 model. If you are doing coilovers, they are the same for either model other than possibly spring rates.)

Let me see if I can make this as clear as possible. So, in the SI models, both front left and right springs are wound in the same direction. On the R18 models, one spring is wound clockwise and the other counterclockwise. This is important because the shocks have a groove where the bottom of the spring sits in the spring perch on the stock shock. In the SI, both grooves face the same direction, and in the R18 models, the grooves are opposite each other. Also, the upper rubber spring mount that screws onto the top of the spring is different from the SI to the R18 models. Fortunately, the Swift kit comes with a brand-new OEM upper rubber mount and dust shield, but you are still left with the issue of the lower groove in the spring perch not lining up. Here are your options:

• Get 1 SI shock so that you have identical groves in your shocks (both groves going the same direction)
• Get aftermarket front shocks for an SI
• Or just leave it like I did. I have driven over 6,000 miles and haven’t had a single pop, snap, or any noise at all come from the front struts.

Below you can see the strut all reassembled and ready to go back in the car.

Now that you have the front all put back together it’s time to reinstall them on the car. This is very straight forward: Lift the strut back into the car, thread on the X3 14mm that hold the top of the strut to the car, then reattach the lower part of the strut to the spindle (or hub), reattach the 12mm brake line bolt and clip back in the speed abs/speed sensor.

Now on to the rear.

Once the rear wheel is off this is what you’ll see.

Begin by removing the lower shock bolt (14mm)

Then remove the 14mm bolt holding the upper control arm to the hub.

It is also a good idea to remove the sway bar end link; this will allow full articulation of the lower control arm and enable the spring to easily come out. (The spring will literally just pop out when the lower arm is pushed down enough; there is nothing holding the spring in place.)

However, since I have an R18 Civic and the sway bar is literally the tiniest piece of metal ever, I left the end link connected and was able to get the spring out without much effort.

When removing the spring, be careful not to put too much tension on the ABS speed sensor or the brake line when pushing down on the hub. You may want to remove the brake line bracket bolt and unclip the ABS speed sensor wire to allow for more movement.

Now take the rubber pieces from the OEM spring and transfer them to the new Swift spring. Because the Swift spring is much shorter, it will be very easy to put back in.

Once you get the spring back in, simply reinstall the lower shock bolt, upper arm bolt, brake line bolt, ABS speed sensor wire, and end link (if you took any of those off)

Now throw the wheels back on, and you’re good to go… or are you? Let me clarify a few things.

First, since these springs are meant for an SI and the motor is slightly heavier than that of the base model R18 Civics, the ride height will be a bit taller in the front than the rear. This is also made worse by the amount of negative camber gain the rear multi link suspension develops when the car is lowered even a slight bit.

I was very unhappy with the results, so I immediately ordered rear camber arms and front camber bolts. This way, I could make the rear camber a little more positive to help raise the car up in the rear, and then the camber bolts would allow me to add some negative camber to the front to help lower it some.

Here is what the car looked like before installing the camber adjustment front and rear. In the picture you can clearly see the rear is much lower than the front.

A few days later, I received my Hardrace rear camber arms. I backed the car into the garage and got to work. In the pictures below, you can see just how negative the rear camber is compared to the front.

Below is what im starting off with.

Remove the 14mm upper control arm bolt.

Then there are two 14mm bolts holding the arm to the chassis.

Once out, you can see the difference between the OEM arm and the Hardrace one. I chose to stay away from spherical bearings because the goal for the car is to remain a comfortable daily driver. Plus, I have Hardrace parts on my other cars, and their rubber bushings really stand the test of time, even in the dry, arid climate of Las Vegas.

I tried my best to make the Hardrace arm the same length as the OEM one, and then I added about an inch to it. This will lengthen the Hardrace arm, thus making the camber less negative.

The new arm goes in as easily as the OEM came out. One pro tip, though… Thread in all three bolts almost until they are snug, then back off a half-turn (so the arm can move). X2 12mm on the chassis and X1 14mm on the hub. Now, take a jack and place it under the lower control arm, and jack it up until the car starts to come off the jack stand slightly. Go ahead and fully tighten all three bolts all the way. This will simulate where the arm will be at ride height when the car is on the ground. Doing this will allow for little to no bind in the rubber bushing, which can cause your suspension to react adversely.

With the car back on the ground, you can see how much less negative the rear camber is, and by doing this, the rear of the car is raised slightly too, so the car looks more level.

Still bummed about the “stance” of the car (don’t flame me for that terminology). It was still just slightly too high in the front. I ended up installing the camber bolts for the front because if I could add more negative camber, this would help lower the car a tiny bit.

Unfortunately, I don’t have pictures of installing the camber bolts up front, but it’s very easy to do, and now I’ll try and talk you through it.

When installing camber bolts, you are going to be replacing one of the OEM bolts that bolt the strut to the spindle on each side of the car. Camber bolts only come in a two-pack (one for each side). I remove the upper bolt and replace it with the camber bolt. Once in, loosen the lower OEM bolt to allow for the movement of the spindle as you adjust the camber bolt (the upper bolt).

Of course, there is no way to ensure that it will be even from side to side (other than getting an alignment), but one thing I do is measure how far the spindle sinks into the strut mount (max negative camber will be about 5-6mm sunken in). Also, it’s best if you get an alignment right away since the measuring technique is only good enough to get it somewhat close. Fortunately, Ever has a camber gauge which can help me dial it in a bit more. As you can see below, I’m not using the gauge properly, but that is because I’m only trying to get it somewhat close. The proper way would be to do it with the hub stands or the wheel on so you can have the weight of the car resting on each corner. For now, this will do. As you will see coming up in the next few blogs, I have some other suspension stuff going on; once all done, I will get a real alignment.

After making the adjustments to the camber, the outcome was clear. Despite the improvements, I still wasn’t fully content with the appearance. The rear of the vehicle, notably, seemed to sit lower than the front, presenting an undesirable reverse rake effect.

In an effort to improve the situation, I optimistically removed the spare tire and tools from the car. While I don’t have photographic evidence, I’m quite positive there was a noticeable improvement.

Below is me trying to figure out the best wheel specification to get for the 8th generation chassis. I borrowed Evers’ 17×8.5 +40 TE37 with 235/40 R888R tires. It looked pretty good, but my goal was to try and fit a 245 tire all around. I will cover more about wheel fitment and what wheel and tire specifications I chose to go with in upcoming blog posts.

Clearly, the car needed to be lower… Remember, though, I’m trying to keep the car as comfortable as possible, and I’m afraid that any coilover is going to make the car too stiff or rough. If I ended up getting a higher-end coilover—$1,500 and up—I felt like it would be too “performance-oriented,” thus making the car too stiff. And if I got a lower-end coilover—$1,499 and below—I felt like it would just be too bouncy. Yes, I thought about the classic GC/Koni yellow, but with the yellows on the 8th-gen platform, you must cut up your stock front shocks and use the bottom half of the stock strut to slide the Koni yellow “insert” in. I didn’t want to do this because, if you remember from earlier, my springs didn’t exactly fit because my shocks were not SI shocks. So, for now, I’m just leaving it as it is.

Yes, that is cat piss all over my front bumper.

Below is a super grainy picture I took of my car on my iPhone, and it was literally pitch black out, but it can give you a better idea of how the car sat on level ground.

So how do I like these springs? Well, they are very comfortable, but since they are the “spec R” version, the spring rate is just barely too stiff for stock shocks. It only took me about a day for the shocks to blow out, and as a result, the car is bouncy since there is no damping/rebound left on the stock shocks. It’s worth noting that I am unsure if these are the stock shocks that have 100K miles on them, stock shocks that have been replaced at some time, or just cheap replacement shocks that have been replaced sometime along the car’s life. Swift does say that these springs will work with OEM shocks, but I would assume that OEM shocks that had 100K miles on them were already bad. So, the solution… Do I get a Tein, Skunk2, or TruHart shock for the car? Do I get all new OEM shocks for an SI? or do I just get Koni Yellows?

Since August 2020, the new springs have been a part of my car’s setup. I recognize that there’s been a hiatus on my blog—let’s call it a creative sabbatical—for about half a year. But let’s clear the air: a break in posting is far from a break in action. I’ve invested that time into transforming the car, and trust me, the results are nothing short of exhilarating.

The past five months have been a masterclass in automotive enhancement, and I’m geared up to unfold the saga in no less than three or four riveting blog entries. So, buckle up, reader—our deep dive into this journey is just around the corner!

I know an R18 Civic isn’t the most exciting thing to read about or even look forward to reading about. I promise though, you’ll like where the car ends up. Don’t get your hopes up though… Nothing big, no motor swaps, no power adding, no FD2 conversions… Just an all-around tasteful daily focusing on keeping the car as fun as possible to drive every day.

Along with stacking content on this car, I have also been stacking content on Patrick and his NFR S2000. Things like Stoptech C43 BBK, carbon trunk delete, Karcepts top hats all around, Work Bell flip hub, Karcepts rear hubs, OEM wheel bearings, and extended stud install, and a few other small goodies will be talked about soon.

As always, I’m super thankful that you have taken the time to read my hopeless ramblings about uninteresting automotive modifications. I know it has been quite some time since I have posted a new blog entry, but I promise that I’m not going anywhere and my passion for Hondas is still burning bright. If you have any questions about this post, any other post, or just want to comment on something… Go ahead and reach out: Instagram @Functiontheory, email Billy@Functiontheory.com, or just simply comment below.